I have been making decisions for myself for almost as long as I can remember. One of the first big ones was in high school. I made the decision that I wanted to be homeschooled. Once my dad agreed with my decision, we moved in that direction. My goal was to finish my last three years of high school in one-and-a-half years. (I did.)
During that time, I decided to apply for a job at our local nursing home as an activities assistant. While working there, I met a woman who was Deaf. No one at the nursing home knew sign language, so I set about to learn. So I found a summer camp in Tennessee where I could go to do an intensive training. At 15 years old, I had to find a guardian to go with me. My parents agreed, and again, off I went.
When I came back I started volunteering at a home for mentally challenged kids in a town near my home. One of the boys was deaf but had never been taught sign, so I decided I knew enough to teach. (Insert smirk for how wise all 15 year olds are!) When I turned 16, I had finished school so I was ready to take on the world. I found a job at a home/school for challenged kids in Wisconsin, applied, got the job, and hopped the train to Milwaukee.
While at Shepherd’s Home and School, a group of college students from Northland Baptist Bible College came to sing to our residents. Their care for our people led me to decide to go to school AND I was determined to get a music scholarship to sing with this group. Next thing I knew I was living in Dunbar, Wisconsin freezing to death and taking college classes. I had not even graduated from high school yet, because the only way to do so as a homeschooled kid was to get my GED and I was not old enough to do that in the State of New York where I was from. But somehow I had convinced this college to accept me on my SAT scores alone. Two weeks after arriving on campus I got an alto position in the very choir that had inspired my journey to northern Wisconsin. While there I decided to pursue Deaf Education so at the end of the year I went home to New York, completed training as a certified nurse assistant, and worked to put together the money for another college.
Next stop, Cincinnati Bible College. Of course, as things go in Bible college, I fell in love and decided to get married. Now, married to a songwriter who had just gotten cut on an Amy Grant record, we decided to move to Nashville to pursue a career in songwriting. Along the way we decided to move to Missouri and then back to Nashville and then to Rochester and then to Atlanta. And each of those larger decisions had a thousand little decisions that kept me in forward motion. If had chosen another college from the catalog of Christian schools I was looking at, my course would have changed. If I had chosen not to go to the Jesus House that night, I might never have met my future husband. If I had turned right and not left. If I had looked down and not up. If I had chosen to stay silent instead of speaking up.
Every second of the day, we are making decisions that lead to other decisions, that lead to where we are right now. And now I am looking up at the sky and remembering that all along the way I felt God’s tug at my heart. I felt Him drawing me in one direction or another. Was I always right? I doubt it, but I will never know this side of heaven. What I have learned is that God redeems the times when we mess up. He is faithful to meet us wherever we are and put the pieces of the puzzle together again. He sees us from a distance and He sees us while standing right next to us. And today I am pretty sure He was sitting beside me looking up at the sky and showing me what He sees from a distance.
I was in awe at the rate those clouds were moving through the sky. I was feeling the speed at which my days are passing by. From a distance my years are passing by swiftly just like the clouds. I decided to take a video of those clouds on my phone so I could write about it. But something happened. I watched the video back and all of a sudden the movement was almost infinitesimal. God spoke to my heart. “Slow down. Recognize that each day is a gift. Live in this day. Don’t try to see the movement of your life. You cannot see how it all connects. You don't know the impact of your days. I have you in the palm of my hand. Do you trust me to take you where you are supposed to go or do you think that each of your decisions is the key. I am Sovereign over your life. I have been watching your clouds move across the sky for 53 years. I have been with you the whole time. Up close, these decisions seem huge. But really, it is I who makes the sun and the moon move across the sky. Without me, it would all crash and burn. Trust in me and don’t lean on your own wisdom. I (CAPITAL I) am the one who makes your paths straight.”
I am not sure what decision I will make at the end of the month. But I do know that God will not leave me or forsake me.