What’s your purpose in life? There isn’t a single person ever conceived that did not have a purpose. Whether we understand that purpose is another story.
A wonderful mentor in my life once lovingly told me that the reason why I struggled with discipline is that I lacked purpose. That may seem harsh to some, but that’s exactly what I needed to hear. She was right. No one had ever said that to me before, but during that season, and it was a looooong season, I lacked majorly.
At a retreat I recently attended, we were asked to go have quiet time in silence and solitude, to be still. To open our hearts and minds to God and allow Him to speak to and minister to us. It was amazing! The next morning we had a sweet time of worship and then we did something spectacular.
In conclusion, we were given a sliver of poster board. On one side we were to write what we wanted to be, as children, when we grew up. On the other side we were to pray and ask God to show us what we are called to be now.
Well, when I was little I wanted to be a lot of things: an actress, model, and singer – because even then I recognized the most influential of celebrities did it all – Miss America, animal rights activist, marine biologist, therapist, rainforest conversationist, journalist, founder of a nonprofit mission organization to end homelessness and world hunger, and finally a lawyer. For my latter childhood, I’d settled on lawyer. I think partly because that was the one career that the adults in my life seemed to encourage, and partly because I wanted to combat the evil to which I’d been exposed.
In playing this out in my head and asking The Holy Spirit to guide me in my answer (I didn’t know at the time why it was so important.), He lead me to the common thread of it all. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to make it a better place in some significant way. At the core of all of those things, this was the Greater Purpose.
When I commit to something, I commit. If I change my mind or life takes a different turn it’s a big deal. So it was HUGE when God lead me away from law school and toward interior design. I remember talking to Him as I signed up for classes. “God, You promised that You’d use my testimony to help others. And though I’m very excited about this direction, I don’t think this is what You meant exactly. Wouldn’t I be better use as an attorney?”
He then gave me images of an older me in a bland stiff suit carrying a heavy yoke, surrounded by anger, hatred, intense pain and injustice, a sense of dread and hopelessness washed over the image like a thick black cloud. I quickly shook the unpleasantness off. “Well okay then, thank You for that.”
So I set off down the path of becoming and interior designer. And to this day I use my hard earned education as a hobby. I arrogantly expected that the hardship of life was over once I got free from the abuse. Ha! Looking in a mirror, “Oh, sweet, naive, slightly entitled little girl. Bless your sweet, well-meaning heart.”
It’s not that I didn’t expect there to be trouble, but I never expected chronic illness. And I never expected the healing journey on all fronts to be so long and arduous. I went from being a rising corporate superstar, magna cum laude, fit as a fiddle, and every opportunity at her fingertips to not being able to get myself in and out of bed to go to the bathroom without help. As an early twenty-something no less. To this day we do not have concrete answers. And though I am leaps and bounds over where I was, the journey continues with highs and lows.
When I began my entrepreneurial journey, I expected quick success and advancement, like I’d received in every other area of my life. School, work, church. There wasn’t anything I couldn’t accomplish if I set my mind to it. But when the doctors are counseling my fiancé and I on end of life care just in case, and then neither death nor wellness result, it changes you.
In addition to that add abusive friendships, continued family drama, financial upsets, abusive doctors, medications which poisoned my body, all made a cocktail of insecurity, self-doubt, helplessness, etc. Where’s my powerful, world-changing purpose in the middle of all of that? It’s hard to believe that after all that I survived, it was this season in my life, as an adult, where I have never felt worse about myself. All the lies I’d been told about had felt true.
I barely made it down the aisle at my wedding without a wheel chair, and then danced myself into collapsing later because of a massive adrenaline rush. I couldn’t cope with the attention and all the people.
I lost myself. I had a nervous breakdown on our honeymoon because I was on an antidepressant that I should not have been prescribed and went without it all week because I lost the bottle in the hullabaloo.
My amazing, superhero of a husband. He has gone through just as much as I have with all of this. I used to tell him all the time that he deserved better, but then he shared how much that hurt him for me to say. Where is this greater purpose I was promised when we have to end marriage counseling early because our pastor is concerned by the pain I’m writhing in, and insists someone takes me to the doctor that instant.
I’m not sure I’ve shared this much about what went on with anyone before. I didn’t want to make it anyone else’s problem. It was a scary time and I honestly prayed for God to take me. If that was His plan in all of this, on more than one occasion, I asked Him to end my suffering and take me home. Not because I’m weak and prone to overly emotional exaggeration, it was. That. Bad.
Instead of alleviating the pain or answering my request to go Home, He pointed me to 2 verses. John 11:4 and Genesis 50:20
I cried out to Him daily for His hand, His healing, His joy, His guidance. “His grace is sufficient. His power perfected in weakness.” And boy did I see His power! He reminded me of verses He’d given me when I was in middle school, and how I knew I’d live a ministry-focused life.
So, I’ve got this piece of poster board in my hand. One side says “make the world a better place.” All of the above has flashed in thoughts. “God, what have you called me to be? I’m out of time for this exercise.”
I am called to make the world a better place by leading others out of darkness and into His Light. That’s my greater purpose. But we cannot lead from where we have not journeyed. I’ve been through all I’ve been through to learn from it. To allow God to use it. To be His light in the darkest of situations. Peace washes over me as I stand in a circle of other women all with little girl dreams, all with highs and lows lived, battles we’re fighting, things we’re surrendering, and we share. One word: powerful.
There’s NO shadow He won’t light up. There “ain’t no mountain high enough, valley low enough, or river wide enough to keep Him from getting to His children. I am now in a place where I believe in His purpose for my life and I receive it. It took me long enough, but that’s why there’s grace upon grace. He is patient and loving. He is not bothered by our lack of understanding. He delights in us and in the journey with us.
God, I love you! Thank you! You are worthy. You are Holy. Thank you! Guide anyone reading this who is struggling with purpose. With their purpose or understanding your grater purposes. Help us all to learn more on You and not on our own understanding until it’s only you. Jesus, I surrender my own way, my own understanding, my own wants, needs, thoughts, and dreams over to Your will. Bend me and mold me until the only thing about me that shines is You. Only You.
LiveALIVE Today!
Cindy
Live A.L.I.V.E. 