Saying Yes

Today's post is a bit different. I thought there might be some of you out there reading who don't know me and have never met me. Perhaps we've met but you may not know some things about my heart and how the Lord has shaped me. So...if you'll allow I thought I would share a snippet of my story. This moment has shaped me...enjoy...

It was my junior year of college. I was studying theater at Texas Christian University, and was loving every minute. Since before I can remember I was going to go to Broadway and "make it." I was being trained in college to be a professional actor/singer/dancer. TCU had invested lots of money in me, and my parents had invested lots of money in this notion as well. I was beginning to think of masters programs - Cal Arts, Yale, etc of where to go for additional training...
I came home and my high school choir teacher had asked some of us to come back to her class while we were home on Christmas break to sing for her class. Kind of a "look you can keep singing even after high school" kind of a thing. So I had already sung and was listening to another girl sing who had come back also. She was great. It had been a few years since I had heard her. I thought "she's going to make it"...(side note...she did) and literally as I am having the thought that she was going to make it I had one of the most intimate moments w/ the Lord that I have ever had. I felt like the Lord was saying to my heart "Will you give it up for me?" I thought "ummmmm huh?" "Will you give it up for me?" Well, when the Father asks something of you...you say yes. You submit. His authority over my dreams. I couldn't believe He was asking that. Of course Lord...but THIS...Broadway...the stage...I shared with my parents over that winter break and I am so thankful that they too love the Lord b/c as they were heart broken for me...wondering if I would ever be back on stage again after college...they trusted the Lord even when it didn't make sense.
Now fast forward to the end of that spring semester. It is finals week and I am doing my jury for the theater faculty (a jury is like a really intense audition...you sing, and or do monologues and the faculty kind of decides your fate and if they think you should continue on in the program etc. So I complete my jury and they immediately begin talking to me about what masters programs I should begin looking into and begin thinking about auditions for those programs. I stopped them...took a deep breath, and then began to tell them that I felt like I wasn't to go into professional theater but rather that I was supposed to work with kids in probably a ministry setting. I paused, and was anticipating a verbal thrashing b/c of the scholarship money they had invested in my training etc....but the rough around the edges costume designer said, with tears coming down her face "Oh Allison how could we ever say that working with kids wasn't a worthy profession. That's what we do." The grace of God in that moment was amazing. So after graduation I walked away from the stage and began pursuing ministry full time. Then if you know anything about my journey here in Atlanta you know the Lord asked me back to the stage again to direct KidStuf! That story will come another time.
The part of this story that I think that is critical and applicable to us as parents with our children is this. I said yes to the Lord when everything in my being wanted to shout no and run the other way. Here's the take away for me...my parents at a very young age taught me about submission to authority. As a little one I had to learn submission to my parents before I could ever learn submission to the Father. That is hard for me to remember sometimes as I am in the midst of a melt down w/ a child, or they are screaming at me...yelling no at me...no I must teach them to be submissive to mommy b/c someday...the Lord may ask them to be submissive to His authority so He might have an opportunity to bring them to a place to unite them w/ HIS plan not our own!
Thanks mom and dad for spending a LOT of time teaching this one what it meant to submit. I love you for it!