The Call On My Life... a focus

A few years after my first personal encounter with the 3^rd kind (the Spirit), my sense of call became more focused. I was five years old. At this point in my life, my family had moved on to the campus of North American Baptist College. We lived in Muller Hall. It was fun being a child on campus, and mingling with the students, but there was something significant about the place. I can’t remember the point at which this came clear, but I remember having a sense of the Holy Spirit when I walked off the sidewalk, and on to that campus grass. God whispered into my soul that he had a plan for me. I knew this place would be a big part of that plan.

I would spend the next 10 years of my life preparing to come back and allow myself to be prepared for a lifetime of ministry. At this age I did not know what the ministry would be, but I already had a burden for people, carrying their hurts in my heart. Sometimes I would cry for them. My parents began telling me they thought I would be in full-time ministry someday, but at the same time they treated my ambition like a cutsie kid thing (as, of course, they would), but I was serious. Since this point I collected a calendar of NABC every year, and I circled each course I was going to take and I knew why I was going to take it and how it would contribute to my learning for my future ministry. I have now taken each one of them at the college level and many at Seminary.

The context of this call was really specific, in place, time, and content, but the ramifications were much broader. It has played a gigantic part in working me into a woman that God can use. I’ll share some of the changes its made in me later. For now I just rest in what it has offered me, and unrest in what i’m to do now that I am a stay at home mom, and my priorities and lifestlyle are completely different. I honestly don’t know what to do with my self, and my personal ambitions are making it extremely difficult to hear God’s voice!

The Call On My Life... the first call

I was a little girl. Three years old. This was the first time I felt God move in my heart and knew (to some degree) what it was. I remember my parents talking with Andrew (Andrew is my brother) as he made the decision to pray and ask Jesus into his heart. I remember knowing that it was a really important decision, and feeling like crying when he did that. I wanted to do it, too, but I was too shy to ask right away. Two days later I mustered up my little girl courage, and asked if I could “do what Andrew did.”

Mom and dad didn’t understand what I meant right away, but when they figured it out, my parents prayed with me a “repeat after me” prayer. So what did this mean for my life? Can a little girl really make a decision that impacts her soul? Was it something that could really change my little three year old life?

I was too young to understand all that it meant to be a Christian, but I did know who Jesus was, and that I needed him. Of course, what that would mean practically for my life wouldn't be understood until I actually lived my life, moment by moment. In a class I took a few years ago from an incredible man with profound insight into humanity and the God who created humanity, our professor, Tim Colborne, shared with us a quote: "You can only give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of God." I don't know who said this, but I believe it is true. At three, I could give all I knew of myself to the God that I knew. Naturally, this relationship has grown with me, day by day.

As I grew in wisdom and stature I took what I learned about God very seriously and asked a lot of serious questions. I wanted to understand better the decision I had made. This decision, made with a 3 year old heart, set my life in a direction... one that I would need to question and evaluate for the rest of my life. My life has been defined by that moment I first heard God call.

Continue:  The Call on My Life... A Focus