Breaking Up With My Cloak: my decision to give up a life long dream.

This has been a super difficult post to write as well has extremely liberating. Sometimes the right thing to do is not the easy thing to do. Being an adult means sometimes there isn’t an easy choice. Period.

Since high school, I’ve had a dream to be a professional counselor. It started with a date with a cute upper class-man who poured his sweet burdened heart out to me and the cheerleaders who used to sit by me in math class as her safe place to share her heart. I wasn’t their friend, but I clearly was someone they felt safe with. I figured that translated to a great career in professional counseling.

I enrolled in Human Services, did my undergrad and graduate degrees in Human Services Marriage and Family counseling. The counseling field has however changed. To be a professional counselor, a degree with a 3400 hours internship is required. Y’all that comes out to, considering life happening, a three-year internship. I was well into my first class, interacting with my class mates via black board, sharing my experience and commenting on theirs, answering the questions and having a great time. Then somewhere in there I had an epiphany. I 100% no longer desire to pursue this educational path. I have grown and become a different person than I was twenty years ago. God has shaped me in ways I never imagined. I already have a fantastic resume and a God who precedes me to show that I am in fact equipped to do what I do in helping people; encouraging, equipping, praying for and disciple. My responsibilities and my calling and career have all taken a shape without that professional counseling dream, so much so that the two are not, in my opinion, compatible. In the last three years, I have worked as a chaplain ministering and offering wise counsel. I realized my dream is no longer what I want for my life. I am no longer pursuing the career of professional counseling. I had to break up with that dream because we no longer worked for each other.

I’m going to tell you now, that is not pride. Don’t mistake Biblical humility for insecurity. I know without a shadow of a doubt that without Jesus, I would not be here. I would not be who I am, where I am, doing what I do. I am so confident in God that I am confident in who he is in me, his equipping of me, his calling for me and the work of his hands in creating me exactly the way he created me to be.

So, breaking up with a dream is a new experience for me. Oh my, how true that is! It was such a difficult, deeply personal choice to start with and an even more difficult choice to walk away from that dream. I prayed hard and did the typical stare at the ceiling rather than sleep thing. I thought about what I saw my ministry, career and family life looking like. I thought about what I am capable of and equipped for.

What I did not do was dwell on what I thought anyone would think of this. I have spent a good amount of my life considering what others thought. A significant driving force in my undergrad and graduate degrees was proving both to myself and some unseen group of people that I am worthy of the space I take up on this planet and my voice is worthy of respect in any conversation I choose to involve myself in. This is absolutely not unique to me my friend. We all go through this. We enter this world looking to find our space, to having a voice and realizing our value. All that being said, I am confident I am equipped to do what I desire to do, help and encourage others and share the love of Jesus. It does not matter what that unseen group of people say, whether they think we are worthy or not. Our God has equipped us, I am confident in that.

Sharing this with an awesome wise friend (who is a super awesome life coach) gave me some great encouragement. She shared with me the story of Bartimaeus (which is totally my favorite story in Jesus ministry right now). Bartimaeus in the Bible (Mark 10: 46-52) was a blind man begging on the side of the road, his cloak spread out underneath him, his own little corner of the world. When he heard Jesus was near, he started yelling, “Jesus!” to get his attention. The crowd around him told him to be quiet. Their rebuke only made him yell louder. Eventually he got Jesus’ attention and Jesus called him to come over. Right away, Bartimaeus got up, left the cloak he was sitting on, and went to Jesus. Right away, the crowd changed their tune. They went from rebuking to giving him fist pumps. Do you see how quickly the popular opinion changed? Imagine if Bartimaeus had listened to the crowd and kept himself to his own little corner of the world. Instead, he got up and walked to Jesus in complete faith that he was never returning to that cloak again. That cloak would no longer be his small little place in the world. Despite the opinion of the crowd, he walked away from his past in complete faith that what Jesus had for his future would be so much greater.

Are you willing to break up with your cloak? Do you feel worthy of the space you take up on this planet? Do you feel worthy of respect in the conversations you choose to participate in? Do you know you are equipped to accomplish your calling for today? Do you believe, God, the creator of the universe, King of Kings, loves you? Write these questions down. Meditate on them. Pray them out with God. Have the conversations with him and hear his reply. See him work in your life. Know he has already been working in your life. Journal, take a walk, talk to a trusted friend. These are the questions that I am called to walk alongside others to help them find the answers to both within themselves and in their journey to thrive in their own stories. We can and we will break up with our cloaks and walk into the extraordinary life God has created us to fill.