lovelight

I Am From

I am from Sue and Frank, Angie and Chip, Helen and Joe.

From the quiet countryside and checkerboard cornfields of Eastern Central PA,

   from summer vacations at the Jersey Shore and 15 minutes from the nearest

   grocery store.

I am from ketchup chicken eaters, Saturday morning scrambled eggs, and snacking

   at midnight.

I am from hilarity, extreme shyness, longing for the future, too-soon sexualization,

   fitting in with misfits, and believing I could save the world.

From apathetic Catholics who value family more than faith.

I am from “Honey, be careful” and “Why do you only listen when I yell?” and

   “That’s your done button” and “You can be anything you want.”

I am from seven years of trying and a miscarried sibling, a father who did all the cooking,

   Dobermans and indoor cats, artists, office managers, soldiers, beauticians,  

   mechanics, and seamstresses.

I am from piano lessons, bald Barbies, “You Are My Sunshine,” and

   a lifelong best friend.

From Dr. Seuss, green chlorinated hair, lightning bugs, and long hours of

   Zelda and Donkey Kong.

I am from swing set summers, snow fort winters, and Democrats. 

From Christmas tree farms, grey gravel roads, starry skies, and cow manure,

   from R.L. Stine, David Letterman, and Rancid.

My own soft, wide-eyed song progressing seamlessly before an audience of

   adoring fans.

THE STORY

Part 1

This story is for anyone who’s ever cared to hear about God in motion and for everyone who’s ever thought their ideas and passions were too big, too radical, and too wild. It’s about pain, confusion, risk, and faith, being led, moving on, and not having a freaking clue what’s coming next.

Like any decent story, mine started when things went horrifically wrong.

In May of 2008, I had the distinct privilege of boarding Northwest Airlines—alone—to fly 2 ½ hours from NYC back to my home in Indianapolis, a sobbing, inconsolable mess. The man I thought I’d marry, who had been caring for and holding my heart, had just handed it back to me. He said it was him, and though he was right, it hardly mattered to the all too familiar abandonment of my little girl, fairytale heart.

The problem with heartache is that it’s a cesspool for confusion. Colors fade to a dim shade of jade-ed, well fed opinions stagger and starve, and every period in every paragraph morphs into a chorus-line of can-canning question marks.

Ever been there? Yeah, it sucks. Now couple that with being 25, sitting behind a desk every M-F and being painfully aware that you don’t just want to, but are designed to be on some front line, some where.

It was right around this time of emotional upchuck that I started feeling a tug onto something other than Keynote. Was I able to discern what and where? Not a chance. I didn’t know if my feeling pulled in another direction was me, my broken heart, or God. So I did what any normal, hurting girl would do. I took control.

I started researching job opportunities with the skill and finesse of a woman marked with OCD. Hours. Days. Weeks of searching. And for what? With every search and sigh, my heart broke a little more.  At this point it became obvious—yes—I was definitely trying to replace the pain. God was not in this. Or so I thought.

After weeks of watching me stare at my computer screen, pander idea after idea, and become more and more dejected, Kristin, my roommate and tell-it-like-it-is confidant looked at me with heat in her eyes.

“Stop! Just stop! Get off your computer. You need to stop searching. Give it to God and knock it off.”

I don’t know why, but that’s all it took. I promised myself that I wouldn’t search for anything but God the entire summer.

And then, the first encounter with the voice.

During a time of worship at Keynote, I was on my knees, singing and swaying when I heard ever so softly “I’m calling you to the church.”

“Wait. What? NO. What? My heart’s for people who don’t know you, God. Not people who do. What? Whatever.”

A couple days later, I met with John, a friend and former leader at Keynote who helped train me when I first arrived. “I had a vision about you a couple months ago,” he said.  “And you know I like you and everything, but it’s not like I think about you a whole lot in my spare time. No offense. But it just struck me.” He went on, “I had a vision of you in a church, on a stage, singing.”

In a church? Ok, very funny. I hesitantly told him about my little ignoring escapade with the voice. He smiled. “Interesting.”

After this conversation and during my time of research-fasting, I pulled up my favorite website—XXXChurch.com. The guys had just put up a video of Craig Gross, the founder of the ministry, introing their move to Vegas and what God’s called them to do there. I sat and watched at my dining room table, in my pjs, and began to cry.

He said, “XXXChurch started back in 2002 and for over six years now, I’ve been answering the same question. Is XXXChurch really a building? Do you guys actually meet? And the answer to that question for years has been ‘No, we’re an online community.’ But in 2009, that’s all gonna change. We’re bringin’ XXXChurch to Sin City. Las Vegas, Nevada.

We come to this town once a year for a porn convention, but the opportunity to be here 365 days a year—a year long porn show—with all the sex, all the pornography, 189,000 hotel rooms—the opportunities are endless, and we can’t wait to bring XXXChurch to Las Vegas. I’m not talkin’ about a normal, traditional, 10am service [Cue eyes welling up.] with worship and a message that wraps up in 30 minutes with four key points.

