Passions and Purpose
Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
Psalm 37:4
This is a well known verse in Scripture, but i’ll never forget the day when I was enlightened to see that it means much more than “If you love Jesus, He will give you what you want”.
I had a rough childhood, maybe not as rough as others, but rough enough. I was a tomboy in every way, racing the boys at school, getting picked first to be on their teams, punching if necessary, riding bikes through the woods, catching frogs, lizards, snakes, and turtles. I always loved a good adventure, but there was another part to me that was a quiet introvert, who loved to be alone with a pencil and a sketchpad. I don’t remember waking up one day and thinking “I should learn to draw”, I just drew… a lot. I didn’t know I had a gift, I just liked the solidarity of it within just myself.
As I grew older, I started to get a lot of attention for my talents including everyone telling me that if I didn’t go to Art School, I was wasting a gift. And don’t get me wrong, this sounded awesome to me, but there was something I knew that none of them did. I heard God call me to the ministry when I was 10 years old, standing on the campus of what is now Evangel University. I was there visiting with my brother who was considering attending. It was never a question for me after that. It was clear as day, God had given me a call to not waste my pain and to use it to connect with young girls who were growing up just like me all over the country.
So, at one point, I had to ask myself, “Which thing does God really want me to do?” because He had given me this gift, but also this call. Ultimately it came down to the answer to this question “Which one of these things, if i were to walk in the other direction, would cause me to not be able to sleep at night?” Then I had my answer, I had to go tell my story.
It wasn’t but 3 years later after serving in Youth and Kid’s ministry that a revelation started to unfold, not to me, of course, but to my husband! You see, struggling with the scarcity of creative resources for the church in the early 2000’s, I often found myself drawing what we needed and then just trying to find a designer that would just make what I showed them, and that was a harder task than you might imagine. So, in 2004 we had our first baby, my daughter Kierstyn, who is now 19 and is attending the University of Washington. I found myself at home, struggling to not have something to work at or a way to contribute when Rodney said, “You should see if you can figure out the graphic design thing”, and the rest is history.
The thing about Psalm 37:4 is that it doesn’t mean you get what you want when you love God, it means that when you focus your whole self on Him and give Him the reigns to the direction of your heart, He then puts in your heart the desires to do what He has created you to do! I have a tattoo on my arm that says “I am, because You Are”. I am so thankful for an intentional God who designs us so intricately and with all the functions and instincts we need to be everything we must be to fulfill our intended purpose. Before He knit me together in my mother’s womb, he knew that I would be a creator. Life happened to me from day one, but it gave me everything else I would need to be in this unique place and time to merge ministry and creativity into the journey He had designed for me.
If you find yourself, today, feeling lost, confused, not sure of who you are or what you’re supposed to do. Start with Jesus. Fix your focus on Him and follow the passions He awakens inside you.
