We're Not in Kansas Anymore... Oh, Wait...

Snow flurries.

In the midst of a neverending winter that began in November, I wouldn't think a single flake more would make me smile.

But it does. This snow comes in Kansas, 660 miles southwest of my home.

It is my first morning in an unknown land. In the span of a month and a half, I've gone through multiple interviews, writing and editing assignments, a flight to Kansas City, being offered a job and uprooting my life two and a half weeks later to drive to a new place for a new life.

I don't know anyone, and honestly, my brain is still spinning. I almost don't even know how I got here.

Almost. In truth, though, I do. I am Abraham, going to a land unfamiliar a familiar God has shown me. I should have been a bit more careful what I prayed for.

2013 was a bit of a stuffy, stilted year for me. My beloved coffee shop closed down and I went to work at a new one, where I didn't feel I fit from day one. Going to Nicaragua was the best part of the year and did so much to my heart, but I can't even begin to explain the frustration of having to be back. Home, surrounded by the people who have loved and cared for me all my life, home to the familiar and comfortable.

I wanted to go. Back to Nicaragua. To Colorado and work at Compassion. Even to Nashville to work with some ministry there. I felt like my heart was pulling from my chest to GO and help God's people, to love and live my life in service to others, but I was restrained by my place in life here. It figuratively was me running into a wall over and over.

And that's when I took note of my desire. Ministry. Perhaps I couldn't firmly describe it before. Perhaps it's always been there inside of me, wriggling with anticipation for the day it would finally be discovered.

After Nicaragua, I realized I wanted to do more and acknowledged it head on. I wanted to help people, I wanted to impact people, and I wanted to shine God's light in every corner my heart swept over. The more I worked at the coffee shop, the more frustrated I became. For months I struggled whether I needed to shift my perspective and see coffee as my calling as I once did, while a small voice inside me whispered I may be made to move on. The world loomed large, and God was at work all around it. Where was I to fit in according to His plan?

And so I soldiered on, working while everything within me cried for more. My canvas was a basecoat of gray, and while I was grateful for the life I lived and the people around me, each day I brushed shades of black and white and mixed up blasé portraits. I was not vibrant. My colors had bled and built up a resilience at anything bright.

It got to be too much one day in November and I knew I needed to do something crazy. I wanted to leave the coffee shop. My family supported me and suggested I begin looking for other jobs first before I left. Problem was, nothing they suggested appealed to me. I looked back on the path I've been on, and I saw how God took care of me, and how He provided for me always at the right time and exactly how I needed. Deep inside me, I knew that He would remain true to this pattern. I knew He would show me the next step.

I'd been doing a Bible study with my friend Lynn, and one of the things God was teaching me was about belief. My belief. First, who did I truly believe God to be? Powerful? All knowing? In control? Able to do immeasurably more? Second, if God is who He says He is, do I truly believe Him to be all of the above?

Over the weeks, His voice echoed through me... Bigger than. Brighter still. Believe Me. I looked back on my life and watched His faithfulness appear over and over again like a picture show in my heart, and I came to the point of believing if I stepped out in faith, He would walk with me. So I gave my notice to the coffee shop, finished out my term and drove away on my last shift with a feather-filled heart and a smile that kept shining on my face.

My first week officially off of work... and God came through. Again. In ways unexpected. A job opportunity presented itself to me at a local church doing administrative work and helping grow their coffee ministry. It would have been part time, but it offered me the chance to grow in the ministry I had been in for 2 1/2 years. Within a day, I was online thinking of places to freelance for, trying to boost my writing resume, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes came to mind. I thought it would be a great organization to write for, so I went to their website to see how to go about inquiring about it and found they had a full time opening for a content writer. I don't know if it was my newfound confidence in life and God's hand in it or a short term high of freedom from work, but I figured, "Why not?" I applied, just because I was throwing stars up in the sky to see where they would land.

A day later FCA emailed and asked for writing samples, and the day after that they wanted to set up a phone interview. At the same time, the church wanted me to come in for an interview.