I’m talkin’ late night. Mid-week. Something totally different. Something totally… unexpected. [Cue tears flowing down.] We can’t do it alone. This is a big vision. A big dream. And obviously in this town, it’s gonna require big money. But we believe we can change not only Las Vegas, we believe we can have an impact on thousands and thousands of people that visit this city every week.”

All of my searching and what ifs ended when I saw this video. Why the heck wasn’t I paying attention to what I’ve been passionate about since my sophomore year of college? XXXChurch. A ministry that was born the same year I was reborn. “God, if this is the church you’re calling me to, I’m there. I mean, like, yesterday.”

But even in the midst of all this, I wasn’t really planning on leaving Keynote. I mean, not actually.

Though one night as I laid in bed, I thought “What would it be like if I actually left?” Again, I started to cry. But with these tears came an immediate “Oh crap.”

The moment I realized I didn’t want to leave, my mind morphed back to when I was home in PA, looking to join staff with Keynote. It was the exact same scenario. Laying down, crying, I didn’t want to leave behind everything I knew—everything that was familiar and safe—for the unknown. But somewhere deep, I knew I had to.

I of course tried to sluff the whole night off. Instead of paying attention to the beginning of the obvious—is anything ever obvious when you’re in the middle of it?—I started having conversations with Carole, my friend and Keynote’s HR Director, about all the stuff that was going on in my heart.

It was placement time at Keynote. Every year, Keynote staff have the opportunity to do something different than what they did the year before, and I had the fabulous idea of paving the way as Keynote’s first-ever storyteller.

I had the weirdest, sneakiest feeling going into my first placement conversation with Carole that the conversation would end up going a certain way. It was like I had some kind of foreknowledge of what would take place even though I didn’t actually expect it to. All I knew was that I was going in there to pitch my storytelling idea, that I had no intentions of talking about anything other than my storytelling idea, and if I could write in a whisper, that we would end up talking about my heart for XXXChurch anyway.

I didn’t mention any of this to Carole. At least, not until after the conversation actually ended up going there and she told me that my sneaking suspicion translated to one thing.

God.

As we talked in the middle of one of the only pizza joints in Indy that has pie even remotely close to the clear superiority of East coast pizza, she made sure to tell me that everyone on the placement committee loved my storytelling idea. She also broke out a truth bomb and told me that she didn’t think it would bring me life. Before I realized what was coming out of my mouth, I agreed with her. Nice move. What was I doing? I was trying to sell this thing!

It was totally obvious with that where my heart actually was. Scary and obvious, though I wasn’t even close to being ready to admit it.

With that, she started affirming me all over the place, saying things like “You’re designed to be on the front lines.” “It’s just become more and more obvious over the years.” “You struggle behind a desk because you’re not designed to be there.” “God’s taught you a lot by placing you here.”

Carole has a ridiculously keen gift of discernment and as our conversation went on, she said, “Ok, I’ve gotta ask you a really hard question.” I looked at her, probably with a good bit of “Ah crap” in my eyes when she asked, “Where are you called?” I just stared at her kind of dumbfounded and said “You know if I knew that, I’d tell you. I just don’t know.” So she said, “Ok, let’s say we move forward with this storyteller idea. And let’s say XXXChurch calls you in three months and says to you ‘We want you here.’ What would you say?”

I started crying immediately. Again with the crying. It was weird. It was like my tears gave my heart a voice. “Of course I would go. My heart’s there. I can’t help it.” She looked at me knowingly. “You really need to pay attention to that.”

Through my tears, I told her that I had just found out that XXX was having a vision night in Vegas to share with friends and supporters what God’s got going on for them in the ministry.

“You need to go to that.”

I told her about the new opportunity for women to join the team in an outreach to other women in the sex-industry in Vegas and that in all of my years of following XXX, that they’ve never had an opportunity for girls to get involved like that. She looked at me plainly.

“That’s you.”

Ok. I’d just like to pause the story for a second to point out that Carole and I had talked about XXXChurch and a few other crazy ideas I had (one of which included moving to Bangkok) a couple months earlier. And a couple months earlier, she basically told me that if I were her daughter, she’d be horrified at the prospect of my moving to Las Vegas—i.e. in all of her Philly tenderness, “Don’t do it, Jabber.”

So you can imagine the thoughts that were tearing through my head when she, in essence, was encouraging me to look into what she, in essence, had been discouraging me from just a couple months earlier.

Enter the signs and wonders phase of this story.

Carole likes to pray for people when she’s done hanging out with them. I think part of the reason she does it is because she knows that the Holy Spirit has given her the divine gift of lovingly ripping people a new one. So we prayed. And in the middle of the prayer, Honky Cat by Elton John came on the radio. I didn’t think much of it at first, other than that it reminded me of my mom and how much we used to listen to Elton when I was growing up.

But then the chorus came. Again and again and again. “Oh, a change is gonna do me good.”

We actually stopped our prayer to laugh at the ridiculousness of that line in light of our conversation.

