A purpose

Have you ever wondered why you’re here? Why you were created?

I wasn’t sure that I had a purpose for being here until recently.

I was working on an assignment, an explanation of why I chose the career that I have recently begun, when I was challenged with that question.

I sat and thought about it for quite some time. Pictures of my great-grandmother’s smile, loving eyes, and kindness were swirling around in my brain. I had to hit the pause button to really ponder why these pictures would have come to mind at that moment.

She was the kindest, most gentle person I’ve ever met. Despite the heartbreak of losing the people she loved dearly, she loved others in the most powerful way. I felt it as soon as we pulled in her driveway to take her out to the market on Saturday mornings.

As I paused that moment and held one of those pictures up to clearly study it, I saw my purpose.

I don’t know if I realized it way back when I was a child, but it was clear to me in that moment… it is to love people the way that she did.

I started the assignment by writing about my great-grandmother’s character traits and how they reminded me of someone else I met when I was 22. Someone who accepted me just as I was. Someone who has never left me. Someone who has given me a purpose.

The career I have recently begun is school counseling. In my second year of being a School Counselor, I cannot count how many times I have realized that my life prepared me for the purpose-filled moments that I have experienced. I have been able to love so many the way that my great-grandmother loved me and everyone she met.

Realizing that I have been able to love others this way fills my heart and ignites a renewed purpose in me everyday.

I believe that we all have a purpose that aligns with a gift that we have been given. For me, it is a love that can’t be contained. It is seeing greatness in children and helping them to see that greatness for themselves. When their greatness is realized, their purpose ignites.

In Genesis 1:14, I read that the stars were created to be a sign. Two thousand years before they were called to be a sign to point the wise men to Jesus, they were created for that very purpose.

I believe that we all have a unique and specific purpose, just like the “lights in the expanse of the heavens.”