This morning I would like to
introduce you to someone. Now this person couldn’t exactly be here this morning
but no worries, I will tell you all about her and you will feel like you know
her quite well. This girl has always been a little shy and timid. She is a rule
follower and never even questions it. She is that girl that you tell her the
stove is hot and she believes you as she watches her younger brother test it
out. This little girl wears her hair in braids every single day, because her
mom doesn’t want her hair to look ratty. She learned at an early age not to
move around while mom is curling your bangs, and the sight of one of these
(show pic of puppy) anywhere in the near vicinity would have her screaming for
her daddy and running back into the house. You see this girl is not a risk
taker she is perfectly content with living her life in the box of safety but
she has a brother, and this brother is three years younger than her and he is
not quite as timid. He likes to push buttons, they always joked that the
perfect Christmas present for him would be a board with buttons and switches
glued on. This brother of hers was the kid that told mom to roll the window up
and stuck his arm out just to see what would happen, it hurt, she cried for
him. He was the kid that wanted to swing on the big glider swing by himself and
when he wanted off he didn’t bother to ask he just jumped off and was greeted
not once but twice with that huge piece of metal in the head, she once again
cried for him. They would visit Grandma and Grandpa’s house a lot and Grandma
and Grandpa didn’t exactly have the same rules as mom and dad. Cartoon Network
and Nickelodeon were not blocked on their TV, cereal came in a box, toys were
in happy meals, and chicken was on a bone. Now to brother this was like Heaven,
he could finally watch as much Scooby Doo as he wanted, but sister she wasn’t
sure because mom and dad didn’t let us do that, but eventually it was made
clear that it was ok. Sister never did take Grandpa up on that offer to learn
how to drive because mom and dad wouldn’t let her at home, come to find out
later brother had been doing it for years. Speaking of driving sister was
scared to death of driving, if you somehow convinced her to drive a new way
home, she wouldn’t drive again for week, and there was that time that dad
taught her what it felt like for a car to die on you, by turning the truck off
on the main road home, she was totally traumatized and didn’t to drive again
until dad made her, oh and she cried. Sister was a straight A student she loved
school, reading and math were like hobbies to her, but that day she brought
home her first B you would have thought the world was ending because it was
such a big deal. Brother was a good student too but it wasn’t a big deal to
him. If you haven’t started to figure it out yet brother and sister are kind of
opposites she learned everything by watching him do it the hard way. She was a
perfectionist and he was pretty care free. When eating morning pop tarts she
would get excited because she made the state of Oklahoma out it, that is where
Grandma and Grandpa live, he would make pistol and proceed to shoot her with
it. Mom and Dad had their hands full with their son who pushed all the limits
and their scared timid daughter who never got close.
In middle school this girl
received the opportunity to go to a leadership camp that was being funded by a
grant. It was ten days long and it was in town at Camp Horizon. She was super
excited because all of her friends were going. So off she goes to camp for the
very first time. With all her snacks and clothes, and everything probably the
entire camp would need! She picks out a bottom bunk because with her asthma she
probably shouldn’t sleep on the top and then mom and dad go home. She has a lot
of fun playing games, hiking, and swimming with all of her friends. The get to
go to a horse ranch and she learns how to ride, barrel race, and goat tie all
in a couple of days, and she is good at it, even got a couple of ribbons. Then
they get to the challenge course that Camp Horizon is so known for. The first
couple of elements were pretty cool, crazy scary being 35 feet in the air with
only the harness and rope to keep you safe. But she does it because everyone
else is too. She has come out of her shell and is proving to herself one step
at a time that she can do this. Then she goes over to the power pole or the
leap of faith. Everyone else is doing this one too so why not. She starts
climbing, this one feels a little different, and it sways a lot with the wind.
She gets to the top and then she looks at the top of the pole and realizes that
they want her to stand up on top of that tiny platform and jump off of it. This
isn’t the zip line. She freezes, and like always she starts to cry, she just
wants down, this is not happening, not today, not ever. So they let her down.
