God has Better Plans For You

One way God changed my life that I never saw coming.

Growing up, there were a lot of different careers I had in mind that I loved the thought of doing. I loved dancing, so one that I had my heart set on was being a dance teacher. I also loved acting, so I also had the goal of taking acting classes until I finally made a career out of acting. I also dreamt of being a chiropractor. I’m a strong lover of science (especially kinds that have to do with the human body), I love helping others, and I always felt really lucky to live in the same house as one (I wanted to give my future kids an opportunity to experience that wonderful feeling). None of those ended up being the path I took though.

I grew up loving dance class, but there was eventually a time when I had to choose between dance class OR acting. I originally chose dance class, but I started crying when I saw my dad in a play. I then switched to doing acting instead. My sister had tried doing dance class that year, and I cried when I saw her in a dance recital. Then I decided to go back to dance class instead. When I rejoined dance class though, I suddenly felt forced to go to dance class. I still love to dance, but taking that period of time off from dance class eventually made me lose my desire to take classes as well. The final decision was made, I would go for acting instead. Becoming a dance teacher was thrown out the window.

The possibility of going for acting ended much quicker. I told my parents that I wanted to try and go for it, but they weren’t supportive of it. They felt like I wouldn’t be able to get into a field as competitive as that… especially since I’m not the offspring of someone who is already in that field. Chiropractic also ended very quickly. My parents didn’t want me doing that either because (1) how expensive it would be, (2) how hard it would be, (3) how long it would be, and (4) I would have to move out of state in order to become one. I kept trying to go down that path, but I couldn’t.

I knew I wanted a job that I’d have to go to college for though. My parents first suggested massage therapy. I thought massage therapy was simply a technique used to build comfort that would help people fall asleep. Because of that, I said no right off the bat. They also came up with the suggestion of accounting. I love math (and am great at it), but I wanted something more down the health care lane. I said no to that.

The next day, my mom told me that they thought I would make a great teacher. I hadn’t thought about that. I could see myself doing that. I decided that I would try going for early childhood education. Here was the problem though. About 1.5-2 years in, there was an english class I was taking. I was doing great. The lowest grade I got was a 98%. The final assignment though, which was over half the grade, the teacher lost it and therefore counted it as 0% and I failed the class. I tried taking the english class another time with a different teacher, and a similar issue happened. We were given the final assignment (over half the grade still) the day before it was due, and the electricity went out. That teacher didn’t recieve my final assignment, counted it as a 0%, and I failed the class. I tried taking it a 3rd time with the final teacher and, once again, I failed at the class despite having done a great job at it. I decided at that moment that I would transfer over to a different college.

That college didn’t have an early childhood program though. I saw that they had a special education program though, so I decided to take that path instead. I thought it’d be nice (and hopefully encouraging) for special ed kids to be taught by someone else with special needs. The first problem was that, when I tried transferring my credits, they only accepted 7 (I think I had 80-85 before transferring). I wasn’t failing those classes, yet things were going really slowly. When I eventually realized that, at the pace I was going, it would take me 45-50 years to get a bachelor’s, I decided to quit going down that route. I was right back at square one. I had no idea what sort of career I would go for.

I decided to look more into massage therapy. Once I discovered how wrong I was at that, I started gaining a strong love for doing clinical massage therapy. All of the college courses I had done though had wiped my bank account clean though. I needed to spend time saving up money before going for it. While I was saving up money, one of my grandma’s heard about a Bible College that was opening up that would go through the Bible verse by verse. Knowing that I had always dreamt of being a missionary (an especially strong interest in being a missionary in Africa), she told me about it. I originally said no because I was saving up money to go to a massage therapy school. I told her that I loved the thought of going, but I would go in a few years instead. She insisted that I tried doing it that upcoming year instead, but I told her that, even if I was hoping to do that the next year, I didn’t have the money to do so.

Things started getting really wild at work (courtesy clerk). It was starting to get dangerous for me to work there. First off, there were a lot of crimes happening around the area. Also, I would come across floods of guys that would try to get me to go out with them but wouldn’t get out of my hair since I kept telling them no. Finally, there was a time when a guy on drugs came up to me to talk. I didn’t feel like shunning him away. I felt bad for him. He probably wouldn’t have been doing drugs if he wasn’t hating his life. I felt like he should at least be given the opportunity to have someone to talk to who would listen. All of those eventually led to me needing to find a different job. In all honesty, things were dangerous enough for me to the point where a police officer once made sure I knew that he was hoping I would’ve stopped working there by then. I told him that I was trying to find a different job, but I just couldn’t get one. I tried I don’t know how many jobs in 3 different cities, but nobody would email me back saying that they wanted to have an interview with me.

There was eventually a time when me, my parents, and my siblings went on a trip together. Apparently, my grandparents surprised me and my siblings by coming over to that hotel for a couple nights. There was a time when we all decided to go over to the swimming pool. My grandma didn’t feel like swimming and, while I was in the pool, I started to have lots of absence seizures. Because of that, my parents wanted me to go sit over by my grandma instead of swimming. Since I was now sitting by my grandma, we wanted to talk. One of the things she asked me was if I had signed up for the Bible college yet or not. When I said no, she asked if I wanted help applying for it. Partially since I was uncomfortable with still saying no and partially because it would be an opportunity for me to smoothly leave the job I was at, I said yes.

I didn’t have the money to go but I decided that, if God wanted me to go to that college, he would provide. I only had about a month or so to gain thousands of dollars, so I could only get that money through donations. I knew that God could do it though if that’s what he wanted. I applied for the college, made it in, and was given so many huge donations that I made enough money to go the day before the money was due.

Once that was over, I came back home and needed to find a job. My bank account was once again wiped clean. There was a Christian camp about 30 minutes away that had really wanted me to come back, but I didn’t really feel like working there. I first tried working at my dad’s clinic, but they found someone else who they thought was better for the job. I was once again stuck in a nutshell. Considering how much I knew the camp wanted me and the fact that they had REALLY good rent there (under $250 a month), I eventually decided to reapply… and I passed the interview.

What do you know? I am not doing anything that I had originally planned. My strongest desire was to be a chiropractor. Instead, I am a graduate of Biblical Studies who is working at a Christian Camp. Will I eventually still go for massage therapy? I don’t really know. I’m not financially in a position where I can currently do so though.

I honestly believe that God placed me here. I had no intention of ever doing anything like this. In all honesty, I didn’t originally want to work at this camp. It just wasn’t the kind of job I felt like having. I am loving it here for the time being at least though.

God may have different plans for you then you have for yourself. Don’t be surprised if He does have different plans, because God always has the best plans in mind. He will make the best plans for you come across in the most beneficial way for you, even if you may not see it at the moment.