What I discovered about Me!

Over the past few weeks I have been going through quite a lot of self discovery. I don’t know if it is due to this class or just something that was coming into fruition on its own. I have always considered myself to know who I am and what I wanted. I have been in school now for almost two years and am rounding the bend to graduation. Although I have had some setbacks in my life I have always found myself back in the medical field somehow and always took that as God’s ultimate sign that this is where I should be. I have been and tried several different aspects and avenue’s in the medical field till I found the one that I believed fit me perfectly in fact all of the pieces for me to get here just fell into place. Well here I am in undiscovered territory once again. I felt that I was where I am suppose to be up until the last few months, almost like a ton of bricks my whole world came crashing down and I started trying to build up the wall and fast. I have been a volunteer youth pastor with my husband for almost a year now. We actually just kind of fell into the position and took it on with great pride. We love our youth and loved everything that came with it. Then in September I felt that God put an idea in my head and laid a project on my heart and within one month I was holding our very first community youth rally that I single handedly walked by faith to do and everything fell into place. I was amazed at the 350 attendees and the 35 door prizes, the donated food and water, the entertainment and sound that all just fell into place. Now all of the staging, entertainment, speaker, door prizes, and sound needed to be paid for and I knew our church didn’t have money and I certainly didn’t have it so what else would I do, I prayed. Then God blessed us with donations that just rolled in not only did we go above and beyond what we needed we also got to bless others with our donations. This single event started a snow ball rolling down hill and it started gaining speed. What else do you do when you see something headed your way? I jumped out of the way and ran! Yes just like Jonah I ran away from God’s voice and his calling. How can God call me to do something that I have never had any formal training in and how would he call on me he knows me? How can he ask me to do something different then this perfect plan that I have almost finished with? I did run and had been running until about a week ago. At every turn when someone asked me about going into the ministry I politely told them no and that I was going into medicine. Even after several nudges from God himself and several snags along the way that held up my clinical’s I still believed that medicine is where I was needed. How could I do something different now? After all of this? I then was offered a very new position to be a county youth pastor which would include a salary, an office, and money for the counties youth to do things with. This was almost like a dream. Wow, was this possible I could do both. Well no not really the youth pastor would require time and how could I do that to the ability needed and do medicine? So I asked for prayer and direction and not only my prayer, but I went to my pastor and my church family. Well I knew what God wanted me to do, but I don’t always listen so I kept on trucking along with classes and said “I’ll graduate and get a job and just keep being a youth pastor for my youth, that’ll be ok”. Boy was I wrong. Just like Jonah ran and God interrupted him in a BIG way with a whale, well he hit me in the head with a 2x4! It’s almost like a Verizon commercial I could even hear him yelling on the other end “CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?” He made me listen. My husband and I got the shock of our life-We are expecting! Now you might be like wow isn’t that great. Ummmm...Well we have 3 together and 1 was mine previously. Not that we don’t love our kids, but we really were done. Not only that we were taking measures to prevent this from ever happening. We also never thought it would happen since we had such a small chance with our previous daughter and we were on fertility drugs to get her for almost a year. Well so hear we are pregnant and not just barely pregnant-Quite pregnant. And to top it off I am due in the start of my externship, which means I can’t do it and that would mean I can’t graduate. Now if that’s not God telling me what direction I need to go in! LOL! 

So what did I learn about myself-I learned that I need to listen more to God! I really need to learn to quiet my own mutterings and ideas in my own head and learn to listen to the still voice of God and what He wants for my life. I always thought that my spiritual life was strong, but I am realizing that it can’t be strong if I am running from it! I have to learn to embrace every part of my life and when I do this will lead me to my integral healing and being whole. My focus on myself and God will be prayer. I need to pray not for what I want and my will, but for what He wants and for me to listen to His will. I have been getting back to my Bible studies more and been in prayer more and I need to follow where he leads and let go of my dreams and plans because His plans are better than any I could ever imagine for myself.