What's Next?

It's been awhile since I've been very active on this blog! 

As many of you know, I started blogging weekly when I was 15 (the end of 2017). This blog's mission, since the beginning, has been to share parts of my life experiences with you all, in hopes of encouraging someone who can relate, and helping them find a hope and peace in the middle of all of life's chaos and storms. That's why the name "Steady Earthquake" has titled this ministry since the start. My original passion and hope was for others to realize, through my sharing my own journey through this earthquake of life, that there IS a way to remain steady- to remain hopeful and at peace- in the middle of it all.

My last weekly post on this blog went up on May 17th, 2019. It was a post I had made about overcoming fear, and it was scheduled to go up on the day of my Junior recital. Apart from my knowledge, that typical day ended up turning into one of the most major dates of my life, and I ended that day needing the very words that I had typed earlier that week and posted on this blog earlier that day. Many of you know this, but my dad had a rare stroke that same day, while I was getting ready to sing and dance at that recital. My phone was on airplane mode, so that I could leave it on backstage without it messing with the mics or distracting me with texts and calls, so I had absolutely no idea until the recital was over; but the moment I heard the news is a moment forever marked in my memory, and one that began a journey through deep anxiety and PTSD that I have only just started finding healing from this year. 

Everything was a blur. ICU waiting rooms, graduation for the class of 2019 (of which my sweet boyfriend is a part of), performances which ended up being my last ones (due to COVID canceling my final Senior year shows), my dad's brain surgery, rehab, friends and family dropping off meals, and an entire summer of recovery and change for us all. Life as I'd known it had disappeared, and, little did I know, it was only the beginning. My shield of faith took some holes that day, which grew larger over the course of that summer and fall, and I felt as though I was an impostor in the ministry because of it. I felt like I couldn't pray the real prayers anymore, because I was doubting that God would answer them; I had this chronic fear that I couldn't shake that something traumatic was about to happen any second; I didn't know who God truly is, and what He wants for His children, anymore; and then the enemy started whispering lies in my head about how hypocritical, unqualified, and inadequate I was sharing things about some good God Who has our best in mind and loves us deeply through it all, when I was having trouble believing it myself. I would smile, but behind that smile the voice was pulsing through my mind saying, "who do you think you are? They can tell that you're fake. Nobody's going to be encouraged by you". I couldn't even look at my eyes in the mirror without the voice telling me, "just what do you think you're doing with your life? You don't belong where you are". 

I started my Senior year that fall with this battle raging in my mind and spirit every moment. As mentioned in my most recent post, I started dealing with a chronic digestive condition, so much tension in my neck and spine, and even a bit of a breathing issue that all came forth from the crippling grip of stress, fear, guilt, and shame that I was captured by every day of my life. I kept up weekly poems of encouragement on my other blog, and I would still share things here and there as part of the ministry that I've had on my personal social media accounts since I was 15, but even though I never fully left the ministry, my spirit wasn't into it. I was running from what I knew God was calling me to do (ministry) because I felt like I wasn't "good enough" to do it anymore. 

As I kept on running in fear, the battle got worse and worse. I wasn't listening to God's call, and it took the world shutting down due to a pandemic, and all of my plans for Senior year and post-grad life getting changed or canceled, before I finally decided to take a rest from the race and pay attention to what He was trying to tell me. At the end of July in 2020, I decided I wanted to listen to Him again, and seek His guidance for the next chapter in my life. I spontaneously decided to take a month-long break from my social media (other than my page for my other blog that I post on a few times a week), and just devote all of my time to praying and listening to Him. People I graduated with were starting college or careers, people I knew were going back to school, or getting married, or having kids, or moving... I had no college plans, no career direction, no work plans anymore, pretty much nobody to hang out with since most of the people I hung out with were getting busy with their new seasons of life (and, you know, there's a pandemic happening that makes meeting up a little challenging), I had no shows to focus on anymore, no performance opportunities, and basically... no excuses to get out of spending time with God. 

