I remember it like it was yesterday. Fourth Grade Career Day. I went as a school teacher.
I remember my friends parading through the hallways as if it were Halloween. They were dressed in the most extravagant versions of what they hoped their future might be, and for some what their parents hoped for them one day.
We dreamed of twirling on stages, rescuing people from burning buildings and flying deep into space before we could articulate complete thoughts. The world was our playground and our imaginations untamed!
I like to think God took great delight in the innocence of those dreams as we danced through our living rooms, made firetrucks out of old refrigerator boxes and spacesuits from tin foil out of our kitchen cupboards.
As children we had the creativity to take the resources from our house and believe in the impossible. We took what we had on hand and created original masterpieces, told big stories and made elaborate plans.
Then we started growing up.
I remember the day in junior high school my best friend and I realized we were too old for make believe. We had spent years playing in her basement, creating mansions out of that small concrete space where we survived pretend tornadoes and hurricanes with our My Child Dolls, Barbies and My Little Pony’s.
As adolescents we suddenly became embarrassed by some of the tools that had brought us life and helped us escape from the real world.
High school came and we carried with us a few tools we knew we could hold on to. For some it was a football, a volleyball or running shoes. For others straight A’s and academic books. There were some who found an instrument or a love of the stage and a few lucky ones began to see their childhood dreams become a reality.
Yet we all graduated with something in our hand. A remnant. A reminder of that inner child that believed we were created with a bigger purpose. Something much bigger than ourselves. We still believed in a God-given call that we heard so clearly while wearing that tin foil hat in our refrigerator box fire truck yet it had grown faint with time.
Then came time to make a choice. College. This decision felt so final and permanent and it was terrifying because it meant hanging up our tutus and cowboy hats for a degree the world would approve of and make our parents proud.
Much like Fourth Grade Career Day at college graduation we paraded across the stage in our elaborate caps and gowns towards a future we hoped would live up to our expectations or the expectations of others.
Unlike most of my friends, I never really had a plan. I completed my five year degree but I didn’t attend graduation, instead I can remember spending that day at my computer working on song lyrics and melodies. I was okay with tin foil, refrigerator boxes and tattered dress up clothes as long as I could be true to who God had made me to be. I wanted to be available. I wanted to be used. I wanted to trust His ways over my own.
The piece of paper I was to be given at graduation, my diploma, was mailed to me the next week. I had spent five years working towards a degree while another dream was burning in my heart, but I finished my degree.
This degree put a whistle in my hand as Physical Education and Health Teacher when what I really wanted and had prayed for was a microphone.
Sometimes God sends us into the big, scary world carrying a whistle.
I would spend the next 10 years carrying a whistle in one hand as a PE Teacher and a microphone in the other as a part time Worship Leader. I spent 10 years wondering how all of this was going to end up making sense and how I could use what I had been given and what God had been teaching me, to make an impact for the Kingdom.
The whistle was giving me the gift of learning and teaching. It taught me how to be a good listener, evaluator, a lifelong learner. Empathy. Patience. Perseverance.
The whistle was the tool to keep me connected to a community outside of my Christian bubble and to look for opportunities for ministering to those much different than me.
It wasn’t until I turned 34 years old that the Lord allowed me to hang up this whistle for a full time microphone as a worship leader.
Sometimes He sends us into the world with a microphone but it comes with great responsibility, one that I wasn’t ready to carry as an immature 22 year old who thought the world needed to hear my voice.
Sometimes He send us into the big scary world with a microphone because the world needs to hear HIS voice.
The enemy is really good at making us afraid that if something doesn’t happen for us, if our dreams don’t come true exactly the way we thought they should that our time has passed and that God has forgotten us. He wants us to get desperate, to be unsatisfied with our current roles and and opportunities and grab tools out of our toolbox before being properly trained on how to use them.
I believe when God made each of us He gave us more than one dream and that He equipped us with talents and strengths that would help us partner with Him in His work. I know God called me and marked me to serve His Church, from the beginning of time that has been my calling. But I also believe I can do that in many ways using many different tools.
I love that God has given me the knowledge and understanding of how to teach people to take care of their bodies through diet and exercise. I am proud of my degree and the ways I can use it to educate others and minister to them through teaching Biblical identity and self worth.
I am so thankful that God put a whistle in my toolbox.
I love that God has given me a passion for His Church and a love for His people. I am so grateful that He has given me the understanding of words, rhymes, imagery and lyrics to write songs over His Church. I am so glad He placed me in a pastor’s home where I learned how to love people and was trained in music and singing specific to His House.
I am so grateful and humbled that God put a microphone in my toolbox.
As I mentor younger worship leaders I find myself having this same conversation over and over again. What are the tools God has given you that He wants to use right now?What has God placed in your hand for this season that might not feel like the original dream but it’s your reality?
Can you see the beauty of how He’s made you? Can you be patient as He teaches you to use one while the other one sits waiting? You are more than just a singer or teacher or whatever your title might be. God has given you more than just one tool and He delights in watching you grow and change as He leads and guides you on the journey He has planned.
The enemy wants you to feel stuck, unsatisfied and frustrated. God wants you to be filled with joy, contentment and satisfied in Him. He loves to dream with us! He loves to revisit that 4th Grade career fair parade and takes delight in our passions. He won’t withhold anything from us, he wants good things for us. Sometimes He asks us to wait and how we wait will determine the way we pick up that next tool.
Be patient, be faithful in this season and use what He has given you unto Him and for His glory. Don’t stop dreaming, write down what He’s put in your heart and run hard towards Him. You have so much to offer this world and the Lord has good plans for you. No matter what this season looks like, whether you’re holding a whistle or a microphone, be faithful.
God will complete what He began. He’s not in a hurry, He knows what He’s doing.
God is faithful.
Allow Him to take His time with you.