God's good design (a bit of my story, a bit of a new blog annoucement)
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For much of high school and some of college, I was planning to become a pastor. I was sent by my denomination to a summer program at a seminary in South Carolina during the summer between junior and senior years of high school. It was a program aimed at encouraging youth to consider vocational ministry, and I loved the idea of serving God in ministry as a paid job.
Then, as I began feeling disillusioned with some aspects of that denomination, I felt drawn to another passion of mine: education. I taught special education for three and a half years. While a common reaction from friends and strangers was something like, "Wow, special education. I could never do that," I never would have wanted to teach anything else. Even though I was working in public schools rather than religious ones, it was definitely a ministry for me.
Lee and I knew we wanted for me to be a stay-at-home mom before we got married, and I stopped teaching after I became pregnant with Jocelyn, choosing not to start the next school year because that would leave my school without a special ed teacher when I left partway through the year. When I was six or seven months pregnant, though, I received a call from an educational non-profit asking me to consider being their director of design for special education. Right after I got off the phone, we went to our friends' apartment for dinner, and I was agonizing over the call. (Thank you, Jenelle, for letting me talk out some crazy that night!) I didn't take the position, but it was truly my dream job at the time. And while I knew then (and now) that it was the right decision, I walked away from it with a grieving heart.
Only a few weeks after Jocelyn was born, that same organization came back to me and ended up offering me a chance to do part of that job while being a mom. It was a precious blessing, and I loved it, but it limited my ability to serve in church-based ministry because I had little time left after training special education teachers and being wife and mom.
Same song, second verse for grad school: loved it, but limited in ways I could serve at church because it was a challenge to have anything left at the end of the day. It was fantastic to grow in my knowledge and training in special education, and I knew I was ministering to my family at home. I still yearned for meaningful church-based ministry that didn't exhaust me because of the other things on my plate.
Enter the role we're in now as special needs ministry coordinators. Does it fulfill my passion for working with people with special needs? Yep. Does it provide a meaningful place for us to minister in our church and share the Gospel? Yeppers.
Isn't it cool how God works?
As I've had some recent opportunities to talk with people wanting to start or grow special needs ministries at other churches, I've found an even more ideal professional outlet than the job I passed up when I was pregnant. I get to serve my church. I get to help other churches become welcoming places for people with disabilities. I've even had a few conversations about speaking engagements and writing opportunities related to this.
It's good stuff. Looking back, I can see how God has been positioning us for where we are now, weaving together my various professional desires and passions into something bigger than I could have ever imagined.
Yes, I'm still loving my role of stay-at-home wife and momma, and if I can't serve my own family well, I have no place helping anyone minister to other families. That's not changing, nor is my commitment to having white space in our calendar and taking care of my health.
That said, I'm launching a online place (apart from Dinglefest) to support and equip those starting and/or doing special needs ministry. I'll also be able to use it as a networking tool at and following the Accessibility Summit, a special needs ministry conference in DC that our church is sending me to in a few weeks.
So, without further ado, here's the new blog: www.theworksofgoddisplayed.com. It's pretty bare bones now (with the main content so far being re-posts from here), but I'll be posting more and more in the coming weeks to have it running well before the Accessibility Summit.
I'll still be here too. I still need a place for other writings and picture posts and reviews and randomness. The main difference will be that instead of putting posts about special needs here, I'll put them there and link to it here.
I don't know what God is going to do with this. It could fizzle into nothing. All I know is that right now we need to do this to be faithful to what God is doing in and through us.
And we're excited!
Then, as I began feeling disillusioned with some aspects of that denomination, I felt drawn to another passion of mine: education. I taught special education for three and a half years. While a common reaction from friends and strangers was something like, "Wow, special education. I could never do that," I never would have wanted to teach anything else. Even though I was working in public schools rather than religious ones, it was definitely a ministry for me.
Lee and I knew we wanted for me to be a stay-at-home mom before we got married, and I stopped teaching after I became pregnant with Jocelyn, choosing not to start the next school year because that would leave my school without a special ed teacher when I left partway through the year. When I was six or seven months pregnant, though, I received a call from an educational non-profit asking me to consider being their director of design for special education. Right after I got off the phone, we went to our friends' apartment for dinner, and I was agonizing over the call. (Thank you, Jenelle, for letting me talk out some crazy that night!) I didn't take the position, but it was truly my dream job at the time. And while I knew then (and now) that it was the right decision, I walked away from it with a grieving heart.
Only a few weeks after Jocelyn was born, that same organization came back to me and ended up offering me a chance to do part of that job while being a mom. It was a precious blessing, and I loved it, but it limited my ability to serve in church-based ministry because I had little time left after training special education teachers and being wife and mom.
Same song, second verse for grad school: loved it, but limited in ways I could serve at church because it was a challenge to have anything left at the end of the day. It was fantastic to grow in my knowledge and training in special education, and I knew I was ministering to my family at home. I still yearned for meaningful church-based ministry that didn't exhaust me because of the other things on my plate.
Enter the role we're in now as special needs ministry coordinators. Does it fulfill my passion for working with people with special needs? Yep. Does it provide a meaningful place for us to minister in our church and share the Gospel? Yeppers.
Isn't it cool how God works?
As I've had some recent opportunities to talk with people wanting to start or grow special needs ministries at other churches, I've found an even more ideal professional outlet than the job I passed up when I was pregnant. I get to serve my church. I get to help other churches become welcoming places for people with disabilities. I've even had a few conversations about speaking engagements and writing opportunities related to this.
It's good stuff. Looking back, I can see how God has been positioning us for where we are now, weaving together my various professional desires and passions into something bigger than I could have ever imagined.
Yes, I'm still loving my role of stay-at-home wife and momma, and if I can't serve my own family well, I have no place helping anyone minister to other families. That's not changing, nor is my commitment to having white space in our calendar and taking care of my health.
That said, I'm launching a online place (apart from Dinglefest) to support and equip those starting and/or doing special needs ministry. I'll also be able to use it as a networking tool at and following the Accessibility Summit, a special needs ministry conference in DC that our church is sending me to in a few weeks.
So, without further ado, here's the new blog: www.theworksofgoddisplayed.com. It's pretty bare bones now (with the main content so far being re-posts from here), but I'll be posting more and more in the coming weeks to have it running well before the Accessibility Summit.
I'll still be here too. I still need a place for other writings and picture posts and reviews and randomness. The main difference will be that instead of putting posts about special needs here, I'll put them there and link to it here.
I don't know what God is going to do with this. It could fizzle into nothing. All I know is that right now we need to do this to be faithful to what God is doing in and through us.
And we're excited!