Have you ever felt like there was something you were supposed to be doing, but you weren't sure what that was. Or that you were missing something in your life but you weren't quite sure what was actually missing? Well that was me. Here I was sitting in church one Sunday and I heard our pastor say, "What if you got to Heaven and instead of God saying job well done, he said you did great but I had so much more planned for you and you didn't put your gifts I gave you to work." That hit me hard. Just like those V8 commercials where they come up and smack you in the forehead. I was just sitting there in church and felt like I got smacked in the head like, HELLO, WAKE UP! From that day forward it seemed like there were signs all around me telling me the same thing. So I took that slap in the forehead and did something with it. I put myself out on a ledge and put it out on Facebook if there was anyone who was interested in starting a Bible study with myself, and anyone else who was interested. I had a bigger response than I ever anticipated! We ended up picking out a book together and started our study. Each week after church, I kept thinking well I did something that I thought God was calling me to do, but it still felt like something was missing, and I couldn't figure out what that was. Each week in the series we were doing at church kept hitting me week after week but I couldn't pin point exactly what it was until we got a few weeks into our Wednesday Women's Bible study. The chapter was on God calling you to do something, and how the author Lysa Terkeurst, was feeling like she just wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and not listen to the Lord and what he was calling her to do, but she didn't and she stayed loyal to him and his plan of her. She followed through with what he was calling her to do. She was also asking why. Why her, and why then? The first question in the Personal Bible study at the end of the chapter asked, " Is God calling you to something big - really big?" and my heart just sank again. There was another thud on the head. It was like God was trying to tell me to take my fingers out of my ears, and stop singing my own song, and turn my song to him. So I finally wrote it down. Writing down on paper made it feel so much more real that it did just thinking about it in my head. There was a few other pulls at me but I'll get to those in a minute.
It took me a few weeks even after writing it to say it out loud to someone. Even with Jake being my best friend, I couldn't tell him. It wasn't for the reasons you're thinking. I went out for girls night with my sister in law, and we were enjoying our time and finally I got the courage up to say it to her. I looked at her right in the eye across the table from me and shyly said I have something I need to tell you. In a little panic of what it may be ( I'm sure she was thinking oh man, don't tell me you're pregnant already ha! We have a history of getting pregnant fast...that's a whole other story for another time!) she got excited and said yessss.... waiting eagerly of what I was going to say. Finally the words came off my lips. I think I want to go back to school and become a teacher, oh and I want to write a book... well and a blog. I explained to her how I hadn't even shared this with Jake yet, and I was scared to tell him. She asked me why I was so scared to tell him. I explained because he'll actually force me to do it! He will push me to apply to college again and start this process. About 2 or 3 weeks later I finally told Jake on a car ride somewhere. Of course I was right. I started to throw up every excuse in the book of why not and he told me to just stop and that we were going to figure out a way if this is what I really wanted to do. I started to fill out the application to a local college multiply times but just couldn't get myself to finish the application because I was scared of what was going to come of it. What if I wasn't accepted, what if I was accepted. Then I finally sat down and talked with our pastor and ask his opinion. He had done something similar but with preaching. He knew the wrestling that I was dealing with and was one of the best people to get advice from. My biggest question at the time was how do I know this is God telling me this is what he wants me to do, or its something I selfishly want to do. I don't use selfishly light. I still feel selfish for wanting to go back to school. Even though it has been a dream of mine to become a teacher since I was in 1st grade, my other dream was to be a mom and that I am of 3 beautiful little babes. I feel selfish because I do have those 3 little people depending on me full time, and now I'm trying to take on a class load for the next who knows how many years and then even student teaching, how could I be that selfish to do that. Well after sitting down with my pastor I realized God was pointing me in this direction for many many years.
