Courageous in Calling

This year I have the privilege of leading a group of students at
Anderson University in a leadership development program called
University Fellows. When I applied for the job last school year, I was
hesitant because I had not participated in it my freshman or sophomore
year and didn't really know what I would be doing. However, the door
remained open and I felt confident that I was supposed to walk through.
So I became the leader for 08-09.

It has been such a blessing this semester to dialogue and struggle with
these students about what being a leader is, can it be defined, what are
we striving for as students who want to participate in leadership?

More than once, as I have been preparing for a week’s discussion and
meeting I have wondered why on earth I was given this position. How am
I qualified? What was God thinking when he put me here, if he knew the
struggles that were coming?

Monday night I found myself at such a struggle again. With all that has
been going on with mom and with grandma, I felt overwhelmed by sadness
and anxiety which was only amplified by depression (which I haven’t
struggled with since high school—I’m now a senior in college). I wanted
to quit and not even try to go to Tuesday’s meeting. How on earth was I
supposed to LEAD a leadership development program when I felt like I was
falling apart, unable to lead even myself?

Enter God’s grace:

Tuesday’s topic was to be: Courageous in Calling
I realized that I was at a place where I had the choice to live this
out.
God had called me to this position last spring. Long before I accepted
it, he knew what was going to happen this semester and yet he still
called me to it. He knew what mom was going to struggle with, he knew
grandma would be as she is, and he knew depression would strike again.
Yet…he still called me to it! Tuesday evening, I shared with the group
in our meeting that I could now really know what that phrase,
“courageous in calling”, means for me right now. It means that I can
confidently go to our meetings feeling the full weight of all that is
going on and know that He is prepared, adequate, sufficient, and has a
plan for it all. His power is made perfect in our weakness! (2
Corinthians 12:9)

So mom, even though we may feel inadequate, insufficient and unprepared
for what may lay ahead, let us remember that he has called us here! God
knew what was coming this blessed year of 2008 for the McCracken family
and yet he still has called us each according to his plan.

I am walking farther and faster away from fear in all this, realizing
there are so many promises that I have yet to take hold of!

Haley Kate