It amazes me how as children we are taught to set goals and make plans for what we want to be doing when we grow up. I remember many times back in grammar school when teachers would ask the class “What do you want to be when you grow up?” That simple 10 word question sparked something inside every classmate. From then on you heard the ever so popular responses that consisted of Firefighters, Police officers, Astronauts, Doctors, and the occasional Lawyer. Now looking back I appreciate teachers for asking that question over and over as I matriculated through school because they knew that our first response would change as we grew and learned more about our community as well as ourselves. My teachers embraced the theory we could be anything we wanted to be as long as we put our mind to it…. Philippians 4:13 (New King James Version)13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
My passion has always been helping others. As a child I wanted to be a doctor because that was one of the best examples of how I could reach out and help many people. I remember in 6th grade we had a career day and the speaker said that at that time a neurosurgeon was the highest paid position in the medical field. Yep!!! I was sold. I figured hey I can help people AND get paid the big bucks. So for three years of my life I was sold on becoming a neurosurgeon. I studied hard and became very interested in the human brain. Fast forward to high school when the academic advisor was laying out all the advanced science and math classes I would need to excel in to get into a good university and med school. Long story short she shot that dream down…So I thought. It had nothing to do with my lack of ability to excel in math and science but everything to do with I simply and strongly dislike those subjects. I began my high school year knocking out the general requirements while I tried to figure out the answer to that age old question “What do I want to be when I grow up?”
LIGHT BULB MOMENT: Still very much into the human brain I took a psychology class freshmen year of high school and fell in love!!! I figured it out FINALLY. I wanted to be a psychologist. Through high school and into college that simple 10 word question evolved into more thought out essay pieces. At any given moment I needed to be ready to respond to a large variety of questions. You learn fast that people become interested in your future long before you think that far ahead.
Where do you see yourself in five years? How will what you do positively contribute to your community?
Habakkuk 2:2-4 Then the LORD answered me and said: “ Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it. 3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry. 4 “ Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.
I began to write and re-write my 5 year plan in high school. It began very basic you know the usual go to college, go to grad school, work in my field, get married start a family. Yep that was the generic version. If I would have checked with God about what he wanted and had already planed for my life all that writing in pencil and all that paper could have saved time and a tree. Clearly my plans and Gods plans were totally different. You ever get discouraged when you compare where you thought you would be, where your friends are verses where you actually are? Yep, that has provided many of tear filled nights. Once I began to line up my wants and desires for my life with Gods will things began to fall in place and I quickly began to see that I am not where I planned to be simply because the space I created to put myself can’t hold all God has placed in me.
Jeremiah 29:11 (New King James Version) 11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.As I write, plan, cry, and throw many temper tantrums I am coming to a place where I get it. God wrote my happily ever after in INK long before I was in my mothers womb. So yes at this moment as I look at where I am and hold on to what I know he promised me it gets hard to stay focused but I will move past all doubt and walk in my faith because I know that in due season my expected in will come and it will be far greater than anything I could ever plan out! J Be Encouraged!
