This photo of me was taken fifteen years ago this fall. When I look at this version of me, I see a 22-year-old girl who is deeply searching for answers and clues surrounding her purpose. Does she have a purpose developing? Yes! But… She has no idea how it will manifest.
Just a year and a half before, she finished a journey, losing one-hundred-pounds. So, giant parts of her are cultivating confidence and security in the new body she has. She’s also trying to understand, “How does one maintain significant weight loss without failing and gaining it all back again?”
She doesn’t know Holy Spirit very well either. She knows Him better than she did when she was eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one, but there are still so many facets of Him she has yet to experience.
Her path leading up to this photo being taken was completely different than others too. She would definitely tell you it felt “completely unstable” and “totally insecure” for her soul to experience following Holy Spirit without a real understanding of what he was actually developing inside of her. The development from him asked her to take a lot of uncomfortable steps. A year in community college, without a goal. A year traveling with her grandparents in ministry. A year at Bible school, that steered her far, far away from religion and conventional church and ministry, but closer to Holy Spirit than she’d ever been. And then finally, ending up at BAMA, but having to choose to pursue interdisciplinary studies because it was best for Cultivate Life (who was newly incubating inside of her).
Now, what’s interesting about this 22-year-old version of me is she thinks she’s finally found somewhat of her footing at BAMA because Holy Spirit has given her a blueprint. He’s entrusted her with something that gives her more purpose than she could’ve ever fathomed. Deep in her spirit, she knows she must forge the path forward no matter the cost. The blueprint is so clear to her. She has no idea how she will apply the blueprint, but she is certain Heaven has placed it in her hands and so she will discover how to apply it.
Because she’s overcome so much inside of her, she’s also full of hope. She’s convinced she can take on the world.
Of course, what she can’t see is that the rest of her twenties will be an unsettled mess. She will have to learn how to navigate life, death, and everything in between to the best of her ability. She will have to learn how to lean on God in moments where she’d rather give up and just merge with the puddle of tears she’s shed on the floor. She has no idea the amount of strength and tenacity she will have to pull on from God to hold onto the blueprint and keep moving forward.
More than anything, she will have to actually learn how to cultivate life because she will be asked to walk with Holy Spirit through the process of it time and time again. Refinement, development, growth, and maturity will become more than a language she speaks. They will merge with her very DNA and she will come to understand they are a literal force in the spirit realm she is dwelling with.
Now… You might be wondering why I am sharing all of this. Well, right now, I find myself in a very interesting reality. I still possess the blueprint Heaven gave me. It’s actually only become clearer to me has I’ve lived the past fifteen years of life; however, the application of the blueprint is so, so different than my 22-year-old brain thought it would be. The application is so different that I wonder, “How did I even get here?”
Of course, I look back at the past fifteen years and I see him. I see Holy Spirit. I see the way he molded me to fit the application of the blueprint. I see how every faithful, hopeful step with him carved out pieces and parts of me that had nothing to do with the blueprint. He stripped so much from me so that I could apply the blueprint his way. Not mine.
It’s the molding though. The shaping. The way he’s helped me cultivate his nature in such a way that I just want to sit my 22-year-old self down and say, “Amanda, it will be different. It will be much, much different than the way your vain fantasies are spinning it to be, but the journey to it will be worth the difference. So, you must follow every step he leads you up to. You must submit to them, follow them, and trust that the application to the blueprint will open itself up in ways and dimensions you could never really dream up because they are so different than what you imagine right now.”
I am at an arrival place right now and it’s the difference that is speaking to me. All of these years of submission and following have unfolded themselves into something so different than I imagined, but the difference aligns so well with the blueprint that I am in awe.
Now, I don’t know where you are in your uncomfortable journey with Holy Spirit right now, but I want to encourage you to keep moving forward with the uncomfortable steps he’s asking you to take. I know he doesn't often make logical, 3D sense, but be encouraged to keep following him because the steps you’re taking with him are helping you develop and grow into exactly what he’s placed in your heart when he gave you your blueprint.
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