Anticipating the Move to Richmond

How I wish I could take you all on the journey I have had this past summer, but perhaps it would need to go even further back to last fall. The thing is that no one wants to read a story that long. Also, I cannot possibly tell you all the details. I will start with some.

As many know, I graduated May 4 with my doctorate of ministry. The celebration was amazing as people loved on me with wonderful words of encouragement, Bible verses, and gifts. How often it is that big celebrations bring such a feeling of accomplishment and height of emotion. There was the sense of being on a high mountain top. After graduation, I felt such ecstatic joy and relief along with a sense of dread of when the exhaustion and the "now what" questions would come. I did not even know if I wanted to continue in pursuit of ministry.

Luckily, my parents delayed the descent from the mountain top by giving me a trip with them to go to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. Leading up to the trip I was a nervous wreck. At one point my mom had to say, to wake me up from my anxiousness, “If you are so worried about this then maybe you should stay home.”

On that trip I wrote a prayer for the wailing wall. In my prayer I said how we so often associate lostness with people that do not know Jesus, but here I was, and I felt lost. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. What I needed was God to intervene in my life and give me some direction. God has not stopped in climbing me higher towards Him.

The trip to the Holy Land was incredible. Seeing all the sights does bring the Bible alive, but my take-away was a couple, Kathy and RM. We met on the trip. The first night of the tour, my mom is going around introducing herself to the group and introducing people to each other. As she is doing this, she finds a couple whom both happen to be ministers. Kathy was not only a minister, but the director of women’s ministry for the district of Indiana.  I thought her nice and easy for small talk and at most meals she told me which dessert was the best.

Kathy and I were supposed to sit on a short plane ride we had to the Sinai Peninsula, but at the last minute she changed seats. At first, I thought God determined to place this woman in my life to talk to on this confined space of the plane.  But, when she changed seats, I thought that idea was gone.  However, God has a sense of humor...We get off the plane and load onto a bus that we will be traveling on for the next 10 days. I head to the second row from the back. Where does this couple sit? In the back row. From that point on we never changed seats even when the tour guide asked us to.

For the rest of the trip I got to have conversation after conversation with Kathy. The plane ride would not have been enough. God wanted to do more. 

One of the first days we were talking with the Kathy and RM we found out they were pastors for the Assemblies of God. My mom asked does that mean you speak in tongues. They said yes. I looked at the couple and turned away. In my mind, this couple was off their rockers. The few people I knew, at that point in time, who spoke in tongues were outsiders or even mentally unstable, not a norm.

The Kathy was determined to not let me cement my wall toward them. She would not let me be. When a young girl in our group fainted. Kathy caught the young girl. After the young girl was tended to, Kathy told me "You see how I caught her, that is my Assemblies of God catching coming into practice and I was praying in tongues the whole time." I laughed. My determination became to ignore this minor of speaking in tongues and focus on the majors of what we had in common in our faith walks.

By the end of the trip, I wrote Kathy and her husband a note saying I would be praying for them as they continued seeking God’s discernment. I said I would pray in my normal language unless there was a day God chose to give me a richer prayer language of tongues.

I said it half joking and half hoping God would bless me with a private prayer language. Prayer has been an essential of my faith journey. If I am given a chance to pray, more often than not I will jump in to pray. Praying out loud in groups has been harder to adjust to, but I do not want my fear to keep me from pursuing God’s goodness.

When Kathy left, I thought there went a blessing God gave me with no promise of another meeting until heaven. I connected to her so easily.
Yet, God opened the door for Kathy and I to continue communication. Early in the trip Kathy had given me her number. I know she was on sabbatical where she was not allowed to talk to any people from her church.  Knowing this I took full advantage of being someone she could talk to through texting. I texted Kathy almost every day.  

Deep down I began to think what if I could go work with Kathy for a time to learn more about the Assemblies of God church. I got to my knees to begin to pray that if this is God’s will for me to work with Kathy, she will get on board with it. My plan was to not tell Kathy I was praying this prayer.

Then because I started to use this “job” as a place holder, to tell people when they asked me what I was doing, I told Kathy. I knew it would some how travel back to her if I did not tell her. At first, she did not really respond to it.

Then, at this three-day music festival in Northern Michigan, I felt God prompting me to go to the prayer tent. My pride said no way am I going in the tent for the people that really need Jesus. God, like He always does, won out. I walked into the tent and two women were there asking if they could pray for me. Before a word came out of my mouth I began to cry.

The women told me two things. First, God does not care about your doctorate. He qualifies the called not the qualified. Second, the importance of the secret place. What these ladies did not know is that Kathy had recommended a book to me to read called “The Secrets of the Secret Place.”

I began to read the book, do the study alongside it, and practice the secrets. At sunrise I would get up to sing praise songs and enter the secret place. God began to break down walls in my life. I cried tears and tears, all of them healing and powerful.
Kathy and I continued to talk as I would ask her about speaking in tongues. Then on July 3, I began to speak in tongues. It was a costly gift. On that same day I managed to destroy one of my closest and long-standing friendships and began to have issues with my nanny job. It was painful. Following Jesus is never easy. 

I waited to text Kathy about my new prayer language for a week, but in the meantime, I found a person whom I have known all my life who lives in the same town as Kathy and RM. More and more, I was beginning to feel this made up “job” with Kathy was really what God was preparing me for this summer. The person I knew all my life just so happened to have rooms for me to rent while I would be working with Kathy. That night with this friend, a cross appeared in the sunset while we talked about my moving to Richmond.

On July 15, Kathy officially offered for me to come intern with her. My gut reaction was: This is it. Finally, Kathy and I were on the same page. Then I talked to myself about how crazy it was to move to another city to work with a person I met for two weeks in the Holy Land.

The summer continued as I found myself in secret places all over. I was falling madly and deeply in love with God.   Part of what spurred on my new deeper relationship with God was Kathy. She had been a pointer of not pushing me, but giving tools for my hungry soul to find Jesus in new and intimate ways.

On the way home from Michigan I stopped to see my living quarters and to see Kathy for the first time in three months. The thoughts running through my head were not even logical. What if I have been catfished this whole time. Kathy and I never talked on the phone. We only texted and God yet developed an amazing friendship.

When I saw Kathy, she gave me one of the best hugs I might have ever received in my life. I felt right at home in the church. Excitement built for what was to come as I toured the church.

I had a week at home to pack and prepare for my two months move. There were plenty of ups and downs over the week. I kept repeating to myself perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18) and God loves me perfectly. When I sat and repeated those words over and over again my fears would disappear. I got into the car to drive to my new place and I felt God’s peace guide me all the way.

The only two things I know for sure about this journey so far are sacrifice and obedience. God was calling me to obedience. Despite whatever was thrown in my way to keep me from going to work with Kathy, I needed to be obedient to follow through. I could have chosen not to get in the car to head North to Lighthouse church and Kathy, but I would miss out on what God had so clearly laid out for me this summer.

I knew this journey would mean sacrifice. Before, when I had opportunities there was always some excuse, I would come up with to not take the opportunity, missing out on Michigan, not watching my nieces grow up, or missing Clemson football games. Moving to Richmond those things seemed to pale as I knew that the safest place to be is where God calls you.

Kathy and I are still unsure of what this internship will look like, but I am holding on to God. I do know that since Kathy has been in my life I have gone deeper with God and am renewed in my pursuit of Him.

I plan to keep updates on this page as I start on this new journey of leaping in faith to see what God wants to do with me in Richmond.
Let God be magnified.