THE FIGHT. THE UNCERTAINTY. THE SURRENDER.
Have you ever fought something and said I won’t give up until “I WIN” at all costs? Yes? Then me too! That’s a phenomenal drive to have, but what if the fight is against your God-given assignment? What if the thing you are fighting, is what you are supposed to surrender to? Is submitting to the will of God easy? Not one bit! Following God’s will can be excruciating! I call those moments the Garden of Gethsemane moments when Jesus was in agony in the garden. Matthew 26:39 “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Walking in full surrender to the will of God you have to put your flesh under subjection to fulfill certain things he wants you to do. Making Jesus Lord over your life is also including him in decisions. To walk in obedience to God, you’ll have what seems like significant losses but on the other side of obeying God is an abundance of blessings! Obeying him rather you can see what’s on the other side or not, is a step in the right direction. You don’t always immediately see the benefits of following his instructions, sometimes it’s years down the line before you see them.
“Sometimes, you’ll lose people, you’ll lose environments, and you’ll even suffer at times. You’ll have times of feeling all alone and asking yourself, “Is it all gonna be worth it?” Little did I know, yes it was worth leaving what I thought what was best for me behind!”
But before I understood that, I fought tooth and nail with God about changing my career for a very long time before acknowledging his plan. I’ll be honest. I feared I would be losing a prominent future, a future of wealth, financial freedom, and stability. That’s what I thought I was losing. So, I was not willing to give it up.
We’ve all encountered a fight in some shape or form, from having to move to a new city, a new neighborhood, starting a new business, or a new career path. This is something we can all identify with sometimes, fighting the very thing that’s best for us. Some of us have strong wills, so sometimes it takes circumstances to break that wall we’ve built for us to yield to God. There are areas we have built walls maybe even towers for God not to touch. Those walls will come crumbling down when we’ve built something without his approval. Sometimes it’s those very things that wake us up to realign us to walk in full surrender to his will. Fighting while we’re supposed to be surrendering is costly! This is why I’m grateful to God! God’s love didn’t point the finger at me, and say “You loser, you messed up your whole life!” The enemy did, but God didn’t! Instead, God’s love gave me the option to choose him. He didn’t leave me in that state of mind, he didn’t leave me behind those walls of doing life my way! He loved me so much amid the fight, he loved me while I was fighting him! My eyes well up with tears when thinking of how patient God is with us, even when we fight with him! God’s love reaches beyond our fight and brick by brick he removes the hardness of our hearts.
After the fight, there was still a process to work through before I fully surrendered to God’s assignment. After a fight, you have to rest and recover, you have to pause and rethink what caused the fight in the first place. I discovered through some internal examinations that I needed my soul to be made whole. Uncertainty isn’t a comfortable place. It’s a place where you see your flaws, and it’s a place where you see your weaknesses. It’s a place where you see the inner man for who it really is. A place of uncertainty can be a place where growth is needed, and healing, and faith has the opportunity to grow. It’s a place of re-alignment, meaning you got off track somewhere, you missed the mark.
“During this time there was healing that I had to walk out. My mind, will, and emotions, my soul had to heal. God had to perform some internal work in me to understand that my worth and value truly came from Him and not outward things!”
While I fought to change my career, I kept landing jobs to work in education! After graduation, I seemed to always gain employment in schools! To put things more into perspective, these are the years right after graduating college with a degree in architecture, which was my dream career. But, God graced me to work with youth, and this came naturally to me. Isn’t that ironic, the thing we fight against the most is the very thing that’ll have the biggest impact on our lives and on the lives of others! Throughout my life, I have had the grace to work with youth, ranging from kids-young adults most of my lifetime. So as I continue to work in schools, this particular school I encountered, had me rethinking working in education. I started to have encounters of being taken advantage of, boundaries being crossed, and a lot of undermining and control being prevalent. The work environment was very toxic, it got so bad I requested to have a meeting with the principal and had to write a letter of my concern for the safety of the children in my classroom for being out of ratio. I encountered a lot of moments at this school, that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I said in my heart, “no thanks, if I have to go through mistreatment, I don’t want to work in another school! I’ve had it! I made up my mind, let me go ahead and start looking for graphic design jobs.” I had my mind made up, to not return to work in a school. If I was gonna have to deal with mistreatment, forget it! But later I understood that those encounters were a set-up to make me reject working in education.
I’ve tried to reason my way out of situations where I’m sure God was like, “Wait until she sees what’s on the other side of her surrendering.” After the uncertainty, I surrendered to what he wanted for my life. I talked myself into not wanting to continue to work in schools, because of that one incident. I finally hung my boxing gloves and waved the white flag to surrender to one of God’s assignments for my life. I had a brief moment of trying to go backward because of a situation that left me feeling like this is not worth it! But isn’t that the trick of the enemy to have you opt out of something cause you’ve had a bad experience with it? Bad experiences cause us to view from a filter that’ll group everything in one basket.
“Rather a bad relationship, a bad encounter with a church, a school, or a car dealership, you name it, one bad experience doesn’t mean they are all the same. That’s something I had to deal with, not allowing a bad experience to abort my assignment. I had a moment in prayer and I’ll never forget it, I said “God, if there is a certain type of child you want me to work with, I’ll do it!”
Shortly after that prayer, I was given a word in 2015 that God will use me in the classrooms and I’ll make a difference so much that it’ll be newsworthy. That word confirmed so much! Throughout the years I received a few more confirmations on the impact I’ll have in the classroom. Little did I know, God would place me in a room filled with special needs children. Working with special needs kids I’ve gained so much respect for humanity, I gained so much respect working and understanding how these little humans are valued by God. They are not mistakes, they are not to be overlooked or mistreated because of their outward limitations. This put an advocate mentality in me, just for people in general. Nobody’s life is wasted!
This was a world I have never seen, this was a world I was introduced to that stole my heart. I call them crumb snatchers cause there always snatching snacks lol but I’m absolutely grateful to God, I get to play a role in developing positive behaviors in the kids I work with.
All those fears I had of not being financially secure and not being able to accomplish certain things were crushed, God was and still fully providing for me! To this day being blessed and provided for by a decision, I made 8 years ago. So much favor has followed me in making that decision to work with a specific type of child. I had no clue I’ll be placed in self-contained classes working with special needs children, my heart is overwhelmed working with them. I value them, I love them and I’m built to develop them.
Everyone has a fight, a time of uncertainty, and something they have to surrender to. I’m honored to have shared one of mine, relating to following what he wanted for me in my career. That moment in prayer catapulted my entire life! I pray you hear God amid the fight and uncertainties in life and that you’ll be motivated to surrender to the assignments he has in store for you. If you already have, share with others your “Worth Story” it’ll bless them!
I love how much your story resonated with me. Thanks so much for sharing and I will definitely be praying to God to help me realize my worth too.