"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.'"

2 Corinthians 12:9. Never have I needed the truth of this verse more than now. Last week I went with my mom to visit her childhood pastor. Now in his 80s, Pastor Fletcher has spent his life serving Christ since early adulthood. He has trained 35 current pastors, including at least one who went on to lead a seminary. It goes without saying that Pastor Fletcher is a wise, godly man. So when my mom told him that I was planning on being a missionary (never mind that I wanted to be a band director too), I couldn't help but accept the advice he gave me. Of course, the advice was directed at me as a future full-time missionary, rather than a full-time music teacher (band director, lesson instructor, etc.) who ministers through my teaching style and my personal life outside of my job.

Right now I am a Music Education major at the University of Georgia. This is my eighth year playing trumpet and my ninth in band, so obviously, I love making music. I have wanted to be a band director ever since I moved from Pennsylvania the summer before my freshman year of high school. My middle school band director had a huge impact on me, and I wanted to be able to have the same effect on band students in the future. I've had my mind set on what I wanted to do for a long time now. My college decision was a little bit less certain, but it was still pretty clear that UGA would be one of my top choices after I had attended music camps there three years in a row. When college application time rolled around, I applied to UGA and Taylor University, a private Christian college in Indiana, which is where my parents met. I was sure I would at least get into Taylor, and I was pretty confident that I could get into UGA, so I didn't bother applying anywhere else. Taylor would be my fall-back school if I didn't get into UGA.

But something happened during Christmas break last year, my senior year. A revival was started. Not a large-scale, national revival. A simple, local revival, and a personal one. God used several recent events—my grandfather's death; struggles with cancer and death in more distant relatives; and an incredible, late-night worship service at a church retreat—to reveal Himself to me and to show me my real purpose in life: to serve Him and to share the gospel and His love with those who have not experienced His presence.

Then, last summer I went to a camp in Andrews, North Carolina, called Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. The last night of Snowbird was dedicated to missions. To make a long story short, the focus of the night was unreached people groups (or unreached nations, as the Bible would put it), and when I saw that India had the largest number of unreached people groups, something clicked inside me: God wants me in India. The Bible says that "every tribe and language and people and nation" will be represented in heaven (Revelation 5:9), and I wanted to be a part of the movement that takes the gospel to the nations that have never heard it before (and I still do).

My college decision, if pictured on a balance or a seesaw, was now almost perfectly level. Taylor was looking more and more like my future college. But when it came time to make my final decision and make the payments, UGA won out. Of course, God knew that would happen, and I know He still has a plan for me. Just because I went to a public college rather than a Christian one doesn't mean that God can't use me. God provided me with great Christian friends and awesome campus ministries like Freshley (the freshman ministry of the Wesley Foundation) and Team United (a coalition of three Georgia athletic ministries; at UGA, Team United counts marching band as an athletic program, which is awesome), and He has been using them to help me grow closer to Him in many ways. My faith is becoming stronger as I learn new things about the Bible, both in apologetics and in doctrine. And Freshley is even giving me a chance to go to Jamaica on my first mission trip during spring break. And that could be just what I need to prepare me for India later on.

But now I'm starting to look back on my college decision again. Is Taylor really where I should have gone? Well, of course, that decision is in the past now, but I'm starting to think that maybe God's plan for me includes transferring to Taylor. I can't really see myself sharing the gospel just by being a good band director. Public school teachers can't talk about religion (although I would argue that Christianity isn't a religion), but I don't want to teach in a Christian school because those kids have already heard about the Bible. I want to share the gospel with the unreached. But as far as I can see, that would mean leaving behind music as a career. I would have to go to a Christian college, something I was a little reluctant to do because it would mean being around other professing Christians, including some who really aren't Christians at all. And calling people out for not living in a Christ-like manner is not something I like to do. A public, secular college seemed easier because I could actually share my faith with non-Christians, a rare and hard-to-spot opportunity on Christian campuses. But now a Christian college may be just what I need, a community of students and professors who (by the Holy Spirit) can train me and equip me to do God's work.

Just about anyone who has had any Bible experience at all knows that Peter, among others of Jesus' disciples, was a fisherman. In fact, Jesus' first four disciples were all fishermen. When Jesus came along, they immediately left their nets to follow Him. The brothers James and John, whom Jesus nicknamed the "sons of thunder," actually left their father Zebedee in their fishing boat in order to to obey Jesus' command, "Follow Me."

When it comes right down to it, giving up something I've worked for for so long is not as easy as Peter and James and John make it look. Jesus told them to follow Him, and they dropped what they were doing. But I don't know what God wants for me. I'm praying and studying the Bible, trying to listen for God's whispering voice that will tell me exactly what to do, but I'm not hearing it. Is India really where He wants me? Will that require me to abandon music as a career in favor of going to a Christian college (and maybe even seminary) to be equipped to be a missionary? Or does He want me being a foreign missionary elsewhere? For example, there is a ministry in Ukraine called Music Mission Kiev that a good friend and one of the leaders at TNT (my high school youth group) introduced to me. Does God want me using the musical abilities He gave me to minister to others? Or does He want me at home as a band director, like I've been planning for years? Does He want me to teach in a way that is encouraging to young students, and then go out and share the gospel when I'm not teaching music? I feel like I'm standing on a fence between God's will and my will, and I can't tell which side is which.

I'm weak, and I know it. I don't know what to do. I have no control over my future; only God can claim that power. So I really need prayer right now. Please pray that I would know what God wants for me: if He wants me to set aside music as a profession in favor of full-time ministry, or if He wants me to continue with music and use that to glorify His name in some way that He will reveal later.



This past week, I went to visit my friends at TNT and at Etowah High School. I talked with two people who distinctly outlined my choices. Now that I look back on it, it seems clear that God has set these two paths before me, waiting for me to rely fully on Him to make the decision for me. The first person I spoke to was a friend from TNT; although we haven't really known each other for long, our desire to know God is all we needed to have in common in order to quickly become friends. When I asked what she wanted to do in the next few years, I was shocked when she told me that she wanted to spend a year in India after she graduates next year. Was that God speaking to me? Is India really where He wants me? I couldn't possibly go to India in just a year and a half, could I? In the middle of my college career?

The second person was my high school band director. Well, one of them. After the first director moved to a different school and the second retired, the one I'm referring to became the director my senior year. While walking back to Etowah from the intermediate school across the street, he suggested, somewhat jokingly, that I come be his student teacher when I get to my senior year. The joking nature of the suggestion seemed to fade quickly though when he asked if it was even possible for me to choose the school I student teach at. (Another related decision came up the other day when I visited my first high school band director at his middle school: I've been planning on being a high school band director, but being a middle school band director seems to have become slightly less frightening. But that decision can wait until after I get past this first decision between music and missions.)

The paths are clearly marked. There's no questioning that my decision is between being a band director and being a full-time missionary. But now the question is, Which path has God marked out for me?



"[When] I am weak, then I am strong." God, make me strong in my weakness, and help me make the right choice. In Jesus' name, amen.