Finding Meaning and Purpose in New Experiences with God
“Then, there came a voice to him that said, ‘what are you doing, here, Elijah?” - 1 Kings 19:13b-13.
There’s a spot on a dusty mountain overlooking the ocean about a five minute walk from the Pirate’s Cove hotel in Camalu, Baja California, Mexico where I like to go in my mind when too much life comes at me all at once. I imagine myself sitting on the hill, taking in the vast beauty of the cliffy coastline framed by a cloudless azure sky.
Glorious waves crash against the rocks on the shore below, sending shimmering rainbows into the spray; promises of God with me as they sparkle with all the intensity of their short, passionate lives and then fade into the precious memories in my mind.
A breeze swirls around me, like a hug from above, and I am home. I climbed this mountain when I was 26 years old, sure beyond a shadow of doubt that Mexico was my home, serving God and God’s people in Baja was my calling, and ministry was my career path. Like Elijah, in 1 Kings 19:11-14, I came to the mountain looking for answers from God as to how I could have misunderstood my life’s direction.
I’d known I wanted to be a missionary in this region of Mexico since the age of 15. And here I was, 11 years later, no longer seething in anger at all the doors that had been repeatedly shut in my face, but overwhelmed with sad disappointment at the way my dreams of being a missionary had gone unfulfilled, my prayers unheeded, my tears unseen.
Like Elijah, running for his life, I sat on the mountain running from a hauntingly hollow version of my own life which was a far cry from the idyllic dreams of a shy, awkward, fifteen year old girl. And then, unexpectedly, unmistakably, the word of the Lord came to me. “What are you doing here, Sara?”
“Looking for a reprieve; some kind of meaning or purpose for my life. What I wanted it to be and where I am now are far removed from each other. It hurts.”We sat in silence, God and I, for a few moments. Rainbows in the spray beneath me provided a beautiful comfort; a reminder that I hadn’t been forgotten.
Ten years later, I still go to that mountaintop in my mind sometimes. The cliffy coastline, the rainbows of promise, the word of the Lord. All of these precious, holy moments reverberate around the corners of my memory like a prism and I am thankful for each fractal of light warming my soul as the memories swirl and twirl and dance around my mind.
Thankful for a God who hears my prayers. Thankful for a calling that morphs and changes with the times, but that is uniquely and unequivocally mine. Thanks be to God for the gift of praise in joy and sorrow, in laughter and tears.
Sara Robb-Scott, Pastor for Senior Adults and Pastoral Care, First Baptist Church Decatur