Friday started a new journey in my life... It's been a long time coming, with many twists and turns, but all leading to the one place I was destined to be. The place where God's will met up with my own twisted path in my life. The path that I could have chosen some 21 years ago, but didn't.

You see, over 21 years ago I felt the calling to be a youth counselor. I actually planned on attending a college and completing my degree while helping with troubled youth that were housed on the campus. However, two weeks before I was to leave, I backed out. Not willing to leave my family and my friends but yet, willing to leave the will of God for my own desires. I never looked back from that point. I found my true love that year, got engaged, then married, and have since brought 6 beautiful children into this world, with another 5 that I will meet at the gates of Heaven some day. I don't regret those choices. They have given me great joy in this life and truly are the greatest blessings God has bestowed on me in my lifetime.

There was something missing in me though. Something unquenchable, that no one could satisfy in my life since then. This thirst for something more, something that I know God ordained and planned for me.  It still didn't happen easily... I still resisted his calling for the last few years but I knew I heard him calling again even so! I have come to believe that each of us is called to fulfill God's plan and until we quit resisting and just take that leap of faith we will never find the peace and joy he longs to give us!

Each step I have taken through this twisted road has grown me, changed me, and allowed me to become a woman who believes in herself and what God can do through her. Through his power and not her own! I am not the person I was back then. And I'm not the child I was back so many years ago...insecure, inadequate and unintelligent. He has equipped me with power through the Holy Spirit and I can do ANYTHING he has called me to do.

I only recently believed that! Crazy huh?!! God has done great things in my life recently, things that to some may have made you think I was far from ready to walk this path. But he opened my eyes through a book called "A Beautiful Battle". Wow, it was amazing when I started to read that book, almost as if I was looking in a mirror of my inner self. The struggles with my image, with my insecurities, and my perception of my boring life. But,oh, how I'm out to change those misconceptions in my life today!!!

I am going to make a difference in this world... Not by my own doing but by the hand of God on my life, in and through me! See, it comes down to just listening to what God calls you to do... that phrase we know by Nike, "JUST DO IT", well that was meant for me! I finally signed up for a degree in Psychology, focusing on christian counseling. I'm going to college so that one day I can work with young people, and older people if need be, in our community and world and I can't wait for it to begin!!! This is my calling and my passion...the missing link to my happiness and God finally being able to say, "Well done my good and faithful servant!"