Growing up I always had this picture in my head that I would go to college, become a kindergarten teacher, and live in my dream house with my future husband and kids. I limited myself to this plan because I thought that it was the only life I could see myself living. I didn’t allow myself to dream and have big goals in life because I was scared. What took me a while to learn was that God’s plan is always different from ours. We can have this big idea of what we think we’re going to do with our lives and feel like we have everything planned, but God can change that up in a split second. What we plan isn’t always in his plan. You would think I would realize that when the Lord called me on the race and it wouldn’t take me forever to figure it out but here we are.
During month 6 of the race, everyone on my squad was starting to talk about what their plans were after the race. Some shared they were praying into it and felt called to team leading, college, CGA, home, etc. For me, I was too busy avoiding thinking about the future because I didn’t want to think about the race ending or even think about my future. If you know me, you know I hate change and just the thought of growing up and making decisions for myself. I wanted to avoid this topic at all costs but it was something I seriously needed to start praying for. This wasn’t just a one-night prayer and boom I know what I’m doing next, this ended up being a 3-month process.
I felt far from God because I wasn’t hearing anything from him. I wasn’t feeling called to anything/anywhere specific and it was making me angry. I felt in the dark and was scared that I would get back from the Race and not have a single clue on what to do next. One night my friends and I were playing my favorite game, skip-bo, and we started joking about our future, and for some reason, the night took a turn and my heart just started feeling very heavy. I laid on a blanket in the backyard staring at the night sky in Costa Rica. I sat in silence playing all of these images in my head of what I could see myself doing with my life and just didn’t feel confident in my answers. That’s when the Lord started working on me the most, and I couldn’t even feel it.
That night was the start of him walking me through a season of surrender. The following month became a battle of him asking me to surrender my future plans to him and walk in confidence knowing he knows what’s next for me and that it’s better than anything I could plan. I had to be ok not knowing what was next and just giving all of my fear to him. I don’t know about you but that’s a hard freaking thing to do. I was tired of being selective when it came to my relationship with the Lord. I would pick and choose what parts of my life I would give to him and which I would keep to myself and that was the issue. If I wanted to be obedient and devote my life to him I had to surrender it all. The minute I gave my life to Christ I knew my life wouldn’t be the same so why was I holding back? So I said ok God, I’m here and I’m ready for you to choose what’s next for me, and that’s when he gave me the green light for CGA.
Center of Global Action (CGA) is another program Adventures In Missions has to offer to alumni racers. It’s a 5-month discipleship school, helping us transition off the mission field. This will be a classroom setting that will challenge us racers to step into a leadership role by teaching us how to “know yourself, lead yourself, and lead others”. As we dive into this, it also allows racers to reflect, process, and take what we learned from our race and apply it to our everyday lifestyle. CGA empowers us to go deeper into what it means to be a leader, and carry it into our communities. This discipleship school will not only help me go deeper into my relationship with the Lord but also teach me how to be a better leader for my future and what plans the Lord has for me next!
I will be living in Georgia and doing this program with other alumni racers my age and get to walk through another challenging, yet fruitful season. I will be fundraising $6,000 for this program which covers housing and classroom fees. I would love for you to partner with me in this season and just get to share with you how your donation is changing my life and every one I get to meet and encounter as well. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions !!
Much love yall 🙂
