God taught me many things during that down time. God taught me to be open. One of the families from my small group at church invited me to come and stay with them in their home while I recovered. They loved me and cared for me and taught me once again what it meant to be a part of a family. What a treasure. It was a closeness that I had pushed away. It was a dependence that is not in my nature.
Yes, God taught me dependence. I have been independent since the day I was born. I know that you will find that hard to believe. (She says with a smirk that belies the truth of that statement!) And while that independence has served me well in times that I did not think I would make it, it has also kept me from knowing the fullness of God’s strength in my life. He spends a lot of time waiting for me to put down my tools so He can show me another way. This might take less time if I would just stop moving and be still.
God taught me to be still. It is probably the first time in my life that I was still for early three weeks straight. I sat and spent time with people. I sat and spent time with Him. I sat and let Him speak into my life in ways that I had forgotten He would.
Yes, I am grateful.
This year has been one of tremendous learning. Those quiet moments with God have made me stronger and braver. God has taken me to places that I never would have been willing to go. I have been terrified. I have led. I have followed. I have embraced new people. And I have let them embrace me.
One of the paths God has taken me down this past year led me to Clarkston, GA. There is a certain irony in this because I have worked at my job in Clarkston, GA for the past 8 ½ years. But I came to Clarkston in the morning and I left Clarkston at night. And I certainly did not come in on the weekends. But this year Proskuneo Ministries set up a base of operations in Clarkston. I am a volunteer with this group. For the past several years I have been a songwriting mentor at their summer worship arts intensive, Proskuneo Worship Institute (PWI). I have interpreted a couple of songs for events they have done. And I have been a cheerleader. But I have not fully engaged in their overall mission “to glorify God and promote unity in the Body of Christ through multilingual, multicultural worship gatherings, worship resources, and training in order that lives be transformed and nations come together to worship God.” (www.proskuneo.org)
Something happened this last year. I can look back now and see how God has shifted me. But if He had told me where we were going, I would have graciously ignored Him. (I believe in being 100% honest!) I have had a vision for a school established to teach the arts to children who would otherwise have
no access. I have had this dream for a little over 8 years. I remember sitting in a restaurant one night and drawing out this vision on the back of a paper placemat. My vision was to build a “complex” that gave space to every art form – visual arts, music, worship arts, drama, etc. There were buildings planned for
each art form with auditoriums and galleries and studios in which to work. We would have artists who would be given space in which to work and in exchange would give of their time to teach these children. It was a big dream. A big picture. Not at all something that I would come up with. I am a details person.
I am the administrative assistant that helps to pull together someone else’s dream. And this dream was going to cost a lot of money. So this “dream” was tucked away in a desk drawer.
Through my involvement with PWI back in 2010, I began to see students who were passionate about growing in their own craft. But they were also passionate about giving out of their gifts to the nations. It was then that the dream came flooding back to mind. So I dug the paper out of the drawer and shared it with Proskuneo’s director, Josh Davis. We never talked about it again until the summer of 2011 when Proskuneo was offered a space to build a school in Clarkston. A School of the Arts. When we started moving into the space at the beginning of 2012 and were praying over the rooms and the students who
would come, I began to see that “the objects in the rear-view mirror might be a closer than they seem.” In my heart though, I didn’t “see” the students who would come. Perhaps because, in my dream, I saw the spaces but I didn’t see the faces.
Last summer I was asked to be the director for PWI. I knew that the students were going to go into Clarkston each week to do outreach. And I knew that the Practicum week would be held there. But that role was on Josh’s plate. Not mine. In fact, Thursdays would be my “off” day. I would be in Clarkston, but at my regular job. I would leave the outreach to Josh. Of course, you know there’s an end to this story that is not at all like the beginning!
One Thursday of the second week I decided to head out on my lunch break to see what they were doing at the apartment complex where they were serving. It was on that day that everything began to change. I met two young boys who decided to make me a part of their family. I heard the story of their journey to America from the Congo. I heard about their love for God and how He made them strong enough to endure. And somewhere in my heart, I heard God’s still small voice saying “these are the ones we are doing this for.”
I started coming to “host” at the Proskuneo School of the Arts a few weeks after PWI ended. Then one day I realized that I didn’t have to be “gifted” at something in order to teach. So I started bringing my camera and teaching a little photography. In the meantime, God began to show me the people behind the faces. Their stories. Their joys. Their hurts. And their beauty. Yesterday I took photographs of all of the students for wall at the school. Last night as I was editing the pictures of nearly 50 students, I found myself laughing as I would open up a picture and see the smiles and the joy. Most of these students have probably seen more life than we can imagine. And yet, they are joyful. And they make me joyful. And then I found myself weeping to think how beautiful and diverse the world is that I get to be a part of. I think so often we have a view of heaven that looks like our surroundings – what is familiar to us. But as I begin to see heaven in the eyes of the children and young adults we work with, I begin to have a much bigger picture of what it truly is.
Yes, I am grateful. Grateful that God still chooses to speak to me, to use me, to put up with me, and to be patient with me as I try to see the world as He sees it.