Leeaap of Faith!

Do you have a lifelong dream that you maybe didn’t get the chance to pursue?  Do you have a yearning deep inside to do something or accomplish something, and yet all you can see are barricades and detours and signs that say “Impossible”?

I sure have.  Years ago….decades ago….I felt a call from God to go into the ministry.  So when I got to the University of Texas I earned my Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and had every intention of continuing immediately on to seminary to pursue a career in counseling or Christian education.  But you know sometimes how “life happens,” and by the time I was walking across the stage to receive my diploma I also had an engagement ring sparkling on my finger and wedding plans swirling in my head.  So my next step after college was to get a job, any job, purely for financial survival as a young newlywed helping her husband finish his degree.  Soon children came along and parenting with all its joys and demands.  But every once in awhile through the years would come the memories of my original plan and then wistful wonderings of “What if?”  And yet, there was always a mountain of reasons why it couldn’t happen.

And in the meantime, what about the calling from God to the ministry?  I have sincerely tried to follow that leading, but it always has been manifest in a volunteer capacity.  And yet, God says this --   

Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.                          
                                                                                                        ~  1 Thessalonians 5:24

But 2011 came crashing in and brought an unprecedented time of trial into my life, an attention-grabbing series of life-altering events, and I was flung head first into a season of reflection and reevaluation; a siege of searching, wondering, and seeking God’s plan for my path.  

I sought the LORD and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.          ~ Psalm 34:4

I have a pink sticky note that I wrote on the day I lost my job with a list of five specific prayer requests which I lifted up to God in my first hours of terror and desperation.  That sticky note is still posted on my desk by my computer and I pray over it every time I look at it.  The last two petitions to the Lord say, “Open a door” and “Make this a blessing.”

Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.           ~ Psalm 37:4

So, on the morning of July 6, 2011, I awoke to the very clear and insistent leading from that voice, His voice, saying, “You should get your Master’s degree.”  “WHAT?  How in the WORLD can I even consider that when I need to be bringing money IN rather than funneling more OUT!”  But even so, the thought did cause a thrill to shoot through me – could it be?  Could this be my solution, could realizing my lifelong dream be God’s leading – His answer to my prayers beseeching Him to open a door and make this (crisis) a blessing?

But how? Where? What will be the outcome?  A barrage of questions flooded in and yet, I was reminded of the story in Genesis of how God called Abraham to leave his home, pack up his family and his belongings and move “to a land that I will show you.”  God didn’t tell Abraham where he was supposed to go, but he was just to obey, take one step at a time, have faith, and trust that God would show him the rest as the time was right! 

And also many others of God’s promises have come to me during these last weeks, such as these –

Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm.  Nothing is too hard for you.                    ~  Jeremiah 32:17

God will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.                   ~ Philippians 4:19

Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’                          ~  Matthew 19:26

So I stepped out.  No, I LEAPED out.  For the last three and a half weeks I have been immersed in researching degree plans, filling out admissions applications and financial aid paperwork, writing admissions essays and autobiographies, soliciting letters of reference, obtaining certified transcripts from the University of Texas, even taking an admissions test.  I have also visited schools in person – St. Edwards, Texas State, and one I had not heard of before, Seminary of the Southwest; all the while fighting against the doubts and fears that I was stumbling into the realm of the impossible, getting my hopes up that I could finally return to my path of so long ago, only to have the way closed again. 

And yet, every time I would open my Bible I would come across more verses like this ~

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.  Nothing will be impossible for you.

                            ~  Matthew 17:20

And then it dawned on me – getting my Master’s degree, that was not MY idea but God’s!   So if He is going to tell me to do this, then He will make the way for me – from getting me admitted INTO the school, to providing for the financial demands as well. 

Then Job replied to the LORD:  ‘I know that you can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted.’      ~  Job 42:2



Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas



So my big, amazing, earth-shattering news is that today, August 2, 2011, I was accepted as a graduate student at the Seminary of the Southwest to begin the path of earning my Master’s degree in Counseling!

God has opened the door wide and I have walked through! 

O LORD, save us, O LORD grant us success.   ~  Psalm 118:23

So the time of waiting is over.  The season of living in the “Not-Knowing” has ended.  The door has been flung wide open and my path revealed.  And I am humbled.  I am in awe.  I am so grateful.  And I am about to POP I’m so excited!!!! 

I love how God always seems to work music into exactly what is happening in my life.  Here are the words to the Vacation Bible School song that our Children’s Director has asked for our Praise Team to work up and sing THIS SUNDAY.  It has become the song of my soul, and it can be for yours, too.  So as you read the lyrics below, think of YOUR dream, your unmet longing, and see if you can sing these words to God and let Him, the God of the impossible, the God of new hope, give you a new beginning, too.

TODAY IS THE DAY

I’m casting my cares aside

I’m leaving my past behind

I’m setting my heart and mind on You, Jesus

I’m reaching my hand to Yours

Believing there’s so much more

Knowing that all You have in store for me is good, it’s good.

Today is the day You have made

I will rejoice and be glad in it

And I won’t worry about tomorrow

I’m trusting in what You say

Today is the day

I’m putting my fears aside

I’m leaving my doubts behind

I’m giving my hopes and dreams to You, Jesus

I’m reaching my hand to Yours

Believing there’s so much more

Knowing that all You have in store for me is good, it’s good.

I will stand upon Your Truth

All my days I’ll live for You

Words and music by Lincoln Brewster and Paul Baloche 2008

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  Amen.       ~ Ephesians 3:20-21

Listen.   Trust.    Follow.