As a child my expectations were never restrained even by
reasonable limitations. Ask me what I was going to be when I grew up, and on
any given day I could have told you with certainty that I would be anything
from an Olympic figure skater to a veterinarian. Never mind that I lived in middle
Georgia where frost on the grass counted as an ice storm or that I would climb
my Daddy like a tree if I even thought that any creature with more than two legs
was within seeing distance. No limits. I knew I could grow up to be whatever I
wanted to be. I knew I would grow up to change the world.
My career expectations grew slightly more judicious as I
aged, although Grammy-award winning musician or future wife of Prince William
occasionally snuck in. But even as maturity reigned me in, I still had confidence
that I could do something great for the kingdom of God. Whether through music,
or mission work, or public speaking, the platform I always had in my head was
large and visible and important. Whatever it was, I knew it would be a platform
to change the world.
The stages of life changed as I wondered and anticipated.
After high school? After college? When would my season arrive? The time of life
that I would take hold of that grand calling and make my mark in the world? I
studied, I served, I took hold of the opportunities in front of me all along
the way. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still waiting for the “big”
moment, the one job or opportunity that would make all the difference, that
would define my life, that would pull together all my desires and passions in
an eternally significant way. I was still waiting to change the world.
Maybe it would be seminary. New Orleans. 2005. But Katrina
came and washed that one away. No, not seminary.
Maybe it would be teaching. Second graders in a Title 1 school.
A chance to mold little lives into world changers themselves. But every evening
ended with me in tears and eating break-and-bake cookies in my bed, dreading
the next morning when I would have to go fail in the classroom again. So no, not
teaching.
Maybe it would be marriage, and a second chance at seminary.
Maybe after three years I would finally earn my M.Div. and then I would be
ready. I would grasp my calling and the Lord would give me my place and I would
inspire and create and finally change the world.
Three months before graduation, an unexpected gift – We were
going to have a baby. From February to November she grew. I graduated. Spencer
got into PT school. We moved to the mountains. He started the program. I became
a mother.
Technically, between the time that I finished seminary and
the time that Claire was born, I had five months.
Five months to change the world.
That’s a lot of pressure.
And guess what? Nothing extraordinary really happened in those
five months, except a lot of milkshakes because THE BABY NEEDS CALCIUM. Then on November 7, 2009, the world flipped
and I suddenly understood love and fear and beauty in a way I never had before.
Fast forward nearly ten years. Three little lives, not even
babies anymore. The youngest is now a pretty mature four years old, and today I
find myself saying things like, “Why on earth did you eat chicken feed?” And that
was not even directed at the youngest.
Suddenly, or maybe not suddenly but over my entire lifetime,
I am realizing something.
Changing the world looks different than I thought.
Yes, there are names that conjure up the image “world
changer.” Explorers. Kings. Missionaries. We read about them and admire them
and are inspired by them. But how many humans in all the generations of the
history of the world have actually made it into the history books?
I grew up believing I could do anything, and that by doing
something extraordinary I would change the world. And maybe God still has that
something extraordinary for me to do. It’s not beyond Him. But more and more, I
am beginning to see that changing the world looks more like...
One generation shall commend your works to another,
and shall declare your mighty acts…
They will come and proclaim His righteousness to a
people yet unborn--all that He has done…
We will not hide them from their children, but will
declare to the next generation the praises of the Lord and His might, and the
wonders He has performed…
It was never about me and what I was going to do for
God.
It was always about being a smaller part of
something so much greater.
It has been His plan all along – to proclaim the faithfulness of
God to the next generation. It is a commission for us all, though how we go
about fulfilling it may look different. It may look like my friend in Texas who
is pouring out her whole life in a gospel-centered social ministry to immigrants.
It may look like my parents who have spent decades serving faithfully in the
local church. It may look like my brother who pastors or my sister who is
getting ready to foster.
And for me, at this season, in this place, it may look like teaching
my children Scripture, helping them navigate what it looks like to love the Lord
and their neighbor in each situation, or yes, even explaining the folly of
trying the chicken’s food. And because the plan is so much bigger than me, and
because I know the Author of it all, and because we walk by faith and not by
sight, I have confidence that even though life so far has turned out
differently than I had imagined as an Olympic hopeful, I am in fact changing
the world.
