I'm Letting Go

Currently, my ring tone is I'm Letting Go, by Francesca Battistelli. (Yeah, try and say that one right on the first try!) I love that song. Everything about it. The words are superb, and the tune is quite catchy. Not only is it my ring tone, but it also happens to be the song I wake up to every morning. Thank you, cell phone alarm clock.

The chorus and the second verse say:

"I'm letting go
Of the life I planned for me
And my dreams
Losing control
Of my destiny
Feels like I'm falling and that's what it's like to believe
So I'm letting go

This is a giant leap of faith
Trusting and trying to embrace

The fear of the unknown
Beyond my comfort zone"

If that isn't my life prayer at the moment, I don't know what is.

You see, I had my life planned out since I was the little age of 5. I was, hands down, going to be a school teacher. As a child, you could have found me and my BFF in either of our room's playing "School" like no one else's business. I mean, good gosh, we played it for hours on end. And had every teacher supply you could imagine. Good times were had. And I just knew it was good practice for the future.

Fast forward about 10 years, where I went to Sam Houston State University, and pursued my teaching degree in early childhood education. Then graduated (5 years later) and am now a certified teacher in the state of Texas.

And here we are today, where I am not teaching, but rather working at a church. Where if you would have asked me as a high schooler where I wanted to work in the future, the church is the last place I would have said. So, what happened?

About my senior year I REALLY started loving the Lord completely, with my whole being. That's when He really got my attention. Yet I had grown up in church. I guess I could say, compared to all my friends, I was a late bloomer. But then again, everything is perfect in His timing.

A year after that, the Lord really put a desire in my heart to work with girls. Thus began my working with the freshman girls, where I led their small group (2:42 group) with Dana. I loved that, and am pretty sure I learned just as much as they did. Since I stayed home and went to a community college my first year, this was perfect.

When I went to Sam, I kind of felt lost for about a week. My passion for girls was still very there, but I knew NO ONE at school. I didn't know where to go to church, what organizations to get involved in, nor did I have any friends to ask. So, I just started going to things. Alone. Boy was that a stretch for me (because at home I knew everyone and upon entering my church could easily say hi to 50325 people before I ever entered the front door. That's what happens when you attend the same church your whole life) but it was a good thing. In attending new things, I met some girls. They were in a sorority and told me I should get involved. Yes, it was a christian sorority (not that secular ones are bad, I just wasn't into that kinda thing), but like I said, I wasn't into that kind of thing.

Well, push came to shove, and I ended up attending the first meeting of Sigma Phi Lambda, and joined that night. I had an instant connection with a few of the girls, and felt very accepted and comfortable there, hence my rash decision making. And alas, it was basically girls ministry in college.

To say that I loved Phi Lamb is a complete understatement. I wouldn't have become chaplain, or led small groups, or invested my life in these girls for 4 years if I didn't love it.

Of course, during all this, school was getting busier and busier and then I had to face the future. Graduation was upon me. What would I do?!

Right before my Senior year I interned as a Girls Ministry leader at my church for the summer and loved it. But I figured that that would be it, and after graduation I would get a teaching job, and just continue to volunteer as a leader.

The Lord clearly had another plan, because here I am today. A Girls Ministry Director at a CHURCH. Oh, but the love I have for this place and these girls. It is THERE!

Let me tell you why MY other plan was something I loved for a while.

I figured that when I started teaching, yes, I would definitely become a volunteer and probably lead a 2:42 small group, but in the mean time, I would attend Houston's First Baptist Church, because that is surely where I would meet my future husband. I mean, that IS what every single christian in Houston does after graduation if they're not yet married. If that was the plan, then I didn't have to worry about never getting married, because I would find my prince charming there.

Fast forward to now, where I can't attend that church because I clearly have an obligation to mine. Yes, I go on Sunday nights to big church, but the hopes of me meeting someone between the times of 6:30 and 8:00, DURING CHURCH are slim to none. I'm truly not complaining, just stating the facts.

That is the only reservation I had in taking this job. Seriously. How ridiculous is that?! That I would have sacrificed the best job ever, in order to be a teacher, just to go to a different church to meet my husband, where there is not even a guarantee that I would have met him there. How sad I would have been.

I'm not saying that I don't still wonder how I am going to meet my husband. I have not a fat clue. But, I know the Lord does, and I know He is going to have to be a little more creative in fashioning this meeting than me just meeting him at a church that clearly hosts every Godly, young single man in the city of Houston. Who am I kidding, though, he may not even live in Houston.

All of this to say, that every time my precious little cell phone rings, or my alarm goes off, I am reminded to LET GO. To let go of my dreams and the life I planned for ME. To lose control. That this is a giant leap of faith, and I am trusting and trying to embrace the fear of the unknown. And I am so thankful.

I'm letting go!