She is defeated and embarrassed but everyone cheers for her for participating,
but by this point she kind of just wants to go home. There is still a lot of
camp left. A couple days later it is Sunday and it is also Father’s Day, they
let all of the kids call their dads and say hi. She hears their voices and
looses it. The homesickness kicks in hard, and then through the tears that day
she manages to make herself miserable and sick enough that the counselors call
her parents and she gets to go home. Home, back into those loving arms that
love her no matter what, with safety and security and no chance of getting
hurt.
This
young girl slowly started to regain that courage she had discovered on the horse
and 35 feet in the air and started to spread her wings. You see she started to
figure out that the safety net of home was always going to be there to catch
her so she started to spread her wings and give herself a chance. She let her
best friend talk her into being in her first musical in the nun’s chorus of The
Sound of Music, and yet again The Wizard of Oz. There was this amazing feeling
of being on stage in a costume in makeup it allowed her to be someone with
confidence and passion, even if she was only in the chorus.
It was
around this time when I met this girl; you see the girl that I have been
describing is my younger self. I’m sure a lot of you figured it out. This girl
that I have introduced you to today is still very real to me, this girl fell in
love with theatre in high school and with theatre she was able to find an inner
confidence that helped lead her here today.
I’m
going to go back again and show you this girl with some pictures. I was born
March 23, 1989 to Darin and Darla Mann of Arkansas City. I went to church for
the first time when I was three days old, I always thought that my parents must
have secretly known what I wanted to do and thought it would be cool to be able
to say that, well it is cool but the truth is it was also my first Easter. Two
months later on Mother’s Day I was baptized. I grew up at St. Paul United
Methodist Church in Ark City. A congregation that today could fit in this
section over here. I grew up in Sunday School and I loved church. I was the
mature four year old that got to go to Children’s Church even though you had to
be five to go. But my Grandma Jo was willing to have me. I thought it was so
cool to learn how find books in the Bible and memorizing The Lord’s Prayer, I
was willing to race you to it. You see I might have been extremely timid, but I
was also extremely competitive. I was not about to be outdone at something I
was good at. I wanted so much to be like the big kids and do what the big kids
did. I have a lot of cousins on my mom’s side and we all grew up in the same
church but most of them were four or five years older than me and I was just
the baby. And I had this deep desire to be so much more than that baby, the
girl that cried all the time and was scared of everything. I wanted to be
confident and independent just like all of my cousins.
In high
school along with theatre I started to feel the need to know more and more
about the Bible. I wanted to read it, highlight it, know it, memorize it, and
feel it. I couldn’t get enough of that book. I read every night before I went
to bed and carried it to school with me.
My Bible I had had since I was ten was getting pretty worn out and I
looked forward to youth group and Sunday School like they weren’t going to
happen ever again. I invited all of my friends and eventually the youth group
was huge for our little church. I knew that someday along with teaching theatre
& math, and being a child psychologist I was going to lead the youth group
too. I didn’t know then that it could be a full time paid job. I went to Cowley
County Community College on a theatre scholarship and majored in religion. It
was during this time that I started to work at Camp Horizon and got a crash
course in youth ministry and being a confident, independent adult. Kids needed
me here, they thought I was cool and they wanted to tell me their life stories
my call got stronger. When I went back to school everything I did just seemed
to be a waste of time. Some of my friends couldn’t understand why I had changed
so much, so I spent a lot of time alone, with my iPod on and my Bible out. I
went back to camp again and had another challenging yet rewarding summer and
then I transferred to Southwestern College. I no longer lived at home but in
the dorms and had to figure out who I was away from everything I had known, I
didn’t do theatre anymore and I had to make new friends, oh and I had donated
my hair right before I started so all of my safety nets were missing. I
struggled a lot but became a stronger person. I went back to camp for another
summer and new that it was the last. My senior year I worked as the youth
