Full Circle

I have a nice office at Adventures in Missions. It even has a glass board on the wall (think whiteboard, but classier), and most notably, a window that gets beautiful morning sunlight aka a great place to put plants.

I want to say, “I often forget how blessed I am to have this office, as I often forget how blessed I am to have this job.” But the word blessed doesn’t seem big enough to fit. 

In the recently released film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, one character says to another, “Do you realize how many events, choices, had to occur since the birth of the universe leading up to the making of you? Just exactly the way you are.”

(This quote is not in the book, just to keep the record straight)

I often live my life completely unaware of how many events and choices had to occur leading up to the making of me, the making of my job, the fact that I am the person doing my job. 

About 3 years ago, at my final debrief on the world race, I said to my squad mentor, “As worship coordinator, I could have benefitted from some support from the Adventures office. I believe this role is important and should be valued more, like we need some training.”

Fast forward three years later, and I serve as a Squad Worship Support to worship coordinators on the field. I provide training, resources, and I check in monthly with my 16 people. It’s life-giving for me to journey with them as they learn how to create a culture of worship. This program still has a lot of untapped potentials, and it’s been really cool to watch something I suggested 3 years ago come to life. Even more cool to be part of bringing it to life.

5 years ago, I carried in my heart (what felt like) an impossible dream: to lead worship. I had been told I wasn’t talented enough. I had been told I couldn’t be a leader because I’m a woman. I knew those things were untrue, and coped with it by judging others as ignorant. Out of bitterness, I withdrew my gifts of worship from the body, unknowingly robbing myself and others of the great joy we experience when we worship God freely.

Yet the worshipper within me could not be stifled. I played piano and sang in mostly secret, and began learning mandolin. Before I launched on the world race, I sensed that God wanted me to bring my mandolin and lead worship with it. That felt like a crazy idea because a.) I wasn’t a worship leader and b.) you can’t lead worship from a mandolin. 

God said, “You are a worship leader because I say you are. You can lead worship from a mandolin if I say you can.”

So I did. And I came alive more than ever before.

I had made worship leading about me, about proving who I was to the world. God showed me that I had nothing to prove, and that worship leading was about Him, to Him, for Him.

So 3 years ago at my final debrief I also said, “I think my dream job would be to work as a worship leader and shepherd other worship leaders.” At the time, I knew of no position that existed like that. I felt worse off than a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. I felt like some kind of abstract shape unlike any other for which a hole did not exist (I’m a 4 on the Enneagram). God said to me, “LeAnn, don’t you trust that I can carve out a space for you?”

Fast forward again, 3 years later and now I regularly lead worship at Adventures. I lead our Worship Collective, a name we’ve given our group of regular musicians and worship leaders. I literally work as a worship leader who shepherds other worship leaders. WHOA. Anything is possible with God. It seems ridiculous to me, now, that I used to believe this was impossible. 

“Do you realize how many events, choices, had to occur since the birth of the universe leading up to the making of you? Just exactly the way you are.”

I believe that what God has orchestrated in my life surpasses “possible.” It is much more than possible. It was ordained from the foundation of the earth.

“Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb. I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly; my bones were not hidden from you, when I was made in secret and sewn together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.” Psalm 139:13-16

We don’t always get to watch things come full circle, but it’s so beautiful when we do.