Little back story. This gut wrenching feeling like something is missing or God is calling you to more, I had many years prior to this. I was a sophomore in high school. I was going to the public school in my town, and I had met a boy the summer before I started, and he went to the private school in town. I slowly met all his friends and became best friends with the girls in his group of friends. I still had my best friends at school, I was on the varsity soccer team with colleges already looking at me, and I was getting decent grades. All of the sudden about half way through the school year I was getting this feeling every single day. I just thought it was nothing, but I didn't want to be at that school anymore. The only things that felt right were at home, and on the soccer field and with my new friends and at their school events, like soccer, football, and basketball games. I started texting my dad almost daily asking if he was available for lunch. Meaning he would pick me up and we would go out for lunch and then I'd skip my next class. Him and I would sit and talk for what felt like hours and not necessarily about anything in particular. The biggest topic we did talk about the most was how I just didn't want to be at the school anymore and I didn't feel right being there. This was the school I had seen my sister go to, and I had been in the school district since preschool, so to say I didn't want to be there, or didn't feel comfortable there seemed so odd. I kept telling both my parents that something just felt missing. I wasn't 100% sure what was missing but I knew something was. So the last day of the school year I took a shadow day with my best friend at the time and did a day at the private school to just get a feel of what the school was like. Sure enough that was it. That's what had been missing. It wasn't the school itself it was God in my school. I needed more of him in my everyday life not, just on my personal level but in how I learned and the chapels I was able to be apart of everyday and the devotion and prayer time with other students and teachers. I know Christian Education is not cheap, but I wish I would have been in it my whole life. I have so many questions even at 26 years old. I'm sure even going to a school my whole life would't answer most of my questions, but it might have answer quote a few of them. I never really thought of this much after graduating from high school until I talked to my pastor. This is my story. He explained to me that this pulling feeling I was wrestling with started even way back when God was telling me to move schools.
Now back to the other V8 moments God kept giving me.
The first was in church. Remember when I said that my pastor said, "What if you got to Heaven and instead of God saying job well done, he said you did great but I had so much more planned for you and you didn't put your gifts I gave you to work.", well that was in the beginning of starting a new series about being Evangelists in our every day lives. The first week it was very little, but every week after that was just a little more and a little more of God whispering in my ear. Mind you, Jake and I were also doing this book in our Life group and going into more depth of the book. So not only was I getting it every week with our normal church service, I was getting this every 2 weeks for 4 more weeks. Every week was a different "habit". Reading that book, while reading my women's Bible study book it was like a doubly whammy. The book we did as a church and life group is Surprise the World by Michael Frost, if you are interested in reading it. It talks about who your "circle" is and who you can impact in your circle. At first I was like okay, well my circle is very small, 3 kids, under the age of 3 and my husband. Although that's a very important circle, I felt God telling me my circle was meant to be bigger. Well how was my circle to be bigger God? All the things that kept going through my head were, teaching, write a blog, write a book. That's when fear set in.
Every time I talked to Jake he would tell me you're putting road blocks up that aren't even there yet! He wasn't wrong! I said, well who is going to read a book or even a blog written by me? He said who cares, just write it! I said well the money. He said they're both free! I said well how are we going to be able to have me go back to school to become a teacher now, when we have 3 kids, Sawyer starting preschool in the fall? The point of me staying home with the kids was so we didn't have to pay for child care, and that I was fulfilling my dream to be a mom, a stay at home mom at that, and I wasn't waking our kids up to go to daycare or someone's house, and that I was the one "raising them" (Mind you I have nothing against daycare! I fully am behind anyone who sends their kids to daycare, I was blessed to never have to use daycare when I did work, and this is just what we chose for our family and our kids!) He looked at me and said, there's night classes and there's online classes! Every time I came up with something he would come back at me with a reason why I was letting my fear get in the way of making my dreams come true.
Around Christmas time, I was at my sister's house making Christmas cookies, and my nephew had a Christmas program at his school right across the street. At first I wasn't going to go over there because well 3 kids under 3 hello! The closer the time came to having to go over there the more I really wanted to see his program. Let's be honest I probably shouldn't have gone as Sawyer and I left with him kicking and screaming! That's beside the point though. When I walked into their school it had a smell. A very distinct smell to it. When I walked into their gym where the program was being held, the smell was stronger. I knew this smell from 2 years prior, and my childhood. It smelled like a school. I know that sounds pretty dumb but it was a smell that was familiar to me and made me happy. 2 years prior when I was pregnant with Sadie, I was working in a local elementary school in the lunch room for a second part time job. It was just a few hours and I was "the lunch lady". Nothing special, but I remember everyday when I walked into that school to start my shift it had a smell, and I remember thinking to myself back then, "Man, I wish I was a teacher. I love that smell and everything about this school is just giving me all the feels right now." But of course I pushed that off and didn't even tell Jake about the thoughts I was thinking. Well there I was 2 years later in a totally different school, no having told Jake my thoughts about going back to school and the pull I was wrestling with every day and night. The thoughts were even stronger in the school while I watched all these kids go on and off the stage, and their teachers helping guide them to their spots and the back down off the stage. That was about the time I said, "Okay God, I hear you! What am I supposed to do now?"