As we drove back to the office, we passed a billboard that read “WE’LL MOVE YOU.” Carole pointed it out and started laughing. I started laughing too, and said “Haha, movements everywhere.”

Side note:  Campus Crusade for Christ’s tag line is “Building movements everywhere so everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus.” I also have a To Write Love On Her Arms t-shirt that says “Love Is The Movement.”

This might not seem all that hilarious unless you’ve been properly introduced to Keynote culture. Here, the word movement automatically means bowel movement. There’s no getting around it. Whenever I wear my TWLOHA tee, Carole likes to tell me that I’ve got a movement on my shirt. Ha.

So anyway, I laughed and said “Movements everywhere” and she said “No. Read it.”

I looked at the sign again. “WE’LL MOVE YOU.” “Oh man!” She cracked up. In light of our conversation—ridiculous. Again. Great.

When we got back to the office, I grabbed my laptop and headed to the patio to work outside. The first thing I did was look up the lyrics to Honky Cat.

What I read stunned me. The entire song is about a backwoods kid (did I mention I grew up in Nowheresville, PA?) who wants to move to a big city with lights. But everyone and everything around him is telling him that he’s crazy. And the last two lines of the song? “But how can you stay when your heart says no / How can you stop when your feet say go?”

Can you guess what I did next? It involves waterworks.

I took a walk with my friend Vanessa later that day. After I told her about the whole conversation with Carole, she looked at me as calmly and peacefully as she always, characteristically does, and said, “Well, I think you know what you need to do. It’s just a matter of when you’re going to allow yourself to do it.”

Boo. Too many truth bombs in one day.

The magnitude of ridiculousness that God packed into that single day completely overwhelmed me. I didn’t know what to think. I did however resolve in my mind that I was going to this vision night in Vegas whether I had any vacation days left or not.

So I started praying. “Look, Lord. If I’m gonna go to this thing, I want you to provide someone to go with me. And I mean someone who’s gonna look at everything way differently than I will. I’m pie in the sky with everything. You know that, you made me. I need someone who’s gonna see XXX and this city realistically.” 

Part 2

In the meantime, Kristin and I decided that we wanted to take our cars in for an oil change. I should mention that I was way overdue for this maintenance, and basically the only reason I took mine in was because Kristin took hers.

So we went. We got our oil changed. We paid. We left. Driving back to our apartment, I glanced up at the little sticker they put on the inside of my windshield to let me know when to come in again. 11/14/08.

November 14^th is the date of the XXXChurch Las Vegas vision night.

That day however, was August 16^th. I don’t know if August 16^th to November 14^th is exactly 90 days or what. All I know is that I should have taken my car in months earlier and didn’t. And if I had gone on any other day, that little sticker would not read 11/14/08.

Around this time, I sent an email to a general email addy at XXX and asked them to put me on the RSVP list for the vision night. Jeanette, Craig’s wife, wrote back and said something like “Great! We’ll see you there!”

On their website, when they announced the Vegas outreach to girls in the sex industry, they said to email them if you were interested in helping. So I figured since I had just heard back from Jeanette, I’d tell her that I was interested.

Now I have a bit of a history with XXXChurch. I’ve met and talked with Craig a couple times, Brandon, another guy that’s part of the ministry, and Jeanette and I talked on the phone last summer because my giving to the ministry got messed up. Every time I talked with anyone, I always offered myself up as writer. I mean, that’s what I have my degree in, so I figured, that’s what I can do. And that’s kinda it.

Side note: my girls and I would call this a junk punch—i.e. something that just isn’t true.

In my email to Jeanette I told her that I was potentially interested in helping with the Vegas outreach, reminded her that we had talked last summer, and asked for more information.

Meanwhile, my computer crashed. A Mac. The indestructible, PC butt-kicking beast. I bought the thing because I was told they never crash.

Never say never.

This was now the second time in my life that I’d lost everything on my computer. The first was my super-senior semester of college right before graduation, during finals weeks. That was fun. At that time, I was also waiting to hear back from Keynote to see if I was accepted or not.

This is now the second time in this story that my present was channeling my past. Coming out of school, my computer crashed right on the cusp of a major change—though I didn’t realize it at the time. But this mirrored crashing was too coincidental. It was also the thing that started to tip me over the edge of really believing that something big was coming.

As a side note, I hope God doesn’t choose to jank up my computer every time something new is around the corner. And as a second side note, yes, I finally got an external hard-drive.

A few days after the computer crash, or what I lovingly refer to as The Massacre, I got an email from Brandon from XXX. The email was basically a Dear Jane letter saying that they didn’t think I’d fit the team as an intern or staff and that they were sure I had God-given gifts, but that they didn’t see them fitting into XXX.

I had to go home from work early. I wept over that email. It made no sense to me. It came out of nowhere, it had no specifics, and since it was in the same line of emails as my RSVP to the vision night with Jeanette, I didn’t know if I was even still invited to go.

I absolutely could not wrap my head around it. I mean, God was really moving in my life. The confusion in my heart was starting to calm down, he was speaking through other people, songs, billboards, car stickers, you name it.

