So, I’ve been meaning to get back on here and tell you all how Divinity School has been going.

This has been a STRUGGLE!  I’m working full-time and attending Grad School full-time and parenting all the time.  *Insert exhausted face emoji here*  This life and experience is not for the weak or the faint of heart.  Okuuuurt!

Today, as I’m typing this blog post for a class, (how cool is that?!?) I am thinking about my journey to this point.  “How did I get here?”  “What in God’s name have I gotten myself into?”  “Did I do the right thing?”  There are too many questions, but I go ahead and turn on Howard Thurman’s audio, What Do You Want, Really, to begin my assignment and in the first minute and a half I’m completely struck by Thurman’s words.  He says, “Sometimes the voice is muted.  Sometimes telling us of hopes unrealized and dreams that will not rest until they incarnate themselves in us.  All the while they pull back, but they will not let us go.”

That’s exactly how I got here.  A dream.  As a matter of fact, it was a series of dreams.  Dreams that I could not explain, but could not shake.  I tried to ignore the soft, almost completely inaudible voice to reach out to who I like to call my “Mamas” to help me decipher what the dream meant.  I was wholeheartedly consumed by the words and visions in my dreams.  As the details began to fade, I prayed and asked God to really help me see and understand what those dreams meant.

Fast forward.  Showing up for Divinity School Orientation was an act of God.  I got in my car happy to be on my way.  I called my mother to talk to her as I do some mornings.  We had a good conversation, but when I hung up I felt an overwhelming urge to turn around and go home.  Now ain’t that crazy?!?  Honey, I felt nuts.  My Great Grandmothers were well steeped in God’s word.  My Grandad is a Bishop.  My parents are ministers.  I have been in church all my life.  I work full-time at the church.  Why would I want to go into the ministry?  Why am I shaking up my life to do this?

As it turns out, the reason I made it to orientation was because of “the sound of the genuine” in me.  I unknowingly had been wrestling with this call for the past few years.  An urge to go deeper with God plagued me.  I say plagued because I had conflicting agendas: The plan God has for me vs. the ideas and goals I have for myself.  Turns out everything, “…my thinking, my dreaming, my struggling…,” was God’s still small voice calling to me.  At the core, my truest self that was designed in the image of God,  longed to be in a place and to do a thing that allowed me to be vulnerable and a blessing to others all at the same time.  It’s like my homie Thurman says in The Sound of the Genuine (we’re totes friends now), “I want to feel completely vulnerable, completely naked, completely exposed and absolutely secure.”  That’s exactly how I feel when I am in the middle of leading Praise & Worship, and when I’m in the office at church working on projects.  And this may sound completely nuts to those of you who haven’t tried to listen to the voice of God that lives in you or the sound of the genuine, but I am everyday okay with waiting to hear from the muted voice.  It’s only muted because I have cluttered my heart and mind with things that are totally irrelevant to my purpose.  Each day that I listen, it grows stronger.  I become less sure of myself, but way more confident that God has me on the right path.  And even though I may cry or feel insecure in my flesh on this journey, it’s only because of the voice of God that I am making my way in this new calling.

Take a listen to this video and tell me what you think.