Finally I emailed my pastor. I emailed him, as he had a similar situation happen before he became a pastor, where God told him he wanted him to go back to school to become a pastor. So I sat down with him one day a week or so before Christmas, and shared everything that was on my heart. I explained all the feelings I was dealing with, but really I didn't even have to as he knew exactly what I was feeling, and he could see it right on my face. Those were some of the first words he said to me was, " You're wrestling with this, I can see it on your face." I lost it. There were many tears shed during this long talk, not bad tears, all good and maybe a little bit of relief tears. He explained to me that I was looking at this all wrong. He drew it out with a circle at the top that had the word TEACHER written in it. Then he drew a ladder going up to it. He said you're looking here, and pointed to the circle. You need to start here, and pointed to the first step on the ladder. That being to call and talk to someone at a college I was thinking about attending. That was the biggest piece of advice he had given me, and I now look at all my large goals in life that way. One step at a time. He explained to me that, he did it, his wife did it, and I'm surely not the last or only one doing this or that has done it either. My story was unique to me, but it wasn't the only story with a similar story line.
So I left his office that day, and the first thing I did when I go into my car was I called a college and set up a meeting. Then I called another college and set up a meeting there too. I had no idea what college I wanted to go to, nor do I know now either but I knew these were my options.
I sat down and had one phone meeting, and the door was shut on that college. I went to my other meeting, and the door was shut on that one as well. I sat in my car and cried! I asked God why, and what now?
I went home still not knowing what God wanted me to do now. I was so sure God wanted me to go back to school and become a teacher, but now when these schools aren't working out what am I supposed to do now? I gave it some time, and went back at it after a week or so. I had already been a student at the local Community College, just hadn't taken any classes since when Jake and I were first married. So I set up a meeting with them, and another college in the same day. First meeting was the community college. I explained everything to her and what I needed and I could see lights at the end of the tunnel. I went to my second meeting at the different college, and felt like that door was shut as well. Walking away a little shocked and defeated a little bit at first, I realized this was just another step in the ladder. So as Jake and I talked on our way home, I told him, well maybe I can go to on of the first colleges I wanted to go to, but I just need to go through community college first, get some credits out of the way, and by the time I got to the point in my education I'd be able to go to make the other colleges work with kids, and when classes were. All of the sudden it felt like everything was going back the way it was supposed to be going.
I realized after leaving those meetings that I was leaning on what I wanted, or what I thought I needed instead of leaning on God. This was his plan, and his work after all. Now that the day to register for classes is coming closer, I find myself getting anxious again about everything that could go wrong, and then I remember I need Jesus. This is His plan!
It was never a smack in the head like V8 commercial although it sure felt like it, it was just God working in all the ways possible to get my attention that he truly had bigger plan for me, to use the talents that he gave me. Just yesterday in church, our pastor told us, God wants us to use our talents. No one was not given talents. You just have to find a way to use them and use them in glorifying him, and that's exactly what I'm planning to do while I go back to school and work on getting my degree, and even when I finally do and I become a teacher.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Today I pray for anyone who is feeling pulls at their heart. Pulls they aren't sure what they and why but they know is there. I pray that they figure out what those pulls really are, and that they know it is you. I pray that they will take those talents you have given them and use them in every way they can while glorifying you. Please wrap your arms around those who are wrestling and scared to share their wrestling with anyone else and that they feel alone, and let them know they are not alone. Please listen to their prayers and help them in each step of the way on their ladder. I pray that each and everyone of them find comfort in you even while they're wrestling with what you are calling them to do. Amen.
xo,
Brittany
Now back to the other V8 moments God kept giving me.
The first was in church. Remember when I said that my pastor said, "What if you got to Heaven and instead of God saying job well done, he said you did great but I had so much more planned for you and you didn't put your gifts I gave you to work.", well that was in the beginning of starting a new series about being Evangelists in our every day lives. The first week it was very little, but every week after that was just a little more and a little more of God whispering in my ear. Mind you, Jake and I were also doing this book in our Life group and going into more depth of the book. So not only was I getting it every week with our normal church service, I was getting this every 2 weeks for 4 more weeks. Every week was a different "habit". Reading that book, while reading my women's Bible study book it was like a doubly whammy. The book we did as a church and life group is Surprise the World by Michael Frost, if you are interested in reading it. It talks about who your "circle" is and who you can impact in your circle. At first I was like okay, well my circle is very small, 3 kids, under the age of 3 and my husband. Although that's a very important circle, I felt God telling me my circle was meant to be bigger. Well how was my circle to be bigger God? All the things that kept going through my head were, teaching, write a blog, write a book. That's when fear set in.