Cue one of the deepest moments of confusion I’ve ever experienced—matched only by my breakup, and only three short months later. I was absolutely undone.

Kristin came home from work a few hours later, along with our girl Pisch. They sat with me on my bed as I cradled myself, still crying. They brought me food and angry girl music, shared in my grief and confusion, and offered endless words of encouragement, laughter, and hope. They both kept saying, “This doesn’t make sense. Something just doesn’t seem right.”

Pisch asked if I thought they were testing me to see if I was really serious about wanting to be a part of the team. I told her that I thought that would be incredibly sucky, that I really didn’t know, but that I didn’t think so. They both said that I shouldn’t let it go and that I needed to get my many, many “why’s” answered.

Oh and did I mention that I was going to Seattle the next day—alone—for a Story Workshop? Yeah. Awesome timing. And really, I mean that both sarcastically and truly. It was awesome timing. Every day I’m more and more convinced that God knows exactly what he’s doing.

But back to the cry fest.

After our discussion of needing to get my questions answered, K-Trout broke out one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard her say.

Sitting on my stability ball and suddenly morphing into her “Oh no they di-in’t” face, she said, “You know, I think this ministry just needs to see somebody with a big set of balls.”

It took about a millisecond before the three of us looked at each other wide-eyed and laughed so hard we literally gasped for air. As soon as Pisch could speak, she heaved out “I think they already have.”

Nothing like porn ministry humor.

What K-Trout meant to say was that she thought XXX should see someone who is so passionate that they simply can’t take no for an answer.

I love those girls. If ever God has sent me ministering angels, it was then.

I woke up the next morning, still really sad and confused about the whole thing and honestly, was totally stripped of all the excitement I had in going to Seattle. But regardless, I had to go. 

Now to back up a little, I wasn’t even supposed to go to this workshop. I had found out about it months before it was set to happen, but had waited too long to sign up. The next time I visited the website, the workshop was full. There was a waiting list I could put my name on, so I did. I said to God “Ok, if you want me to go to this thing, just make it happen.” And I forgot about it.

Then Summer Project hit—Keynote’s short-term mission trip for college students.

About half way through Project, we were in Michigan on tour when I got an email from a lady at Mars Hill Graduate School, where the workshop was being held. She said a space had just opened up and wanted to know if I was still interested in coming. I emailed her back immediately and said, “YES!”

Later when we talked on the phone, she told me that there was actually a girl ahead of me on the waiting list who she emailed first. She told her that she’d need to get back to her by 5pm that day if she wanted to come, otherwise she’d open the invitation up to the next person on the list. That next person was me.

What I found out was that this girl who was ahead of me had actually gotten in touch with the Mars Hill lady about 5 minutes after she received my “yes.” She had to tell the other girl “no” because I got back to her so quickly.

This is still completely insane to me. I got to go to something that literally altered the course of my life because of a five minute window. When I was on tour. With a crazy schedule. Where we actually had an internet connection. Nice timing, God.

The workshop was nothing like what I expected. I wanted to go because I wanted to learn how to tell other people’s stories better. What I came away with was learning how to tell mine.

Dan Allender was the main speaker. That dude said a lot of things that messed with me. But the statement that stuck out most prominently in my mind was “If you want to understand your themes and your calling, look at where you have raised your fist against God and shook it. And he will say ‘Oh what a beautiful fist, now open it.’”

I thought this was a nice idea, but had no clue what the heck he was talking about. As the workshop went on and I met my storytelling small group and they spoke life into me in ways that I both fought against and fought to understand, I began reevaluating Dan’s words and racked my brain over what they meant.

But I still didn’t really get it. Especially in light of my deep passions that had both surfaced years ago in a college dorm room and were just now beginning to bubble up. Why do I want to help people affected by pornography and sex-trafficking so much? And where did I personally raise my fist against God in these areas?

I was skeptical to say the least.

So I pulled Dan aside and sat down with him one-on-one. We ended up not even talking about the fist raising stuff, but what happened next I can only attribute to the Holy Spirit speaking directly through him.

All I told him was that I’m an only child, I’m on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, I don’t like what I do, and that I just received a Dear Jane letter from XXXChurch in the midst of both my heart and many strange occurrences pointing me in their direction.

I shared nothing with him about the snapshot story from my childhood that I wrote and brought to share with my group. I gave him no real details as to who I am and what I’m about. So I said, “Ok look, I know you’re not the be-all end-all of wisdom, but I’ve got to ask you, what do you think I should do about this email?

He furrowed his brow and looked at me hard.

“You are a traitor. You rebel within systems. You had to to survive,” he paused. “You have to to be loyal to God.”

“Excuse me?”

He continued. “You are very bright. And you have had a hard life. XXXChurch would do well to have you. As far as this email is concerned, I’ve been sitting here with you for 10 minutes and I already know that you’re going to push back. It’s what you do.”

Whoa.

I walked away from that conversation feeling like I just got kicked in a set of appendages that I do not have.

