Do you remember when you first fell in love with Christ? I’ve heard all sorts of stories and there seem countless ways people have gotten to know God. I also see how it’s easy to compare my story with yours and have had others wish they’d had my experience. But it is what it is, to the glory of God. I already had a set of beliefs when God found me, and it was a most humbling and vulnerable situation I found myself in when the realisation came to me that maybe what I believed wasn’t true. My ego and pride took a battering and there was a war within as I grappled all things, Christian. To make a long story short – I chose Christ, and for the sake of this post, you can read my testimony above.
As I began my new journey I was invited to attend a mission weekend. Now I went, not because I felt the ‘call’ of God, I wouldn’t have even understood what that was back then. I was a single parent, strapped for cash, the whole weekend would only cost me $20 and I could use a wee break, I reasoned. So here I was surrounded by Christiany-Christians all telling wonderful tails of their journeys in distant lands and I was enraptured by the whole experience that a yearning welled in my heart. This weekend was the source, the spring, from which the desire to be an overseas missionary came from.
This quote was (and still is) an inspiration to me. I did not have an education, that’s how I first interpreted it. It seemed, whenever I looked into mission service the need for nurses, doctors, teachers, builders and mechanics saturated the calling requests. I wasn’t any of those; the only thing I was good at was being creative. Furthermore, it certainly was more advantageous in obtaining visa entries into different countries with a qualification under your belt. But I’d left school at 16 with the attitude that book learning wasn't for me. By the time my opportunity came to reinvest in my education, my thoughts turned to the mission field and I reasoned with God "If any old degree is needed to be a missionary, I might as well get one that I'd be good at". Marvellous thing hindsight, I laugh at my limited thinking of those days. Over the years the Lord has blessed me with a Visual Communication BA in graphic design and illustration and qualified me for His calling with the realisation that it's not about the career I have or the degree on my wall, but my willingness to go. So here I am, preparing to leave, send me.
I like the idea of blogs, though only follow three but I like how you can express yourself. I think I was particularly inspired by the movie Julie and Julia, about Julia Child's story of her start in the cooking profession being intertwined with blogger Julie Powell's 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child's first book. It really amazed me to think a humble blog could become so popular then made into a movie! Maybe I’ve got secret aspirations in me...hmmm... I’m sure George Müller had no idea his service to God would end up being the inspiration of thousands of Christians over the years. Yet it was suggested that I write my story, not only for the friends/family/readers benefit, but my own, so I can look back on my entries on the days when I doubt my calling and direction in life, so I may be uplifted again. We’re so fickle, aren’t we? I think at heart I love to encourage others most, so that would be my aspiration here. Of course being a designer, I spent a good few hours designing how the jolly thing would look like; almost drive myself batty with tweaking something that isn’t broke.
