You Are Where You Need to Be

 “You are exactly where I want you to be.”

Those words trigger a powerful memory for me. Mike and I go to Stable Faith Cowboy Church in Brooksville, Florida. And yes, it is a true cowboy church, rooted, if you will, in agriculture. 

A church devoted to planting seeds and reaping crops…both literally and figuratively. 

Stable Faith Cowboy Church

Back to this past Sunday. I was sitting in church. The music was, as usual, wonderful. A thought came to me. Almost audible. It was a thought I’d had before. More than once. It was as if God was speaking directly to me saying, “You are exactly where you need to be.”

The first time this happened was in India. My youngest daughter and I traveled with a group from her church to work with young women who had been rescued from human trafficking. I say “women,” but the truth is, some of the girls we served were mere children.

Kendall asked me to take this trip with her the spring after I lost my husband. Tom died in late October of 2014.  I agreed, then almost immediately considered backing out.  Instead, I prayed about it. The trip was scheduled for April 2015. I decided to leave it up to God. 

I had a valid passport, but it turns out that for the trip, it had to be valid for at least six months after the end date of the trip. Mine was shy by a month. I applied for a new passport, silently thinking this may be God’s way of letting me out of the whole thing. 

The new passport was quickly returned to me and good for another stretch. So, Kendall and I raised the funds, attended the training, boarded the plane in April of 2015, and traveled halfway around the world to serve these sweet, hurting girls. 

For me? It was the broken serving the broken. 

The program was simple. We offered something akin to VBS (Vacation Bible School) and were sitting on the floor in a large room at a hotel of sorts in India. We were waiting for one small group to finish their task before moving on to the next activity. I felt someone behind me. I turned, but there was nobody there. I stretched my legs out in front of me and looked up at the still blank screen, waiting for the music to begin and lyrics to pop up. 

Inked Hands...Serving Others...

That’s when I heard that voice. “You are exactly where you need to be.”  I turned around. There was still no one behind me. I didn’t say anything about it for a long time. Afterall, people might think I’m crazy.

In 2017, one of my former students from the college contacted me and asked me to take her place as a fourth-grade teacher in Kosovo for the 2017-2018 school year. She wanted to come back to the States to give birth to her first child.  I prayed about it and three weeks later boarded an airplane for Europe. 

A mere three weeks? Yep. I had a valid passport. God can see around the corners.

That year was a year of healing for me. I grew not only in my faith, but I realized I was a capable adult in my own right. By myself. Not as Tom’s wife. Not as a mom. Me. I returned to the United States when the school year ended.

Those same words, “You are exactly where you need to be,” washed over me when I married Mike in 2023. 

And then again, as I said, this past Sunday. 

I may not know exactly why. Yet. But I trust in God’s plan for me. He has never let me down. Moreover, I know He never will.