I know I always push back. I can’t help it. I don’t do it to be annoying or rebellious. I do it because I genuinely want to understand and make sure that things are as they should be. And for some reason, questioning any form of status quo comes naturally.

How did he pick up on that? Am I really that transparent?

It was only after I left Seattle and got back home that I finally understood what Dan was talking about with all of his “look at where you’ve raised your fist against God” business. It was as if God was waiting for just the right moment to open my eyes and cue my memory.

In a wide-eyed gasp, I remembered the moment I raised my fist.

My freshman year of college, during my very first—and very worst—relationship, I made a vow. In regard to my body and how I guarded it with the veneers of worn religion and lofty pride, I told myself, “I will not be a ‘good girl’ anymore. I don’t care.”

And with that vow came the noose of darkness that evil nearly hanged me with. I was reckless. The guy I was with was in a cult and was severely addicted to pornography. By way of quiet suggestion and subtle manipulation veiled by his promise of love, I had the honor of bringing much of what he saw on his computer screen to life 

When I realized that my raised fist against God was in regard to the gift of my sexuality—which is only surpassed by the gift of my salvation—each and every gear that had been out of alignment in my heart began to lock into place.

At the Story Workshop, we talked a lot about coauthoring our lives with God and were challenged to literally write down a sentence, and then a paragraph, and then a story of what we’d like to see happen in our lives. And once it’s written, to offer it up to God and say, “What do you think of this, Papa?”

So I wrote. Plan A—intern at XXXChurch. Plan B—go to school at Mars Hill.

I honestly didn’t put a whole lot of thought into my Plan A or Plan B. And I totally skipped the step of asking God what he thought of them. That wouldn’t come until a couple weeks later.

But back to the signs and wonders.

Part 3

While I was in Seattle, Karl, our computer guy at Keynote, shipped my Mac to Apple so they’d replace my hard-drive. When I got it back, he helped me get everything reinstalled. We were about to reinstall VMware, the program I used to run Windows, when he told me that I’d need the program’s key to install it again. He suggested that I search through all my old emails to see if I had it saved somewhere.

I didn’t.

In the middle of searching, I got a new email from VMware. I rarely get emails from them and when I do, I delete them. I mean, they’re boring. But since I happened to be searching for an email for this very program, I opened it, scrolled down a little, and stopped cold.

My eyes rested on an invite to come to an unveiling of some new version of the program—at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Venetian Hotel is where XXX is having their vision night.

For some reason, it was beginning to seem like God would be persistent on placing the date and place of this vision night before me.

So I casually mentioned Vegas to a few close friends. Everybody thought it was cool, but the issue with running in a missionary crowd is that we don’t exactly have deep pockets. So I prayed. And when I began to think that I and whoever God would provide would probably have to pay about a grand a piece for this weekend, I started praying a little harder.

“Ok God, you know I want to go this thing. And you seem to keep putting it before me, so I’m just gonna start asking you for specifics. Would you make a way for K-Trout to come?”

Kristin told me from day one that she’d think and pray about it. I thought this thinking and praying would take a couple days. Three weeks later, she finally gave me her answer.

“WE’RE GOIN’ TO VEGAS, BABY!”

I almost peed. But at least this time I didn’t cry.

When I first asked K-Trout if she’d go with me, I started looking up prices for flights and hotel reservations. Like I said, the vision night is happening at The Venetian—a five star, super swanky, been-in-movies kind of joint. So I figured it’d be easiest to just get a room there.

Three weeks later, when she had finally given me her answer, the price that I had found was exactly the same. I mean, I think it went up like five bucks. But that’s exactly the same in my book.

So here’s what God did:  he provided my best friend—who praise God, thinks a whole lot differently than I do, and provided her with enough vacations days and enough money to just drop. Unreal.

When we bought our tickets, we added on a rental car and still paid well under what I thought we’d pay. I mean by like hundreds of dollars. It was ridiculous.

During this time, everyone around me was encouraging me to respond to Brandon’s email and ask for some clarification. But I was scared. I’ll admit it.

I knew I needed to respond somehow, but I couldn’t decide who to write to.

“Do I respond to Brandon? Well, I’m kinda scared of him for no good reason right now. What about Jeanette? She was the one I wrote to initially. Should I get Craig in the loop? If I do, is it gonna look like I’m going behind Brandon’s back? I don’t want to look like a five year old.”

All of this was motivated by fear—fear of further rejection, fear of stepping on toes, and fear of single-handedly slamming the door in my own face.

So I decided to write an email asking to meet with someone from the team face-to-face while in Vegas, unsure of who I’d ultimately send it to. Once it was written, I decided not to look at it for two weeks and instead, pray that if anything needed to be added or deleted, that God would show me.

Carole told me she’d read over the email and look at it from an HR perspective since she deals with hiring people all the time—just to make sure I had all my bases covered. During that two week time period, I never heard back from her about what she thought of it. I decided not to ask. God would make it clear. That, I was sure of.

True to form, he did. After two weeks, I read the email again. It just didn’t sit well with my spirit. So I didn’t send it.

