Finally

Photo from Kendi Everyday

19 years after playing school with my dolls.

10 years after beginning high school.

6 years after beginning college.

2 years after beginning graduate school.

I became what I think I was always meant to be. 

I became a college professor.

 Teaching has been the perfect fit for my personality because it enables me to engage my creative side as I think of new ways to present Biblical content. I consider myself to be both analytical and artistic. One of my teachers in high school even called me the "most balanced right-brained, left-brained person" she had ever met.

For a while, though, I wasn't sure if I would be able to keep pursuing Biblical studies as a discipline, much less a profession. Toward the end of my college studies and especially during grad school I just wanted to abandon Biblical studies altogether and take up another profession.
In grad school, the area of study I once thrived on became a source of dread and disdain. There was no room for creative thinking, no application of Biblical truth to the public realm where people often ache for illumination. It’s really quite ironic, actually. My deepest desire for the ministry God had called me to was to instill a thirst for God’s Word/knowing God through his Word. While studying to accomplish this I desired neither God nor his Word.

But now I'm teaching. I can feel the pent-up frustration and my forced inhibitions subside. Creative ways at presenting Biblical material weren't permitted in the scholastic world, but they certainly are permitted (and received very well, might I add!) in the education realm. In grad school I was forced to conform to a personality that frankly wasn't me. And because of this, I thought that my own unique qualities were incompatible with the area of Biblical studies. Now I know differently, and I can't express just how free and empowered I feel. Finally, I'm free to be who God created me to be.

So don't feel like you were created "wrong" or that your personality traits and gifts cannot be used in a certain discipline or profession. God can use our traits that make us unique. He wants to use these traits. Knowing who you are and understanding who you are not will help you understand the "you" God created you to be. And the true "you," my friends, may just be the breath of fresh air that this world needs.