Oh God, you are my God
and I will ever praise You.
I will seek you in the morning
and I will learn to walk in your ways, and
'Step by Step You'll Lead Me'
and I will follow You all of my days.
One of my favorite things about life is looking back and seeing how God led me every step of the way, seeing the puzzle He was making while I could only see the pieces at the time.
Early Steps: My Foundation and Faith
A Christian home and school set the foundation for my faith in my early years. Watching my parents serve the Lord in their local church body as a young child to seeing my dad follow the call to be a pastor. The local church body was our extended family. God drew me to Himself at a the young age of 8; however, it wasn't until I was 15 that I truly understood "surrender." It was at that time that I surrendered my will to His: to do whatever He wanted me to do wherever He wanted me to go.
Later Steps: Ministry and Missions
God then gave me opportunities to serve Him through missions. At 16, I went to Samara, Russia with SCORE International. It was my first mission trip, and my eyes were opened to a world way beyond my own. I can still vividly recall women sitting on the porches of their homes as we brought Bibles to them. Some of them had never seen a Bible, and I probably lost count of how many I had owned. After graduating high school, I traveled on a ministry team around the United States and went with them on a mission trip to Portugal. It was during this time of ministry that I met my husband and felt the leading of the Lord to return home and become a teacher.
Everyday Steps: Life Goes On...
I returned home to South Carolina, went to Winthrop University, and became a high school Family and Consumer Sciences teacher. My husband and I were married during this time and continued to serve in our local church. God had blessed us with two children, Ethan Jeremiah and Emily Jane. I was living the American dream: now teaching at the university, being a wife and mom to my family, and ministering with my husband in the youth and music ministries at our church.
Even though I knew we were where God wanted us at that time in our lives, I really struggled with "wanting to do more." I wanted to be in "full-time ministry" and had not understood why God, in all of these years, had not allowed us to serve Him in this capacity--be careful what you ask for! God used the book Radical by David Platt to show me that my "full-time ministry" was in the place God put me, wherever that may be and whatever it may look like. God showed me that my "secular job" and the neighborhood where I lived was my full-time ministry and mission field. He began to open doors to share His love with the children in our neighborhood and with my students at the university. I had become content with what God had for our family. I believe He waited to give my husband and I that next big step until I realized those everyday steps of obedience and faithfulness was the thing that mattered the most.
Even though I knew we were where God wanted us at that time in our lives, I really struggled with "wanting to do more." I wanted to be in "full-time ministry" and had not understood why God, in all of these years, had not allowed us to serve Him in this capacity--be careful what you ask for! God used the book Radical by David Platt to show me that my "full-time ministry" was in the place God put me, wherever that may be and whatever it may look like. God showed me that my "secular job" and the neighborhood where I lived was my full-time ministry and mission field. He began to open doors to share His love with the children in our neighborhood and with my students at the university. I had become content with what God had for our family. I believe He waited to give my husband and I that next big step until I realized those everyday steps of obedience and faithfulness was the thing that mattered the most.
Giant Steps: The Call to Missions
Remember earlier when I said "be careful what you ask for"? Well, God dropped a bombshell: He had laid on my husband's heart to visit a missionary in Mexico that we had known and our church had supported for many years. In June 2014, we took a family mission trip to spend a week with Thomas and Linda Beard, missionaries to Montemorelos, Mexico for over 40 years now. In April 2015, God confirmed this was not just a mission trip, but a call to missions for our family. We began searching how to navigate this new journey. God led us to ABWE, the Association of Baptist for World Evangelism, and put us on the fast track to the field. In August 2017, we arrived in Costa Rica to attend the Spanish-Language Institute for the year and hope to arrive in Mexico in October of this year to begin ministering with the Beards.
New Steps: New Territory
Homeschool. Language school. Missions. Big City Life (San Jose, CR is LOUD). So much new territory through which God has allowed us to walk. And, now blogging. I am looking forward to this new territory for me and sharing what God lays on my heart. In April and May, I hope to share more of my personal testimony of God's faithfulness: how He fit those pieces of that puzzle together and how He gives a song in the night.
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