One year ago today, I jumped.
For years, I used this image to illustrate the process of when I do something challenging that takes faith or carries a lot of unknown. I always knew that I was a capable person who could figure out the first steps of something challenging. I knew in the end it would probably all be okay from what I’d been taught in life. It was the middle that carried my fears. What if I jumped and I couldn’t actually make it to the other side? What if I jumped and God wasn’t there like I needed him to be to help? What if no one was loyal enough to me through the mess it all? What if I wasn’t actually all that capable of making the hard jump? What if the jump was awful and emotional and hard? I feared all of it.
During Messiah Conference in July 2018, I gave a message on exactly this topic and how I’d walked through leaps of faith like this prior. What I didn’t realize then was how small the leaps of the past would be in comparison to the jump God had in store for me.
For most of my life, becoming a teacher was one of the most prominent parts of my identity. I read to my dolls and stuffed animals as soon as I could talk. I helped teach my brother, younger students, and my peers in any way I was able to throughout my childhood and teenage life. I graded papers from my mom’s middle school students at my fancy desk with my colored pens as an elementary school kid. I set up her school’s classrooms over the summer with bright bulletin board paper and borders. I made sure that my high school academics set me up to get into the best college for elementary education. I soaked in all that I could while attending two well-respected education programs for my undergrad and masters degrees. I got a job at the school where I student taught, and the only school I applied to, straight out of college. I devoted my days and nights to my students and made lifelong relationships with students, families, and co-workers through seven years of teaching. It was my dream. It was my identity.
On April 1st, 2019, it all changed.
After months of daily crying, panic attacks and anxiety, heaviness, and complete and total burn out, I resigned. I had no choice but to leave what was my dream and my identity. In an instant, I set up to take the jump, whether I liked it or not, not knowing an ounce of what was in store or who I would be without teaching.
I was recently talking to a close friend about what monumental moments in our lives we would choose to show our teenage selves and what feelings about those moments stand out. Immediately my heart started pounding and emotions welled up in me as I verbalized for the first time every emotion that I felt as I made that jump. I remember all of it.
The uncontrollable sadness I felt the two days prior with no clue why I just couldn’t stop crying.
The incomprehensible peace I had sitting in the meeting with my bosses and speaking out loud the words “Okay, I guess I’ll resign”.
The overwhelming support I could physically feel from my family, friends, co-workers, and school families through texts, conversations, emails, hugs, tears, classroom visits, and calls all throughout my last school day and the days following.
The awe of opening my blinds to see the most vivid pink and purple sunrise the morning of my last day.
The awful heartbreak as I sat with my students telling them the news and as we cried together and hugged so tightly.
The total surety packing up my things that last afternoon with my mom and two amazing and loyal friends.
The complete closure standing arm-in-arm with my mom looking at the school building one last time.
The lightness as I drove home that day, a stark contrast to the heaviness I felt for months prior on the exact same drive.
The joy thinking about how open my future was to hopes and goals that I was unable to begin in months and years prior.
The freedom as I could finally take a breath without the weight of everything on my shoulders.
The calm contentment confidently knowing this was exactly where I was supposed to be, even if I was completely unable to visualize what the current day held for me let alone the weeks to come.
The total hope I clung onto, trusting that God would lovingly guide me through whatever growth and path He had in His perfect will for me.
As I reflect on the last 365 days and what the Lord has guided me through, I can’t help but feel so incredibly proud of myself.
I listened to the song “Seasons” by Hillsong probably a thousand times in the days following my last day teaching. I felt so inspired by the lyrics “Though the winter is long, even richer the harvest it brings”. I knew God was allowing me to enter a season of rest and, although I knew nothing about what was coming up ahead, I knew it was going to produce good things. Little did I know then how good it would be.
This season of winter-like rest enabled me to slow down. To have time. To have silence. All of which have led me to a place of full confidence in who I am and who God made me to be.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that who I am does not depend on what other people think of me, include me in, or project onto me.
I feel empowered to share my struggles and my uncertainty with others, knowing that being vulnerable does not equal weakness but in fact strength.
I have peace that those whose friendship or presence has lessened in my life or gone completely is not due to any flaw in me or anything I could’ve done more or less of.
I can walk through open doors to possibilities that were not available before nor was I ready for before.
I put full and complete trust in the Lord’s beautiful plan, loving that I can’t figure out any of the “whats ifs” or control any of it on my own.
I am passionate about investing in the people around me to show them how loved and valued they are.
None of this growth has come from my own will, control, or strength. It was all God. It was all in His plan. It was all because of his love and loyalty that never let me go out of his grip as He led me down this journey.
I did it, I jumped, God made it clear that He wanted nothing else. And you know what? Just like always, God was right there to catch me, guide me, grow me, love me, encourage me, and teach me as only He and His perfect all-knowing will can so I could land confidently and fully on the other side.