I was in the middle of battling through a lie Satan threw at me from the first moment I read Brandon’s email. “In my zeal, I’ve become annoying to them, and they don’t like me.”

Over the weekend, I started flipping through Romans after weeks of being out of the Word. Immediately, God spoke.

Romans 12:9-12 says, “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

I couldn’t believe it. I don’t exactly use the word “zeal” a whole lot in every day language, but for some reason, that was the main word in the lie that I was choking on. And there it was. Never be lacking in zeal.

I cried. Of course.

I started praying that God would have XXX send their vision night invitation so I at least knew I was still invited to this thing. I totally expected it to come via snail mail, so when I opened my inbox a few days later and saw an email invite with all the specs on where to go and what would happen, I knew that God and I were back in business.

He was talking. I was listening. I was talking. He was answering.

In that invite it specifically said that if you wanted to get together with anyone from the board or staff during your time in Vegas, to respond to the invite—a generic XXX email, not a specific person—and they’d set it up.

Two prayers answered in one shot. God let me know that yes, I was still invited to the vision night and no, I didn’t have to worry about who to send my email to. All I had to do was respond to a generic address and ask to meet with someone. Beautiful.

A couple days later, I got a message on my voicemail from a friend who knew nothing about what was going on in my life. She said “I’ve been praying for you and I just really feel like God’s telling me that he’s got something new for you. So, there you go. Call me back.”

Seriously?

The next morning, Kristin was getting ready for work and had her radio on. “I’ll keep you my dirty little secret.” I stopped what I was doing around the word “keep” and slowly walked over to her bathroom. “What are you listening to?” She lifted her groggy soap-covered face out of the sink and looked at me in the mirror. “What?” “Is that the radio?” “What? Yeah…”

Dirty Little Secret is a song by The All-American Rejects that XXX would use to intro all their podcasts—which until then, I’d heard on the radio maybe once.

Over the next few days, I must have heard that song 3 or 4 more times. Two days later, I was poking around on an emo hair website and clicked on a picture of a girl with fantastically bright electric blue hair. When I scrolled down to see the entire shot, I stopped and stared at the picture’s description.

X3.

X3’s an abbreviation XXX uses for themselves all the time.

A few minutes later, K-Trout and I hopped into her car to go to Wal-Mart. At a red light, right before we pulled into the parking lot, the radio announcer came on. “Hi, this is Brandon and you’re listening to…”

Brandon? I literally grabbed the car door and yelled “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

We walked into Wal-Mart. When we rounded the corner from the store’s entrance, I was met by a wall of new DVD releases—all the same film—What Happens In Vegas Stays In Vegas.

What. The. Heck.

It was then and there that I told God to stop. That it was too much. That I couldn’t handle anymore of these “signs.”

So he stopped. Soon after, I realized that it would in fact actually be better to have a God who speaks a lot over a God who’s silent.

I decided that I wasn’t going to read into all of these “signs” as if they meant that I was destined to become a part of the XXXChurch team, regardless of the Dear Jane email. Instead, I decided that I’d simply take them as God telling me to definitely go to the vision night—for whatever reason.

Very shortly after I matter-of-factly told God to quit speaking to me with all the signs, I began begging him to have another go at it.

A few days later, K-Trout and I were over at the “free stuff” table at the office waiting for our Marketing meeting to start. There was a brown grocery bag there that was new, so she stuck her hand in and pulled out a wine glass wrapped in tissue paper. As she unwrapped it, we saw that there was writing on it.

“National 1987 ACOG” Blah, blah, blah…

“Las Vegas.”

We looked at each other and laughed. She stuck her hand back in the bag and proceeded to pull out all the other wine glasses—each with a different city’s name etched on it.

But Vegas was the first out of the bag.

Part 4

Carole and I met at our favorite pizza joint to chat again a few days later. She wanted to hear all about the Story Workshop and what God was doing in my life. I told her what Dan had said and about all the weird things that were pointing me toward XXX.

She looked at me and smiled. “They’ve already told you no and you’re still going after this. That says something about your heart.”

When she said that, I was reminded of something K-Trout said to me a few days earlier. I was having a woe-is-me moment over the whole thing and she said “You know, I think it’s good they told you ‘no.’ You tank and give up when things get too hard and you haven’t done that with this. I think God’s trying to teach you to trust him, persevere, and learn humility. 

I hate when people tell me what they think God’s trying to teach me. But she was right.

God was bringing me through some of the deepest waters of my pride. If I’m being totally honest, part of the reason I was so shocked to get Brandon’s email was because I was convinced that XXX needed me.

Wrong.

The next few weeks were like Extreme Home Makeover—but for my character. The thing that sucks about pride is that when it’s recognized for what it is, you’ve got to come face to face with being wrong. I don’t know many people who like being wrong. I’m definitely not one of them.

But as always, God did his thing. I still don’t really understand what happened, but it was like all of sudden, I cared more about God and honoring the story he was writing for me than trying to force anything to happen with my own hand.