Around Christmas time, I was at my sister's house making Christmas cookies, and my nephew had a Christmas program at his school right across the street. At first I wasn't going to go over there because well 3 kids under 3 hello! The closer the time came to having to go over there the more I really wanted to see his program. Let's be honest I probably shouldn't have gone as Sawyer and I left with him kicking and screaming! That's beside the point though. When I walked into their school it had a smell. A very distinct smell to it. When I walked into their gym where the program was being held, the smell was stronger. I knew this smell from 2 years prior, and my childhood. It smelled like a school. I know that sounds pretty dumb but it was a smell that was familiar to me and made me happy. 2 years prior when I was pregnant with Sadie, I was working in a local elementary school in the lunch room for a second part time job. It was just a few hours and I was "the lunch lady". Nothing special, but I remember everyday when I walked into that school to start my shift it had a smell, and I remember thinking to myself back then, "Man, I wish I was a teacher. I love that smell and everything about this school is just giving me all the feels right now." But of course I pushed that off and didn't even tell Jake about the thoughts I was thinking. Well there I was 2 years later in a totally different school, no having told Jake my thoughts about going back to school and the pull I was wrestling with every day and night. The thoughts were even stronger in the school while I watched all these kids go on and off the stage, and their teachers helping guide them to their spots and the back down off the stage. That was about the time I said, "Okay God, I hear you! What am I supposed to do now?"
Finally I emailed my pastor. I emailed him, as he had a similar situation happen before he became a pastor, where God told him he wanted him to go back to school to become a pastor. So I sat down with him one day a week or so before Christmas, and shared everything that was on my heart. I explained all the feelings I was dealing with, but really I didn't even have to as he knew exactly what I was feeling, and he could see it right on my face. Those were some of the first words he said to me was, " You're wrestling with this, I can see it on your face." I lost it. There were many tears shed during this long talk, not bad tears, all good and maybe a little bit of relief tears. He explained to me that I was looking at this all wrong. He drew it out with a circle at the top that had the word TEACHER written in it. Then he drew a ladder going up to it. He said you're looking here, and pointed to the circle. You need to start here, and pointed to the first step on the ladder. That being to call and talk to someone at a college I was thinking about attending. That was the biggest piece of advice he had given me, and I now look at all my large goals in life that way. One step at a time. He explained to me that, he did it, his wife did it, and I'm surely not the last or only one doing this or that has done it either. My story was unique to me, but it wasn't the only story with a similar story line.
So I left his office that day, and the first thing I did when I go into my car was I called a college and set up a meeting. Then I called another college and set up a meeting there too. I had no idea what college I wanted to go to, nor do I know now either but I knew these were my options.
I sat down and had one phone meeting, and the door was shut on that college. I went to my other meeting, and the door was shut on that one as well. I sat in my car and cried! I asked God why, and what now?
I went home still not knowing what God wanted me to do now. I was so sure God wanted me to go back to school and become a teacher, but now when these schools aren't working out what am I supposed to do now? I gave it some time, and went back at it after a week or so. I had already been a student at the local Community College, just hadn't taken any classes since when Jake and I were first married. So I set up a meeting with them, and another college in the same day. First meeting was the community college. I explained everything to her and what I needed and I could see lights at the end of the tunnel. I went to my second meeting at the different college, and felt like that door was shut as well. Walking away a little shocked and defeated a little bit at first, I realized this was just another step in the ladder. So as Jake and I talked on our way home, I told him, well maybe I can go to on of the first colleges I wanted to go to, but I just need to go through community college first, get some credits out of the way, and by the time I got to the point in my education I'd be able to go to make the other colleges work with kids, and when classes were. All of the sudden it felt like everything was going back the way it was supposed to be going.
It was never a smack in the head like V8 commercial although it sure felt like it, it was just God working in all the ways possible to get my attention that he truly had bigger plan for me, to use the talents that he gave me. Just yesterday in church, our pastor told us, God wants us to use our talents. No one was not given talents. You just have to find a way to use them and use them in glorifying him, and that's exactly what I'm planning to do while I go back to school and work on getting my degree, and even when I finally do and I become a teacher.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Today I pray for anyone who is feeling pulls at their heart. Pulls they aren't sure what they and why but they know is there. I pray that they figure out what those pulls really are, and that they know it is you. I pray that they will take those talents you have given them and use them in every way they can while glorifying you. Please wrap your arms around those who are wrestling and scared to share their wrestling with anyone else and that they feel alone, and let them know they are not alone. Please listen to their prayers and help them in each step of the way on their ladder. I pray that each and everyone of them find comfort in you even while they're wrestling with what you are calling them to do. Amen.
xo,
Brittany
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