I fully expected to log off of my social media and not really ever return. I wanted to escape from the ministry full-force for a month to sort of prove to myself that God wasn't REALLY calling me to it. I figured that I would get into the habit of not being online, and of not sharing my stories and voice with others anymore, and then I would just be able to escape from it all entirely when I returned in September. Though I still planned on staying online to some extent, just to catch up with friends and family, I thought I'd be able to "get away" from the ministry part of it, so to speak. I even started writing a post on my other blog about "retiring the blog" that I was going to share sometime after I made my return. However, much as I wanted to, when I went to type those words in that post... there was like there was this force stopping me. It felt almost as if my fingers physically could not move to type those words, and I ended up just deleting that draft instead. That moment caught my attention, though, and I began praying about what God wanted me to do regarding my ministry. 

In time, He revealed to me the root of why I wasn't all that excited about the thought of returning to ministry, and He began to heal my heart from wounds I didn't even realize were there. I asked Him to reveal to me what had been keeping me from answering His call this long, and poured myself into studying His Word and spending time with Him, and He showed me the lies I had been believing about myself, the pressure I was putting on myself to do it all on my own when He was saying that it wasn't up to me or anyone else to determine my success in the first place, and the Truth He wanted me to focus on. I realized that I couldn't just walk away from this, and asked Him to help me learn to rely on Him again, and to give me the words He wanted me to share with those He would bring to listen. 

What was "supposed" to be a time away for me to prove to myself that God wasn't really calling me to ministry, and to figure out where I was actually supposed to go, ended up becoming a time where I realized that, though I had been searching for what I was "supposed" to do with my life all while leading up to graduation, I honestly had it more figured out at 15 than I do at 18. My life may be pretty uninteresting to others, and my platform may not be all that big, but as I was so wonderfully reminded not too long ago, "Heaven rejoices even over just one soul". If any of you reading this can become that "one soul" through my average, every day life experiences, then I'd count this ministry as a success. 

So "what's next"? It's a question many have been asking me since my Junior year of high school, and finding out the answer is the reason many of you clicked on this post. I tend to leave that question unanswered unless directly confronted with it, largely because of my fear of what others will think by my response. But you'll hear it here first: what's next is that I'm back in the ministry, and I'm back to encouraging others, and sharing my voice with anyone who wants to listen. 

What am I doing about college and career? I have no idea. How is that going to make a living for me? Good question. Where will I be in the next five years? Check back with me in 2025. But one thing I do know for sure, I'm meant to be right where I am, and I'm done being afraid of what comes next.

 

For anyone reading who may be having trouble discerning God's will for their life, who may be exhausted trying to figure it out with no known answer in sight, or who may be feeling anxious, ashamed, traumatized, or all of the above... I just want to remind you that God's plans for us are good. They are to give us HOPE and a FUTURE. You can rest in the knowledge that God is good, and that what He has for you is good. He isn't a cruel God Who is going to snatch every glimmer of hope from you, and leave you with a broken heart and a tragic story. He WANTS to give you hope, and He wants for you to experience it new every morning. He also wants to give you a FUTURE. He doesn't want you dwelling in your past, afraid that your tomorrow is going to look like today. He wants you to leave the past behind, and just take another step wherever He leads you. He wants you to rejoice as you ring in the new, every single dawn.

Always remember that it is by His grace that you are where you are and who you are. You don't have to be ashamed when you look in the mirror, and you don't have to feel guilty about being a hypocrite or unworthy. The truth is, we ARE! But God's grace is amazing. You can "boast in your weaknesses" because it is by God using you in spite of those weaknesses that His power is made perfect. It's by HIS grace and might that you are worthy, and that you have made it where you are. He is responsible for every victory you have ever had, and ever will have. By Him, you don't have to live in shame. He takes all of that away! "It is not I, but Christ Who is in me".

 

His grace is why I am able to make this comeback, after so long of hiding and running. His grace is why I am able to be victorious after so long of being defeated time after time. His grace is something to celebrate, and I want to boast about it again. I'm saved by His true grace and love. It's amazing, and I pray this new fire I have because of it will never end.