leader at a small country church in Winfield with a crazy group of boys that
had a tendency to throw punches instead of using their words. I wanted to quit
many times, especially the night that one of them tried to wrestle me to the
ground, but he couldn’t and I stood strong. I didn’t cry until I got home. It
was in college that I made that phone call that saved a young girl’s life from
an abusive step mother and her own suicidal thoughts. It was in college that I
figured out I was stronger than I had ever given myself credit for. I graduated
in May 2011 with my Bachelor’s of Arts in Philosophy and Religion with a minor
in Youth Ministry. I was beyond done with school and so ready to be a youth
pastor, but every place I applied didn’t work out, everywhere I looked I was
shut down, so I spent the summer after graduation at home with my parents
babysitting my three year old cousin Charli, not exactly where I saw myself
after graduation. Then I was offered the Graduate Intern position at Camp
Horizon, a job I didn’t even apply for, and school surprisingly didn’t sound
like such a horrible idea. I said yes and enrolled in school that week. I
enrolled in my first class a week after it started, and I was done with
everything a week early. I was on a
roll. I took my classes two at a time against my advisor’s advice and worked
much more than 20 hours a week at Camp. I
graduated in May 2012 with my Master’s of Arts in Specialized Ministry a program
that was supposed to be 72 weeks long that is a year and a half, I did it in 10
months. Oh and I started working here on top of working at camp the last 12
weeks of school.
My
entire life I never questioned what I was told. I had complete faith in my
parents. I knew without a doubt that they were not going to lead me astray. I
had the blind faith of a child. That same blind faith with my friends usually
led to a broken heart but I lept anyway, it was in my nature to trust. I had
faith in everyone around me, except me, a lot of the time. As I got older I
developed that faith in the God I had learned about as a child. God, who was
willing to die for me, sounds pretty trustworthy. Then I started to have the
kind of faith in God that when people told me I couldn’t I said watch me. I
might not have been able to stand up as a child on that telephone pole 30 feet
in the air but I never forgot the incredible feeling of letting myself and
everyone else around me down, when I couldn’t do it.
I was the child that was never supposed to
leave home. The girl that would be too scared to make it, would get too
homesick and have to move home. I was the girl that went to college and worked
in the same town I grew up in. I was perfectly content living in my bedroom at
my parent’s house. But God had a different plan for me. He knocked on the door
to my heart when I was 15 and said this is my plan for you. It sounded pretty
awesome then because youth ministry (his plan) easily fit into mine. Somewhere
I had to take a huge leap of faith and let all of my plans fall away. Grad
School, returning to camp, moving an hour and half away from home, Hesston,
none of that was part of my plan. In my plan I had a solid job in Ark City, I
was married by now, and probably planning for a child, and actively sponsoring
the youth ministry at St. Paul UMC. My plan was safe and secure. My plan was
home and boy did it feel good. My plan included Taco Bell with the family after
church every week and sitting in the back pew playing with my little cousins.
My plan looked like a two story house with a white picket fence with kids that
ran down the street to grandma and grandpas. My plan might have been safe but
it was empty because it was my plan. When I finally caught on to God’s plan for
my life I had to let a lot go. I was physically ill a lot trying to live
between these two plans, and finally I had to stand up and take that leap and
trust that God was going to catch me. So now I’m the girl with a Master’s
Degree, the girl with a full time job in youth ministry, the girl that works in
a church with a budget, the girl that lives in an apartment without a roommate.
The girl that has only been home twice since she moved out, the girl that is so
busy living her life the way God had planned that she hasn’t had the time to
find a guy and settle down. I became the girl that moved away and fell in love
with a different town, a different church, a different dream. I took the leap
of faith that God needed me to take to live my life His way. Where are you? Are
you still on the ground looking up wondering if God is crazy? Are you stuck on
the pole as it shakes with your fears? Are standing on top wondering if this
can be for real if God really will catch you?
Well I dare you to go further than you imagined you could. I dare you to
take that step. I dare you to jump!