And patience. Now there’s a virtue that I’ve notoriously railed against. But that was being built up too. Just like that, I realized that I was in fact waiting on and trusting God and that I was actually ok with it. When did that happen?

Shortly after God started helping me get my act together, Carole and I had our last placement conversation. This time we met in her office.

I started blabbing away about all the stuff God was teaching me, how he was answering baby-step prayer after baby-step prayer, that I still longed to be a part of the XXXChurch team some day, and that I was currently experiencing that peace that surpasses all understanding.

Carole smiled. She said, “I’ve got to tell you, it’s so exciting to hear you talk like this. And I need to tell you where we’re at with placement. Your saying all of this totally confirms what God’s been telling us.”

She paused. “Heather,”—she never calls me Heather—“every time we pray about you, we hear God tell us that you have to move on. And every time, we say back to him ‘But God, we like Heather!’ But it’s just become more and more obvious. We don’t want you to go. We really don’t. But you need to go after him. You need to follow the things he’s put on your heart. So because of this, we’d like for you to be done November 1^st.”

November 1^st. One month. The start of the new Keynote year.

I sat there shocked. I like to think that I’m pretty good at predicting things, but I would have never predicted those words coming out of her mouth.

“Are you ok? What do you think?” she asked. I looked back at her and just said, “Wow… yeah. I’m fine. Yes. This makes sense.” I had such an incredible peace about the whole thing. I think that’s what was really stunning me.

Later, as I talked with my close girlfriends, Vanessa said “Wow. Wow, Heather. Our leadership team is empowering you to follow God. That is so awesome!”

Over the next few days of letting the whole thing sink in, one of my first thoughts was “What the heck did I write about in my last prayer letter? This is gonna come out of nowhere for everybody!”

The truth is, it came out of nowhere for me.

I wasn’t expecting to leave staff at the end of the month. If it were up to me, I would have chosen the safe route and waited until it seemed like God was banging down my door with something else. After all, that’s what I’d been trying to make happen with XXX. Every time I put myself before them, all I was trying to do was get my ducks in a row, line up the next thing, and be safe.

But apparently, that’s not the way God works. He works through faith—and he’s a lot wilder than I tend to give him credit for.

Shortly after Carole and I met, a five year plan settled on my heart.

As a disclaimer, I’d just like to say that one of my top five strengths on the Strengths Finder test is “Ideation.” So ideas are nothing new to me. I usually get really excited about them for a couple days, and then move onto something else. But this was radically different.

I was standing at my desk at the office when I could almost audibly hear “Intern at XXX for 9 months, go to grad school at Mars Hill, get your degree to be a therapist, and go help aid in the recovery of sex-trafficking victims.”

I got the biggest smile on my face. I probably looked like a total tool, smiling for seemingly no reason, but it made sense. Plan A and B had just merged.

XXX was no longer my be-all end-all. They were a first step. A learning curve. That was different. Now there was a vision.

Over the weekend, I started reading over all the different personality tests that I’d taken since I’ve been a part of Keynote. I read them with “new career path” glasses on and literally laughed out loud when I thought about them in relation to XXXChurch.

If you know anything about XXX, you’ll understand why this is so hilarious.

I’m an ENFP on the Myers Briggs, or Extravert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving.

“ENFPs are intrigued with anything original and out of the ordinary. They like considering unconventional approaches. Spontaneous, adaptable, and playful people, ENFPs love a challenge and are confident in their ability to find ways to solve problems creatively.

Frequently non-conformists, ENFPs admire others who also march to their own beat. Warm, gentle, and sympathetic, ENFPs are interested in helping others make the most of their talents. Because they are most interested in possibilities, they tend to ignore or avoid anything that has already been done. They much prefer the new and novel.

They are good at applying their various experiences and skills to new fields of interest and working with all kinds of people as part of a team.”

I shared my findings with Kristin. She laughed because she’s lived with me for three years.

“Wow. And all this time we thought you were just into XXXChurch because of your story. But you actually can’t help it. Everything they are, you are.”

A few nights later when my girls and I were hanging out, one of them asked me if I had finally sent my Vegas meeting request email to XXX. I avoided eye contact and said “No… I’m sick and I’m trying to get out my final prayer letter to all my partners and I just don’t have time right now.”

I was met with four sets of incredulous “yeah right” stares. It was the next step I needed to take on this journey of honoring God and the story he was writing for me, and it was the step I was most afraid of.

My girls however, weren’t. So that night, they made me send the email. It was short and sweet and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be.

A couple weeks later, Vanessa and I went to a prophecy workshop at church. We both thought it was going to be totally weird, that there would be candles and robes involved, and that we’d have to take cover and run out of there.

Man, were we wrong.

After a short bible study about the purpose of prophecy—to encourage and build up, not to predict futures and read fortunes—the practical part of the class began.

We were simply asked to pray, speak out in faith, and believe that when we asked the Holy Spirit to give us a word for the person receiving, that he would.

