Redirected by the Lord
Fourteen years ago, I was moving back home from a semester at college, and was getting mentally ready to attend a new Bible college close to home. The new semester had started last week, and I was coming in a week late.
The semester prior, I had started my freshman year at a Christian University in California, and absolutely loved everything about it. I was close to where I was born (I always had felt like a California girl at heart), and was even closer to the beach. I had been dreaming of going to college in California, and I was finally there. I decided to major in Religion so that I could be a traveling missionary like the missionaries I had met on trips in High School; I joined the Women’s Choir; and had already made friends faster than I thought I would. I was living the life I had dreamed of for years, and had big plans for myself.
But I quickly got distracted from what was important, and the Lord stepped in to redirect where I was going.
“A man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” - Proverbs 16:9
In this new place, with my new friends, I was having the best time - but I wasn’t prioritizing going to church, sitting through chapel services, or glorifying the Lord with my relationships. After a few months of ignoring my relationship Him, He certainly got my attention. My boyfriend at the time and I broke up, I became disconnected from my friends, and I had a hard experience that ultimately brought me back home to Arizona.
Those things that led me into that new space always felt like the worst things in the world, but, in reality, the Lord was redirecting my steps back to Him. Back to the plans He had for my life. He allowed the hard things to happen so that He could get my attention, because it was everywhere but on Him. About a year after coming back home and working to make my relationship with the Lord right, I met my now husband, and we embarked on our life of ministry in the church together.
“So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective." - Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)
Fourteen years later I feel so blessed in the life the Lord has given me and my family. If I hadn’t gone through the hard things so many years ago, and refocused my sights on the Lord, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting in such abundance today.