Seasons Change

On Sunday I was sitting in a Hillsong church listening to a well-known guest speaker talk about 1 Kings 19. As the speaker announced the passage for his message, I instantly remembered that exactly four years ago, I was sitting in a Hillsong church listening to a well-known guest speaker talk about 1 Kings 19. I don't often remember sermons, let alone where I was when I heard them, and especially not the date that I heard them, but that Sunday in May 2013 was a significant day for me. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

That's not the point of this post though. The point is, that little jolt I received on Sunday (and it was a powerful little nudge) got me thinking about the last four years of my life. They have NOT at all been what I thought they would be, or what I wanted. And today I was thinking about what I used to want.

I used to want what I called the 'Christian girl American dream'--uni, relationship, graduation, marriage, house, kids. That was what I wanted. Or what I thought I wanted. Perhaps even what I had convinced myself I wanted. But that's not what I got.

Since graduating from uni, my life has been...unexpected. Yeah, nothing's really gone according to whatever plans I might have had. I've done various things--jobs, grad school, even taking a 'year out,' and now working abroad as a missionary for no money. This was not the life I had in mind for myself. It wasn't what I wanted. In fact, it was what I didn't want.

Part of my testimony is that growing up as a Christian, I loved God, but I didn't fully give my life to Him until I was 17, and the reason I held back for so long was because I didn't want to be a missionary. I thought God would make me become a missionary and He would make me go to Africa. So I refused to completely surrender my life to Him, until one night at a Campus Crusade for Christ convention where the Holy Spirit turned everything upside down.

Eventually I figured out that God doesn't make us do anything, but He invites us to do so much with Him. When I was 20, I did go to Africa--I GOT to go to Africa, and later on, I did become a missionary. It's my honour and privilege to be working with a missions organisation in a country across the sea. I love it and I'm so glad God gave me the opportunity and impetus to do something I never would have chosen to do on my own.

That leads me back to the last four years. Yes, they have been incredibly unexpected. This four-year season began with what for me was deep and profound pain, which to be honest, broke me, and that was followed by an unbelievably slow healing process. In that process though, God began to put me back together, but He put me together differently than I was before, which I suppose was the whole reason in allowing me to be broken in the first place.

Because I was so broken, I made a decision I would never have made before and I joined Pais. I was so desperate to be in the UK and so desperate to do something meaningful with my life, that I made it all the way through what seemed a very lengthy application process to join this organisation I didn't actually want to join. Somehow though, I got accepted and I boarded a plane to my future.

At the time, it was an 18-month commitment, but now, more than 3 years later, I'm still here. I'm here and I've done some hard work (including some hard heart work) serving on and leading schools teams in different areas in the UK. I never could have or would have done that before being broken. But I did it, and now I've done it, and sometimes I look back and wonder how I did it, but it was purely the grace of God that got me through it all. Now I get to serve Pais, an organisation I love, with skills that God has given me and in a way I enjoy on a daily basis. I love that. And I've gotten to do it here, in the UK, a place my heart longed for for such a long time.

But things are changing. They do that, don't they? Seasons change; that's the way nature works. Cycles come full circle, old things end and new things begin. This is how I feel, that this four-year season is coming to an end; this season that began traumatically for me and the healing process that has lasted much longer than I anticipated it would, is coming to a close. And for that, I am beyond grateful.

I have no idea what the next season will look like for me. I know where I will be--in a new place, which is incredibly exciting--but I don't know much else. All I know is something God has spoken to me several times, twice even through other people: this will be a season of joy. It's the Word of the Lord to me, and as it's His promise, I'm banking on it. I am thanking Him now and walking forward with open eyes and an open heart into whatever it is that He has for me, and I'm trusting that whatever it is, whoever is involved, wherever it leads me, no matter what, because He has orchestrated it for me, IT WILL BE GOOD. Amen?