Fresh Perspective

Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.  (Well, actually not quite a prince, or in Bel-air... but I would like to tell you a little bit about the past year of my life.)

In June 2014, my life was seriously flipped-turned upside down.  Life as I knew it was shattered.  Dreams were broken.  Hopes were crushed.  The very sand that I had built my life on washed away with the tides, and I was left with a broken heart and tons of questions.  I was angry.  I was bitter.  I was at rock bottom.  I fought--hard.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I did everything in my power to try to make it right.  I did not understand how something so ugly, so heart-wrenching, so disastrous could be "part of a plan" or "happen for a reason."  Honestly, every time someone told me these things, I wanted to punch them in the throat.  Literally.  How can God, the Perfect One, have willed for me/us to get a divorce and to break the sacred vow of marriage?  How's that part of the plan?  Question after question flooded my mind.  I searched for answers in everyone I spoke to about it.  I searched for answers by trying to "undo" what had been done.  I was searching....looking everywhere but up.  I felt like someone at the bottom of a deep dark pit running in circles aimlessly trying to get out.

Little did I know, while I was running in circles doing everything in my will to make it right, God's hand was reaching down to pull me out of the pit.  All I had to do was to look up to see it, take hold of it, and just be held.  I decided to go back to church in January--still searching for answers.  God met me there, right where I needed to be.  Message after message, my heart broke.  I felt like God was speaking directly to me--calling me back home.  Since January, I have been on a journey.  A spiritual journey, an emotional journey, and a physical journey.  I attended a Women's Conference in February, and God spoke directly to my heart through Alicia Williamson-Garcia when she said, "We wonder why we don't hear from God....God speaks Bible."  This resonated volumes with me.  I heard that line over and over in my head.  God. Speaks.  Bible.  Not English, not Spanish, not German, or even Hebrew.  God speaks Bible.  How can I expect to hear from Him if I'm not diving into his living Word?  Again, a journey began, another twist in the road.

So, God began to place on my heart the strong motivation/urge/desire to move to Oxford.  I prayed long and hard about it only wanting to do His will.  Again, for answers?  God speaks Bible.  So, I prayed.  I studied.  I searched.  All the while, I strived to "get back to God."  It wasn't until very recently that I realized that all I had to do was look up to his out-stretched hand.  So, I finally looked up, and God welcomed me home with outstretched arms--his prodigal daughter.  So... back to the desire to move to Oxford.  I had a plan.  I was moving to Oxford to live with my sister and to work at one of two schools that I had in mind.  Everything seemed to be falling into place.  Without even putting my house "officially" on the market, I had an offer on it.  I attended a job fair in Oxford, and I left in tears--happy tears.  God was working it out according to my plan.  I went into an interview that I rocked out.  I knew that I had the job.  It was a lock.  I waited, and waited.  I heard some good news about the job.  I knew I had it.  I just knew it.  Then, the e-mail came.  I didn't get it.  Where did I go wrong?  Did I mis-read God's plans?  I must have.  I decided that it was "God's Will" for me to stay in Grenada.  I decided to stay put.  So, I was confident in my  God's plans for me--staying in Grenada, or so I thought.  I was okay with this... for about a week.  After a week, I began to sink again.  I felt myself slipping away into a pity party.  Poor, poor pitiful me.  I was going to be couch sleeping "homeless" for a month.  I didn't have an apartment.  My puppy was gone.  Life was not what I though it would be.  I was bitter.  I felt the bitterness start to creep in.  As it did, I also felt a tug at my heart--God speaks Bible.  So, as I searched and studied, I felt God speaking to me, over and over, "Fix your eyes."  "Focus."  It took reminder after reminder to wake me up.  Over and over again, at the start of each new day, I chose to fix my eyes on Christ.  I chose to rise up and seek Him through it all--in the good and the bad.  It was at the point of total surrender that it all became clear to me.  God knew what he was doing.  Everything truly does happen for a reason.  He is already there on the other side of this mountain looking at the entire journey from afar.

Fast-forward to last week... I settled down with the idea of staying in Grenada.  I was okay with the fact that this is what God had in store for me.  One day a few weeks ago, I checked my email where I found an e-mail thanking me for applying for a math position at a school that I would love to teach at.  I didn't apply for it; the system linked me up to it automatically.  I decided that it was worth a shot at least.  Last week, I completely forgot about the fact that I had applied for the job.  My phone rang on Tuesday, and it was the principal of this school calling to set up an interview.  I went for my interview last Wednesday, and I loved the school.  The demeanor, the people, the values--everything.  It was perfect.  Again, I continued to pray, not my will, Lord, but thine.  I received a call back after the interview that sounded promising, and I continued to pray--Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.  Today.... big big news....

This summer, I will be moving to Oxford, MS, and, this fall, I will begin teaching 7th grade math at Oxford Middle School.  I am beyond excited for this next chapter of my life.  I have no doubt that God has big plans for me.  He has provided, and He will continue to provide.  It was only when I stopped relying on my own will and my own abilities and truly began to trust and to look up that I found Him waiting patiently for me.  And, now, I have an answer to the prayers from June 2014.  Maybe, just maybe, it isn't that God plans or wills these things to happen in our lives, but, rather He allows them to happen through our own free will, and He uses them to shape us into His image and His likeness more and more everyday.  Praise God for his faithfulness--every.  single.  day.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
—Isaiah 55:8–9 NKJV