The Purpose-Driven Life
For a long time, I believed purpose was something I had to find somewhere outside of myself. Purpose felt distant and elusive something meant for other people. People who were clearer, stronger, more confident, and more certain than I was. I did not doubt that purpose existed. I doubted that it existed for me.
During those years, my inner world was loud and chaotic, full of fear, shame, and survival consumed nearly all of my energy. Because of my belief system, I was choosing things that continually pulled me away from my center. I was living out of alignment with myself, with my truest self, and the further I moved away from myself, the further I felt from God. Looking back, I was not unwilling to discover my purpose. I was overwhelmed by the very idea of it. Purpose felt like one more impossible expectation placed upon a life that was already struggling to survive. Rather than inspiring me, and moving me forward in life, it made me feel even further behind.
My purpose was not absent. I was so out of alignment with myself , which kept me from even hear it. My mind was crowded of faulty beliefs, lies, limits on God and self I had learned and accepted about who I was supposed to be. All of it blocked me from hearing, centering, and knowing. Years later, after uncovering many of those lies, embracing more of my true self, and beginning to accept my own light, a gentle question surfaced within me:
What if purpose is not something we are supposed to chase?
What if purpose has always lived within us?
What if, like everything else, God is simply calling us back home?
Home to God.
Home to ourselves.
Home to the strengths, gifts, desires, and abilities that were woven into us from the beginning.
Perhaps finding our purpose is really the journey of coming into alignment with our truest selves. I believe our greatest purpose is often hidden somewhere within our earliest memories. Discovered in the moments when we felt most alive, most joyful, most free, and most completely ourselves. For me, it lives in one particular moment from my childhood. For decades, this memory had become the prayer of my life- the cry of my heart.
During the darkest seasons, through years of bulimia, anorexia, and depression, I would often cry and sit on the bathroom floor crying to God:
“I just want to be that girl again.”
During seasons of deep depression, when I could barely get out of bed, the image of that little girl would return to me. She was pure, openhearted, creative, and filled with wonder.
My prayer was always the same:
“Let me return to her. Please bring me back to her.”
In the memory, I am sitting at our dining room table with a fresh box of Crayola crayons.
It is July. I can still remember the unmistakable smell of those crayons and the joy of opening the box and the warm air. Every color seemed to hold a possibility. I was not trying to create a perfect picture. I was not wondering whether anyone would approve of it. I was not imagining it would hang in an art gallery or earn someone’s praise. I was simply creating from the overflow of my heart.
My picture had hearts and birds, green grass, a blue sky, clouds, and flowers of nearly every color. I used almost every crayon in the box because, in my young mind, how could you create something beautiful without using all of it? When I finished, I placed the crayons back on the table, picked up my picture, and walked toward the back door. I stepped down the stairs and into the backyard in to the glorious light of the warm sun. I walked about twenty feet into the grass, stopped, and looked up into the vastness of the sky. Then I held my picture up toward the One I loved most.
I was offering it to God, the One who had given me life, the One sustaining every breath, the One who felt infinitely bigger than anything our house could contain. Ever since I was small, I understood something about the bigness of God. I knew God was bigger than the walls of our home, bigger than the roof holding everything inside, bigger than my parents, bigger than the church, bigger than anything my eyes could see or my mind could fully understand. As a child, I used to look at the nuns and notice the rings they wore as a symbol of their devotion and love of God and I would think, I want to be married to God. My love for God was innocent, unguarded, and expansive.
As I stepped out of the smallness of the house and into the vastness of the sky and sun. I held up everything I had created and offered my love in a picture to God. In that moment, my heart was pure. My heart was good. My wonder was alive. I was overflowing with creativity, excitement, gratitude, and love for God- the creator of ALL.
This moment became the cry of my heart, I longed to return to the girl I had been before the weight of the world settled upon me.
She was not burdened by lies.
She was not trying to fulfill the expectations other people had placed upon her.
She was not questioning whether she was enough.
She was not measuring her worth through the opinions of others.
She was simply herself and what flowed naturally from her was goodness, creativity, joy, and, most of all, love.
For decades, I longed to find my way back to her and her pureness. Slowly, as God and I continued the work of healing together, we began uncovering the lies, uprooting false beliefs, and restoring places within me that had been devastated for years. I realized something profound:
My purpose had never been lost.
This childhood moment had been quietly drawing me back to myself and purpose all along. My ability to love was already alive within me, my creativity, my wonder, my desire to offer something beautiful to God, and my instinct to step beyond the walls of limitation were already revealing who I was created to be. My purpose was not waiting for me somewhere in the distant future, it had been revealed in the backyard of my childhood home many years ago. As I have come to understand it, one of my greatest gifts is helping people step outside the confined spaces they have built within their own minds.
