A Year Ago, The Year to Come

January 1, 2013 was a very dark day for me.

I remember it vividly.

I remember being on my knees on the floor of my room. I remember the tears pouring down my face like a rainstorm. I remember hugging myself as I rocked back and forth in a puddle of my tears. I remember feeling my voice cracking as I cried out to God in between my sobs.

A week or so before, I was walking across a stage shaking the hands of professors and administrators as they handed me the piece of paper that I had been working for since I was six years old. My moment had arrived. I had finally become a rosy-eyed college graduate, completely oblivious to the reality waiting for me on the other side of the double doors.

Inevitably, the fearful question hit me.

What now?

I had the diploma. I had reached the end. I hadn't felt led to apply for any particular graduate program, so I hadn't even attempted to do so. I had no idea what I wanted to do for work, so I had no job lined up. I had no plans.

Nada. Zip. Nothing.

What was I doing?

The realization that my life had screeched to a grinding halt hit me like a high speed freighter. It left me paralyzed. For the first time in my life, the next path to take wasn't obvious. All the doors in front of me were locked shut. Even if a door was open, I was too struck by my fear to even move towards it.

So, a year ago, I started the new year at one of the lowest points of my life.

Sobbing, confused, hopeless, I cried out to God, demanding that He give me the "great" plans He had for me. I was a greedy child in the middle of a toy store. All the kids around me had been given incredible plans: careers, graduate schools, plans to travel, mission trips to go on. Where was mine? Where was my story, my adventure?

It didn't come right away. You see, God is not so easily persuaded by my desires, my demands, and my dreams. He gives and withholds as He sees fit.

So I continued to cry for some time. I don't remember when the tears stopped, but before I knew it, the well had run dry. I stopped grieving, looked down, and found in my hands a beautiful purpose. A shiny and precious gift from God. It was not what I expected.

It was far better.

I can't explain to you when or how it happened. I guess it's as my dad always puts it:

"You know, Maddie, God always seems to work in mysterious ways."

His ways really are mysterious, and often, they are also quiet. They come upon you slowly and silently, and it isn't until you back over your shoulder at the storm you passed through that you realize that you are standing in the sunshine.

I started the year set on a path that was dark to me. I was jobless and purposeless without a clue what I was to do or who I was supposed to be. Now, I am walking out on the other side of the inky blackness with a purpose and a calling I never expected.

I am a disillusioned college graduate gone collegiate minister and seminary student.

Who woulda thunk it?

Not me. Never in a million years. But I praise God that He always has better things in store for me than I could ever ask of Him.

This same year that began with tears has ended with purpose. God has reminded me of who I am. I am His lost daughter who He found on the college campus. He chose me out of a sea of over 70,000 students. Out of all of the people He could have chosen, He picked me to call His daughter. As I sat in lectures of hundreds of students and enslaved myself to the pursuit of academia, He plucked me out and adopted me into His family.

It is a blessing that I could never earn. An honor I can barely begin to wrap my mind and heart around. A gift that demands to be shared with others who are just as I once was.

I thought that getting my degree meant that I was done with Arizona State University. I thought that I would move away, perhaps back to California or elsewhere to uncharted territory. I thought that graduating meant moving on to bigger and better things.

But no, I was never meant to leave.

God called me out of the brokenness of ASU, and now, He has called me to return as His ambassador. I know what it is like to be one of the lost, and now, I also know what is like to be a precious child of God because of the redemption bought for me by Christ. I am His vessel for Him to use to reach this lost generation.

I don't know what that will look like, but I also know that God always exceeds my expectations.

I don't know what He might ask me to do, but I also know that He promises to walk with me through every mountain top and every rainstorm.

I don't know if this year will begin with laughter or tears, but I also know that this world is passing away and the new one has already come.

I don't know what 2014 will hold for me, but I also know that regardless of the joy or suffering to come, my God is with me.

He is all I desire for 2014. He is my hope for this year and for every year He allows me to remain here on this earth. I pray that I will fall in love with Him more and more with each new breath that I take.

I don't need resolutions. I don't need goals. I don't need dreams.

I just need Him.



Happy New Year, my dear friends. May you find peace and joy in His presence this coming year. Never forget that He is why we exist. He is the promise. He is our hope.



Many blessings,

Maddie

An Adventure

I don't have much to say. I mostly just don't like blank space.

