Graduation and God’s Timing

Last weekend marked 11 years since I graduated from Augusta College. This weekend I will graduate from Luther Seminary with a Master of Divinity. In all those years, I’ve never submitted an update for alumni news. But this year, God willing, I may finally have one worth sharing: my ordination as a pastor.

If you had told me 11 years ago that I would not only return to church, but eventually find myself called to seminary, I would have thought you were talking about someone else entirely.

My childhood was spent planning to become an OB/GYN. But by the time I graduated from college, I had accepted that it was no longer the path I wanted to pursue. The problem was, I had no idea what I did want to do with my life.

On what should have been, and at times was, a happy day, my life felt like it was in shambles. Weeks earlier, I had experienced significant trauma and was unknowingly pregnant, though I had my suspicions. I was angry at God. And I was still grieving the loss of my best friend, my grandpa, three years earlier.

Even though I had, in many ways, stepped away from organized religion, I remained a deeply spiritual person. I believed God would eventually show me a path forward. But I felt lost

And in many ways, my path after graduation reflected that uncertainty: a political science and sociology degree that led to work as a nanny, then as a doula and childbirth educator, then into and finally into clinic administration. Eventually I found my way back to church and before long heard the call to seminary. Now, somehow, I find myself waiting for a call as a pastor.

I trusted the Spirit to show me the way, but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that this would be the path God put me on.

If I ever needed a reminder that life unfolds in God’s timing rather than our own, that God’s plans are often bigger than the ones we make for ourselves – this is it.