Three Month Anniversary- My Story

Six months ago I was convinced I would be working in Laos with ELIC (English Learning Institute China) in January after my December graduation.

Five months ago God starting changing my heart.

Four months ago He showed me where He wanted me.

Three months ago I started working for Real Truth Matters.

Today I have my dream job.

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When I began working for RTM, the nonprofit media ministry out of my church, I knew it was exactly where God wanted me. But I never knew it would turn into my dream job.

I mean, it's a well known fact for students that you don't land your dream job immediately after college, much less while you're still in school. That's just not how it works. You have to start out as the low man on the totem pole and sweat, toil and claw your way to the top and hopefully land your dream job before you turn 35. That's how it's done.

Unless God does something else.


As I read through Scripture it seems to me that God doesn't typically act in accordance with the people's preconceived notions but rather He is in the business of blowing people's expectations out of the water and displaying His glorious excellence by opening doors no one can shut and shutting doors no one can open. And, like the unchangeable God He is, He did the same thing for me.

From the very moment I heard about ELIC back in September I wanted to go to Laos and teach university students English speaking/listening/writing classes. Because Laos is a country closed to the Gospel, the classes would be intertwined with the Good News and opportunities for one-on-one time with students to share the Gospel.

I was sold. I began the application process which led to an intensive interview process and I knew God wanted me to follow this process until He closed the door.

However, I thought the closed door would come because ELIC rejected me or said I wasn't a good fit for their organization or the school in Laos.

That didn't happen. In fact, they told me they wanted me to go and that I was a perfect fit.

Yet something in my Spirit was telling me it wasn't right.

"But God," I reasoned, "I could go on this awesome one-year adventure to Laos, love on the university students there, share the Gospel, obey the great commission, get out of my comfort zone and seek to make Your name famous. It would be so good!"

In an almost audible voice I heard this in the depths of my Spirit:

"You're right, you could go and declare My name, you could be on an adventure, be stretched out of your comfort zone, meet new people, experience a different part of the world I created, and be used by Me and it would be good, but it wouldn't be the best."

Then in a whirlwind of prayers, Scripture and more grace than I could ever comprehend, the Lord showed me what was best.

Enter Real Truth Matters.



Never in a million years did I think I would end up at RTM. I wanted to go to the nations, not sit in a little office in Paducah, Kentucky and do whatever they do at RTM (I really had no idea what all they did... I just knew I would never do it. God is so funny), so I just prayed that God would make whatever He wanted clear.

Talking with Bro. Michael
during a mission trip to
Eastern Kentucky.

Then one day the director of RTM, my pastor and friend second dad, Michael Durham, shared his heart with me about his dream of one day having an interactive web magazine and when he spoke those words it was like the Holy Spirit did a little dance in my soul. It was so obvious that this is not just what God wanted me to do, but what He made me for.

I'm a senior at Murray State University with a double major in journalism and youth and nonprofit leadership. I've always wanted to have my own magazine, a Christian sports magazine, and although this wasn't a sports magazine, I knew this was it. This is what God had equipped me for.



Today marks my three month anniversary with the ministry God is divinely using to make His name famous among the nations and I am so grateful for my "job" that has never felt like a job.

I get to talk about God all the time, write stories of how God has saved people and continues to work in their life, design a magazine infused with the Gospel, work with three brothers following hard after the Lord and have staff meetings completely saturated in God's Word.

God. is. awesome. and I am so grateful He never skimps but always gives His children His absolute best. If you need more evidence, just look to the bloody but beautiful cross where He gave His Best to hang with the weight of our sin upon His shoulders.



The first issue of the bi-monthly Real Truth Matters Magazine is awaiting approval from Apple and will hopefully be released on iPads and online in the next couple of weeks. I am so excited to share it with you!

I'm also excited to follow God wherever He leads this ministry and watch Him display His majesty through the declaration and proclamation of His Word to the nations.

"Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness. Why should the nations say, 'Where is their God?' Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases." -Psalm 115:1-3

Take Aways: 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9 

  

"But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”" - 1 Corinthians 2:9 

"Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass." - Isaiah 37:26

"The Lord of hosts has sworn: 'As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.'" - Isaiah 14:24

It is my upmost desire that God uses this magazine and RTM to show you His glory. To set aflame the hearts of believers around the world, encourage the fainthearted, lift up the downtrodden, strengthen the weak and give comfort to the broken. To equip His church, reach the furtherest points of the world, establish His Kingdom on earth, declare truth in a world of lies and magnify the Lord as the supreme Treasure among all treasures.


Praying for the refreshing of the hearts of saints,