My Reasons Why...

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

I’ve read a book by Erwin McManus that has me thinking about my life. Some books are out there to just have you think about the way your life is or the direction it is headed. I want to share the back cover of this book with you and then I want to share a little bit about the reasons why I believe I’ve been lead to Memphis to finish my education and heal from the recent events of my life.

“I may not know you personally, but this I know about you without question - there is a hero within you waiting to be awakened. The alarm sounds. Your feet hit the floor and carry you into another day. But what does that day hold for you? Will you be punching your card at work, catching up on TV at home, and crashing into bed before you rinse and repeat the next day? Or will you dare to dig deep and discover the incredible potential lying dormant within you?
In Wide Awake, Erwin Raphael McManus challenges us to put an end to all the sleepwalking and settling, for each of us was created by God for a reason. He has called you to live as Jesus did - a heroic life, void of monotony, teeming with danger, adventure, and the unknown. Living wide awake is about realizing that the world desperately needs you to live up to your greatness.
There is a future that needs to be created, and it is waiting for us all to wake up and get out of bed. The alarm has sounded, and it is time to shake off the slumber.
It’s time to live, to create, to imagine, to dream…Wide Awake.”

I’ve tried to reason with God about the reasons why He brought me to the decision to leave my hometown and move to Memphis. God has a sense of humor b/c I look at my situation and think I have to laugh b/c if I didn’t I’d cry. At 34, I never dreamed I’d move ‘back home’ with my momma but I’ve done just that. As soon as you think you couldn’t or wouldn’t do something, that’s about when God brings it about into your life. So be very careful what you think about and what you might or might not do. God is the only one really in control of what you will or will not do. Do you agree? I certainly do. Last year I involved myself into a sin I thought there was no way I’d ever do ‘that’, guess what? I was up to my neck in it by mid-May. I broke free from it by mid-June but it reared its ugly head again in September. I thank God that I finally broke free from it completely after September. Just be careful not to think you are too good for something b/c that’s when the enemy can sneak in and take away your assurance. Just continually thank God for saving you from sin and ask Him to keep you from sin.

So the reasons I’m in Memphis… a few of my close friends have offered their reason or reasons to me and a couple have brought a big smile to my face in amusement and laughter. They are right though and I guess that’s why I smile b/c my doubt tells me a different story. If I haven’t said it I’ll bring the bittersweet tale of this up; my mother moved to Memphis in 1981 when I was 6 years old and my brother and I no longer lived with her after that. When we were 8 and 9 years old we were allowed to come visit her once a month and that was fun. I came regularly until I was about 14 and then my cheerleading dominated my weekends as well as my weekly after school activities. My favorite part of coming to visit mom was that Memphis had so much to go do, see, and be a part of that I never wanted to leave to come back home. I remember being in 3rd grade and crying myself to sleep in my dad’s den b/c I wanted to be with my mom in Memphis but was torn b/c I loved him too. It was a lot to deal with at the age of 9 or 10. I believe the Lord is giving back to me all the years I missed out on being with my mother as a little girl. Our revival this spring at Long Heights Baptist Church, Evangelist Brady Weldon mentioned getting back all the years the locust had eaten. Well, I’m getting back all those years I cried myself to sleep wanting my mother.

Another reason I believe I’m in Memphis is that my education has always been very important to me. I put my education on the back burner to raise my children and it was a decision that I was rewarded with for 9 years. My son is now 9 ½ years old and when he was born I decided to put finishing college on hold until I could raise him and then his big and little sisters, Hannah and Celeste. Communications/ PR would not have been what I choose in the year 2000, it would’ve never occurred to me to choose that major for myself. Now that I’ve found what I enjoy and what I would want my life’s work to be about, communications/PR with 2 foreign languages makes complete sense.

Small town living is a great atmosphere to raise children in and I enjoyed being a hometown girl. Now that my ideas are bigger than I can ever imagine and my dreams are some that my family from McKenzie would try to keep me from obtaining, Memphis makes sense. They can’t understand what it is like for the Lord to lead you into the line of work you were born to enter into. So being in Memphis and not have your family keep you from what God has called you to do… God has huge plans for my future and though I can’t see all of them, I know they are there for me to tell God, I’m ready. He has many reasons for sending me to Memphis, Tennessee and I could go on and on about those reasons but I’m taking it one day at a time and trying to be obedient to what He calls me to every day. I’ve been found being obedient but some days I just think, “Lord, you’ve got to be kidding me!?” He isn’t though, He is up to something awesome and I can’t wait every day to see what He has planned for me that day. Do you wake up with that kind of expectation every day? If you don’t, I pray you get that way b/c it is amazing to live this way.