V and I sat back and watched the first couple times around. After every word was spoken over the person receiving, Steve, the instructor, would say “Does that mean anything to you?” He told us that it was ok if it didn’t and that we were in no way obligated to reroute our entire lives based off of something that was said. 

As we watched and my spirit lost all sense of being weirded out, I raised both my hands to receive.

Before we got to the church, I told Vanessa that I wanted whoever was going to prophesy over me to be somebody I’d never met before in my life and who knew nothing about me. God was gonna have to sell me on this prophecy stuff.

Steve decided to stay up there with me, and when he invited someone else from the class to speak with him, a women named Mary Lou rose.

As she stood, a toothy smile formed on her face. She looked me square in the eye and said, “Oh, well I’ll do it. I’ve never met Heather a day in my life and I don’t know a thing about her!”

What.

Ok so apparently God heard me when I said he’d have to sell me on this stuff.

What happened from there, I again can only attribute to the Holy Spirit. As Steve and Mary Lou prayed and spoke over me, I heard things like, “God has got you at a crossroads right now.” “God wants to heal your deep wounds. You have seen things that are not good and God wants you to know that he has wept over these things with you and you are not abandoned.” “You do not yet know the magnitude of what you’ve been called to.”

V and I just stared at each other, slack-jawed.

When they were finished praying and speaking, Steve asked the other women in the room if God had given any of them a word for me.

One woman said, “Yes. I’m getting the word ‘fear.’ Like there’s something she’s afraid of right now. And the word ‘doubt.’”

The woman next to her spoke up. “I’m getting the word ‘time,’ like there’s something with timing going on.”

A lady toward the front of the room addressed everyone and said, “I feel like we’ve all got security issues and God’s saying that he wants to be our refuge.”

Then, she looked directly at me. “You aren’t going to find security in having the answers because the answers will just lead to more questions.”

Whoa. Have you known me my whole life, or…

Mary Lou spoke again. “It’s like I can see it so clearly. God’s got you on this path.” She raised her hand over her head, looked up, smiled, and opened and closed her hand as if she were throwing a ball. “P-A-T-H.”

Steve looked at me and asked if any of these things rang true for me. Slowly, I opened my mouth.

“I’m on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and am leaving staff in a couple of weeks.”

I looked at the woman who had spoken of fear and doubt. “I have all kinds of fears and doubts right now because I have no idea what’s coming next.”

I looked at the timing lady. “I don’t know the timing.”

And I addressed everyone. “Yes. I’m at a crossroads. What I’d love to see happen and am praying into right now is interning with XXXChurch, a ministry that helps people involved in pornography, going to school at Mars Hill Graduate School to get my degree in Counseling Psychology after that, and then working with sex-trafficking victims in their recovery, possibly in Thailand.”

By that point, every jaw in the room had dropped.

I’d never met these people before in my life and God spoke through them as if he were standing right next to me—and he was clear.

He is the one who has me at a crossroads. He is the one who has me on a path. He has not abandoned me. And apparently, he has plans for me that are bigger than anything I’ve imagined thus far.

And I’ve imagined a lot.

That was three weeks ago. And that was the last time I got any kind of major nudge from God.

Since then, my last day at Keynote has come and gone.

As I’ve reflected on it, I’ve realized that my time here has not just been about serving in an awesome ministry. It’s been about growing into who I am and what I’m about and getting glimpse after glimpse of who my Jesus is and what he’s about.

Right now, I’m taking each day as it comes and am continuing to ask God for the privilege of coauthoring my future with him.

I truly don’t know what’s around the corner. I still don’t have an appointment to meet with someone from XXX. But I’m not concerned. It’ll come. I’ve learned that the clearest way to see is not with my own two eyes but with the faith that God’s grown in me.

Besides, everything else in this story has taken forever to unfold. Why should this step be any different?

All I know is that I’m passionate by design, am held in the hands of a God who adores me, and am flying out to Vegas in a week, unemployed, with an unbelievable story to share.

Here’s to the unknown—and the wild, hilarious, unmatched goodness of God.

Breakin' the law, breakin' the law

Tonight, K-Trout and I tag-teamed a potentially law-breaking scenario. 

A few night ago, I had the hair-brained idea of taking some Jesus Loves Porn Stars XXXChurch.com cards and sticking them in skanky magazines at bookstores. I’ve never heard of anyone doing something like this and getting in trouble for it - ok, I’ve actually just never heard of anyone doing this at all - so I thought, what the heck? Why not?

So we spent some time in our friendly, neighborhood Barnes & Noble. K-Trout pulled all the Maxim and Hooters mags off the shelves and I strategically placed the cards next to centerfolds and similar layouts in each issue. 

I had a couple people look at me funny for having two huge stacks of semi-skin magazines piled in front of me on our too-small table in the cafe, but other than that, the night went off without a hitch. 

Crazy. I wonder what kind of difference it’ll make, if any. And I wish I had the privilege of knowing, this side of heaven.

Officially Spilling The Beans

Billy Graham and The Altar of Satan?

Nice site. No wonder people don’t know we’re Christians by our love.

http://www.satansrapture.com/billygram.htm