Lately, my life has felt a little strange. I am in a position where a lot of things feel uncertain. Now that my job as a missionary to a college campus is finished, I have felt tempted to feel insignificant or to feel like I don’t have as much purpose. I have felt God challenging me and showing me that everything we do is for His glory. #1 it’s not about me and “my significance.” And #2 God can use me now just as much as He could use me where I was previously. As I’ve thought about these things and been contemplating what it looks like to be faithful to God in this season of my life, I feel like it is important for me to also encourage you to be faithful where God has you.
God cares about our obedience to Him more than our title and He cares about our faithfulness more than our location. I think I had a certain amount of pride in being a campus missionary and working with college students. I was proud to be involved in the ministry I was doing because I really believed God was moving and it was so cool to be a part of it. None of that is bad, but I must also remember that I am still a missionary, wherever God places me– whether in my neighborhood, or different friend groups, or to lost family, or even to strangers. What I have been slowly learning is that God opens doors for us to do ministry all the time and we just have to be ready for them. Wherever God has placed you, no matter how insignificant it may feel, He has you there for a reason. God is always trying to teach us, don’t miss out on what He wants to show you!
One of the really cool things about no longer being at my previous job is that I have more room in my schedule. I have actually struggled a lot this summer because I don’t have a routine and my schedule is all over the place. I don’t do great without structure. However, God has used my free time in ways I was not expecting. I have been more involved in serving my church and our church family, which has been fun. God burdened my heart for some of the young girls in our church and me and a couple of women in my House Church have hosted a couple of tween girls hangouts. I got to lead a Bible study on anxiety and it was really cool to talk to the young girls about what God has to say about it. We had our devotional time, games, food, pool time, and it was just a blast. Those girls are so special and I feel so certain that God loves them so deeply and has big plans for their lives. If my schedule wasn’t so open, I would not be able to pour into that ministry.
I have also been able to spend more time with family members and serve them and meet needs there. My grandpa’s health is not good and there are a lot of difficult things that have surrounded that. One of my favorite things that happened this summer was being able to sit with my grandma for a few hours and talk. We chatted about how hard things have been for her with my grandpa having cancer and she shared how God is working in her heart and in her life. We laughed, we cried. That’s probably the best conversation I’ve ever had with my grandma. I feel like that was another way God used my open schedule to bless me and bless others.
I have been able to spend more time with neighbors and trying to build deeper connections with them as well. Dillon and I have been praying for our neighbors and our street since we moved about a year ago and it has been so cool to see God answering our prayers. I feel so blessed that God put us in the house He did. With me being less busy, I have had way more opportunities to sit and talk with neighbors and become friends. I have also had more opportunities to pour into personal ministries that God has called me and my husband to, especially using our home for hospitality. We have hosted movie nights and evenings of sharing Bible stories with friends. I’ve even been working on writing my memoir and trying to finish a first draft of my book. God has used this unknown season to do lots of cool things.
It has been so cool to see God answering some of the prayers I’ve been praying for months. I feel like God asked me to step out of something I loved so that I could step into the things God has been planting and watering for me. You can always tell when God is doing something because it happens much easier than things that come from our own efforts. I keep trying to do things I have planned, but once I just submit to God and do His plan, everything starts to make sense. I am seeing some of the fruit of obedience already, and that is truly encouraging and humbling. As followers of Jesus, we often are guided to the next step God wants us to take but we really don’t know the full picture. God has His plans, but we only see a very small piece of the puzzle.
I still feel like a lot of the “puzzle pieces” are not clear for me yet. I still don’t have a new job (at the time of writing this I didn’t have a new job… but I do now! Praise God!), I still have lots of questions about where God is leading me and Dillon, I have lots of passions and projects that I want to pursue but I don’t quite know what God wants to do with them, there’s a lot of things going on within my church or within my family that feel unsettled– there’s a lot of question marks.
A lot of the time, it is important to focus on what we do know rather than all the things we don’t know yet. I know that Jesus has saved me and made me new, He has healed me, He has freed me, and He has given me purpose. I know that my main purpose in this life is to know Jesus, to give Him glory, and to tell others about Him. I know that Jesus has always provided for me and taken care of me so I can trust that He will continue to do so. I know that God has called me to love Him first, then my husband, then others. I know God has called me to be faithfully involved in my church and serving my brothers and sisters in Christ. I know God has given me and my husband a home and wants us to use it for hospitality to love and reach people. I know God has given me a gift and passion for writing and for sharing my story and helping people through trauma and abuse. These are just a few of the things I know, and with that–I feel certain that I’ve got plenty to work with! Now I just need to ask God what He wants me to do with these things. What are the things that you absolutely know to be true? What does God want you to do with that?
This stage of my life is very new for me. I’ve been through a lot of hard things in my life. I’ve had seasons that felt like I was drowning and all I could do was cling to Jesus for dear life. I am not in a season like that now. I think I got used to things falling apart and now I don’t really know what to do with myself when everything is actually going well. I think a lot of us have learned how to cling to Jesus when things are desperate, but I guess I’m still learning how to be just as desperate for Jesus when life is pretty peaceful.
Do you ever feel like it’s harder to focus on Jesus in the mundane and boring times of life? I do. I feel like these days I am having to fight harder to read the Bible, talk to Jesus, memorize scripture, and study God and His Word. It’s easy to let it slide. I go about my day and tell myself, “I’ll have my quiet time later,” then later comes and goes and I still haven’t had time with God. But Jesus is just as vital now as He has always been. Whether things are good or great, bad or awful, or just okay doesn’t really matter. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever and my need for Him remains the same too.
If I feel like I don’t need Jesus, I am wrong. If you feel like you don’t need Jesus, you are wrong. Satan would love to make our lives easier if it means we drift further and further from Jesus. Even now, I just had to pause the writing of this blog because I hadn’t spent time with Jesus today. Life may feel like it is mundane at times, but as a Christian, every day is a battle. Every day I need to fight to keep my eyes on Jesus and to honor Him with everything I do. He has so much planned for me, I just have to keep asking Him what is next. And He has so much planned for you too.
I’m not really sure what the goal of this specific blog post is. I guess I just wanted to share a little bit about what’s going on in my life and some of the things on my mind. I hope the Lord used this post to encourage you and maybe spur you to think through some questions you might have. That’s all for now. Thanks for showing up,
-Elena ❤
Rejoicing in Truth 