Sometimes our inner world becomes like a house. We become trapped inside the rooms of our thoughts, beliefs, shame, pain, and fear. We begin to believe what exists inside those walls is the whole of reality, but it is not. My gift is to help walk with them out from the walls that are keeping them limited, trapped and lost. I lead them beyond the walls of what they believed and invite them to step into the light. I help them look up into the infinite vastness of God and consider perhaps life is bigger than they have imagined. Perhaps, the way they have always seen themselves is not the whole truth, there is more possibility, more grace, more goodness, and more freedom than the walls of their minds have allowed them to see and maybe there is even a gift hidden within what they have endured.
I have watched people transform their lives when they were willing to step outside of the stories that had kept them captive. I have seen God show up in powerful ways as we walked into the light of grace and goodness together as another way is considered. I have watched people realize the things they believed while trapped inside their pain were not always reality. They were looking at life from inside the house of their own thoughts. Sometimes we need someone to take us by the hand and lead us into a larger perspective.
What began as a little girl stepping into the backyard has become a life of inviting others to do the same. I love helping people get outside of their own thoughts and walking people out of the small, tight places within their minds and into a bigger perspective.
Into the vastness of God.
Into possibility.
Into breath.
Into freedom.
I have had the privilege of mentoring, coaching, leading, and loving countless people. Again and again, I have seen people can often trace their deepest passion back to a childhood moment when they felt most alive, most joyful, and most fully themselves. There is a gift in going back. Purpose is not simply about discovering what we should do to earn money, the work we do does matter. Providing for ourselves and our families matters, but purpose is deeper than a job title, a position, or a career. Purpose expresses itself wherever we go.
Whether I am selling a home, leading a team, writing a story, mentoring someone, or sitting across from a hurting person, my purpose finds a way to emerge. My purpose is always wanting to come out and see more. I am always reaching in every moment of life for what is more expansive, more honest, more beautiful, and more powerful. This is the way I love people best.
Not everyone is ready to step outside. Not everyone wants to live expansively, excellently, and authentically. Some people feel safer inside the walls they have built, even when those walls are causing them deep suffering and pain.
I have had to learn my purpose is not to force anyone out of their house.
My purpose is to keep the door open.
To stand in the light.
To extend my hand.
To remind people there is more whenever they are ready to see it.
People do not always invent their purpose later in life.
Often, they remember it.
I had to go backward before I could move forward.
I had to return to wonder.
I had to reclaim the little girl who trusted the vastness of God. I had to remember the girl who believed every color belonged in the picture and her love was worthy of being offered.
In finding her again, I found my purpose.
It had never been outside of me.
It had always been living within me, gently waiting for me to come home.
◆ What is one of your earliest memories of feeling completely alive, joyful, and free?
◆ Who were you before you began shaping yourself around the expectations of others?
◆ What came naturally to you as a child before you worried about being successful, impressive, or accepted?
◆ What gifts were already revealing themselves through the way you played, created, imagined, loved, or cared for others?
◆ What lies have caused you to move away from your center and from the person God created you to be?
◆ Is there a younger version of yourself you have been longing to return to?
◆ What would it look like to take that child by the hand and welcome them home?
◆ Where have you built walls inside your own mind keeping you from seeing the vastness of God?
◆ What part of your purpose may already be expressing itself through the way you naturally love and serve others?
You do not need to chase your purpose, you only need to look back and remember.
Returning Home
God of infinite love and immeasurable possibility,
Lead me back to the person You created me to be before fear, shame, survival, and the opinions of others taught me to hide.
Help me uncover every lie that has pulled me away from my center. Gently uproot the beliefs that have kept me trapped inside small rooms of fear, unworthiness, perfection, and doubt.Take me by the hand and walk me out of the house I have built within my own mind.
Lead me down the stairs.
Open the door.
Bring me into the light.
Teach me to look up again and remember the vastness of who You are.
Restore my wonder.
Restore my creativity.
Restore my joy.
Restore the love that once poured freely from my heart before I learned to question whether it was enough.
Help me remember the child I once was, the child who created without fear, loved without restraint, and believed every color belonged in the picture.Show me the gifts living within me from the beginning. Help me recognize the ways my purpose has already been expressing itself throughout my life.
Give me the courage to stop chasing what was never meant for me and to begin honoring what You have already placed within me.May I live in alignment with my truest self.May my life invite others into freedom without forcing them to leave before they are ready.May I keep the door open, stand faithfully in the light, and extend my hand with love.
Use my life to bring the kingdom of heaven closer to earth and whenever I lose my way, lead me back home-
Home to You.
Home to myself.
Home to the purpose that has been living within me all along.