I think this feeling was much of the same feeling I was having about my life before now.

All through college, I had no clear vision about what I was going to do with my life. Sure, I bounced from idea to idea, but nothing stuck.

Doctor?

Counselor?

Social worker?

A homeless bum living on the beaches of California?

Yes, that last one had a nice ring to it. 

Even as I was walking across the stage in front of thousands of eyes to receive my diploma, I had no plan, no direction, no story waiting to be told.

My life was an empty book so eager to fill its pages with words, but my Author was strangely silent. I knew that the pen was hovering over my blank pages, but He was hesitating to write a single letter. I started to fear, and I got angry.

"You said if I followed You, you would give me plans. You promised me an adventure. You said that You wanted to use my life for something great. Here I am, ready. What are you waiting for?"

A small voice whispered to me in the silence.

Wait.

"I have been. I have been patient. I've graduated. I have the college degree. That means it's time for life to begin. You promised me greater things that this minimum wage job I'm working."

Not exactly.

"Jeremiah 29:11, 'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.' What about that?"

I have already given it to you.

"I'm not seeing what You're seeing."

I promised you Myself. And I have given you Myself. I am all you need.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. The conviction.

I stopped fighting at that point. I stopped talking back to my Father and started to look at things from His perspective. Yes, my life was less than glamorous. I was using my brand new degree to work a part-time minimum wage job at the child care center of a gym. A high-school student was more than qualified to do my job. 

But God had blessed me with a job. Period. And more importantly, He had blessed me with free time to be able to seek Him. The promise was Him.

This past spring, I spent my time working a mere 15 hours a week to earn just enough money to get by. 

But by sacrificing my pride, I gained so much more.

I dove into the Word, and my prayer life exploded.

I had time to go to multiple bible studies, where older believers poured into me and taught me so many things that I can't even begin to name them.

I met with two older women at my church, who chose to invest in my life and desired that I grow to be more like Christ.

I continued serve with the college ministry that had served me for the past year and went deeper with my brothers and sisters in Christ than I ever thought possible.

I served at a kids' camp and a youth camp this summer and prayed with a girl to give her life away to Christ. I saw God use me to the point of exhaustion, and I can confidently say because of my weakness that all of the glory goes to Him.

I fell more in love with children while working at my job. From drooling babies to snotty preteens and everything in between - I fell in love with them all. I learned so much about how to be a mom and just how much I am not ready to be one yet. But I know now that the title "Mommy" will be mine someday.

I moved into an apartment with one of my best friends, and now I am living with a fellow believer for the first time in my life. I can't even begin to tell you what a blessing it is to come home to a like-minded spirit. I loved her before, and I love her so much more now.

Most of all, I fell more in love with Jesus because I finally had time to spend with Him. There were days where I had nothing to do but be with Him. There were other days where I was so busy watching Him work that I couldn't help but worship Him. There were days of laughter, days of tears, days of mountains being moved, and days of silence, but everyday, I was drowning in Him. And I realized that was what I wanted for my life: to drown in Him daily.

When God made me realize that He is the promise, the plan, and the future I was longing for, that was when my life began. I stopped looking for careers where I could bring Him along and started looking for places to join in where He was already at work. And while all of this was happening, He turned my life upside down.

In the midst of this realization, God opened up a position as a campus missionary at the college ministry that He had planted me in my senior year. I couldn't believe it. I was so humbled and amazed that I didn't know what to say. I'm sure God smiled as I became the silent one.

I found the job I desired while not even looking for it, while not even desiring it anymore. 

And I think that's the way that He wanted it to work.

My Father knows me better than I know myself. He knew that I longed for that job more than I longed for Him. He wanted to make sure that my heart was for Him before it was for the work He had in store for me to do. He wanted me to remember that He is the promise. He is the goal. Jesus is the only One worth desiring.

Thanks to Him, my priorities are straight. 

Thanks to Him, I get to reach out to the lost freshman at ASU who are stepping into my old shoes.

Thanks to Him, I will be starting my first year of seminary in a few weeks.

Thanks to Him, I understand that these things are but blessings looming on the sidelines. The real prize is waiting in front of me, and I am running the race towards Him. Jesus.

As I break the silence, these are my words: 

Let the adventure begin.



Blessings,

Maddie