The next week I went to the church to talk about the position, and they offered me the job. So there was one path open, blue skies and sunshine. I had time to pray and think about it, so I did. I had the FCA phone interview a few days later, and that went well, too. They wanted to move forward and give me some writing and editing assignments. I completed those, and kept praying God would shut doors so my decision would be clear.

He kept doors open.

Throughout the weeks that followed, I imagined myself in two different lives. I saw myself at the church position, gathering people in for open mic nights and serving coffee while trying to find opportunities to write for other publications. Then I thought of myself at FCA, in Kansas City, writing. Honestly, I couldn't see it. I thought I more related to the coffee ministry aspect since that's been on my heart more recently. While I had said to God I'd go anywhere He wanted me to, I never figured on Kansas City and it seemed foreign and not what I had in mind. Yes, FCA was a huge part of my development in high school and college, but athletics was a long time ago for me and I was washed up, surging towards the shore of art and coffee.

But writing has been pulsing through my softest spaces and always in my heart's longing.

Kansas City kept calling. I was set on the church and didn't want to deal with the discomfort of disruption in life, though I kept craving more. I didn't think this could be part of the plan. But I kept telling myself over and over FCA would be a great opportunity, and I'd be a fool to not want it. The interview process kept going, and it came to the point where they wanted to fly me down for a face to face interview. I agreed, because I needed to see it through for whatever reason. But the whole week before leaving, something inside me just didn't want to go, said I would be fine at the church. I wanted to cancel, hoped the weather would do it for me. Not to happen. On the coldest day of decades, I boarded a flight and went down to Kansas City, met with staff and clicked with them and the city. It felt very natural and easy, and as I looked around at the landscape, it had that Midwest feel to it I needed. I flew back that evening, wondering what God was doing.

That was a Monday. On Thursday I flew to Arizona with my mom and sister to visit family. On Friday, as I browsed the shelves of my favorite second hand bookstore in Tucson, my phone rang with FCA Magazine's editor on the other line. There, in the poetry section surrounded by words, he told me they'd be offering the position pending a background check. Well. This was happening, whether I fully wanted it to or not. I enjoyed a beautiful weekend with family, and on Monday after clearing security, I found a voicemail from the editor again. I called him back with fifteen minutes until boarding, at an airport café grabbing an iced caramel latte where he told me the background check came back already and officially offered me the position of content writer. I brilliantly responded, "Wow, that was fast," and followed with rambling about being at the airport about to board and can I please have a few days to pray and think it over?  He agreed, and on the flight I discussed it with my mom. As turbulence grew over the Rockies, so did the turmoil inside me. Could I leave my family? They've been everything to me for 28 years, and I've never been more than 7 miles away. To move to another city was one thing; to another state a completely out of the ordinary matter! Being at the church would be comfortable and known, and I could do a good job at helping the people, but when I stepped back and looked at my faith journey, I knew it would be the FCA job lining up to grow me and pull me away from all I knew and place my trust wholly on God.

There was that voice again, prodding me. Bigger than. Brighter still. Believe Me. Did I believe God to take care of me, to take my talents and mold them together for a purpose beyond my imagining? Could I go, and go in assurance?

I've taken the road less traveled over the years. I've dared God to be big in my own timid ways. This time, I needed to take the biggest leap yet.

I called back the editor. I pushed the air from my lungs and said yes. I jumped and landed in my car just 2 1/2 weeks later, driving through cornfield-framed highways, watching the signs for Kansas City and wondering over and over what I was doing.

Exactly what I'm supposed to be.


So here I am, staring at the snow in a place foreign to my Wisconsin eyes. Do I know where I'm heading here? No. Do I know who's making sure it call gets sorted and carried out? Yes.

I am a stranger to these streets. But the snow swirls, tucking tight between blades of frozen grass. I may be away from everyone I love, but I'm surrounded by God who loves me best.

Like the snow that's fallen to its new home, I, too, will find sweet space to land.