Hey friends!
If you have read my first blog post, you know quite a bit about me already. But if not, I will introduce myself. My name is Kaley and I am from the San Francisco Bay Area, but currently live in Phoenix, Arizona. I like sports and nature and am currently going through a weird early 2000’s music phase, but hopefully that last one will pass. I’m also pretty obsessed with my family, they are definitely the coolest thing about me. If you’ve met any of them, you get it.
I grew up in Christian schools and wouldn’t take that back for the world. Who God is was ingrained in me from a young age. But it wasn’t until I got older that I learned to make that relationship my own. In high school, I learned the difference between knowing that God exists and making Him the number one thing in my life. But even still I would say that it wasn’t until college that I learned to truly make my faith my own. I was a part of my youth groups leadership team in high school, a stipulation being that there was daily Bible reading and morning devotionals that the youth pastor checked over every week. In college, there was no one checking to make sure that I was spending time with the Lord. No one was asking me how my relationship with the Lord was doing. All of the sudden, it was fully my own responsibility. It was a hard realization and not an easy thing to adapt to, but it was exactly what I needed.
I knew I was called to missions and figured I did not need college to get there, but decided to go anyways, you know, for the memories. I started out at Grand Canyon University as a Sports Management Major, basically, I knew I liked sports and hoped it wouldn’t be that boring. I changed to Business before classes even started. It was broader and that way I would always have a backup plan if missions did not work out, or more realistically, if missions did not pay the bills. My family never had much money growing up so being able to not worry about where rent was coming from was my number one goal for my adult self. But early on, the Lord made it so clear that if He had called me to something, why would I feel the need to have a backup plan? I was trying to figure things out for myself instead of surrendering to what He had already promised.
I had plenty of people in my life telling me that missions is admirable for a season, but not a full time career. So many people told me that changing my major was a mistake and that I would regret it when I was broke. “A business degree would go much further”, I heard almost daily while I was wrestling with the decision. But just like Paul said, I did not come to please man. I knew the call on my life and decided to surrender it all to the Lord. I switched to a Global Ministries degree and never looked back. My advisor was getting whiplash with all the changes, but I promised him I would not be changing it again. God called me to missions, I was silly to think that I could plan around that. So here I am, with a degree in Christian Studies, trying to follow where He is leading. But hey, sometimes a leap of faith just looks like a step. Thank You, Lord, that You knew what I needed long before I thought I knew better.
“The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes His steps.” Proverbs 16:9
-K
