In 2014, God told me that I was to pursue full-time ministry.  I didn’t believe Him.  This was the third time He had given me this idea and I thought that I was fabricating it.  I sat on it for a while, then starting talking to people close to me.  Everywhere I turned, I received confirmation.  I applied to college and was accepted.  I requested confirmation from my church to pursue ordination and it was granted.  This was new.  Where doors had previously remained firmly closed, they began to open as if someone was holding them when I arrived.

At the same time, I was attacked.  I immediately found myself in the center of spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional battles unlike any I had ever experienced.  I was given a “thorn” in my heart that shook me to the core.  It confused me.  It made me question God, myself, my calling, and where it was leading me.  I began losing weight.  I couldn’t sleep.  I sunk into a deep depression.  I refer to 2014 as the year of the storm.  It lasted more than two years.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2016.  Though some of the spiritual battle was over, the thorn remained.  By this time, the death of my father, the unexpected changes among my work family, and my decision to step away from ministry with girls that I loved like my own packed more pain around my thorn.  I was at the edge of my strength.  This was my year of darkness.

In the darkness, God periodically reminded me that He was there.  While sitting on a bench outside my work, talking to God, I noticed a young woman jog past.  Several people jogged past my work.  I paid little attention.  I closed my eyes.  A minute later, a female voice, said, “Hi!”  I looked up and the jogger was standing on the sidewalk near me.  She had turned around and came back.  After exchanging pleasantries, we recognized each other.  She had attended school with my oldest son years before.  She was in her mid twenties at this point.  She said, “As I was jogging by, I felt like God wanted me to tell you to persist.  Persevere.  Keep moving forward.  Does that mean anything to you?”  Does that mean anything to me?  It was a spark of hope, a word to stay the course on my dark path.

A few weeks later, I was taking a walk in my neighborhood, arguing with God (again).  I noticed a decorative sign in a yard just two blocks from my house.  “Hold on child, I’ve got you.  Love, God.”  I stopped and looked at it for a several seconds, then kept walking.  Then I returned, trespassed in a stranger’s front yard, and took a picture.

Proverbs 20:24 reads, “A person’s steps are directed by the Lord.  How then can anyone understand their own way?”  The young woman was just passing by, and the Lord stopped her.  To share a message.  With me.  I was just passing by and I saw a sign.  That was not there before.  That I needed to see.  When we trust God, we can plan all we want, but Someone is guiding us.  We can’t run away from Him, and He never walks away from us.  Feelings are deceiving.  He is always there.

A few days after I saw this sign, God turned everything around.  Everything.  It took years.  Don’t stop moving.  When you find yourself in a dark season, remember that you are just passing by.