Milestone birthdays seem to usher in a season of obsessive contemplation for me. In 1994, a year before I turned 30, I began feeling suffocated in the mundane of the American Dream. I expected the payoff to be happiness. I reasoned that being married with two healthy children, living in a brand new home without debt, and realizing the goal of becoming financially stable so I could stay home with the kids should be enough. After all, that was the goal I had set for myself. But, I felt empty. The persistent tug to find peace started a year-long search to answer the multitude of questions 29 years had raised.
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At that time I was working as the secretary at my church and the minister was a book hound. I remember sharing my feelings of emptiness with him. He responded by encouraging me to open my Bible daily and handing me the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey. I left that day with a peaked curiosity and a thirst for satisfaction.
Over the next year, I devoured 56 books on a quest to satiate my hunger for answers. As I read everything from Christian self-help to leadership to biographies coupled with daily devotions and journaling, the veil lifted and clarity replaced the confusion—I drifted aimlessly through life because I had little understanding of who I am. For 30 years, I allowed other people to set the direction of my life and define me. I was a ship drifting at sea without a compass, a map, or an anchor. It was time for this ship to find its way to shore.
This was the year I wrote my first personal mission and purpose statements. I wish I could share them with you, but the notebook etched with the personal definitions has since been lost. Even though I misplaced the written statements, I remember well how understanding my purpose and defining my core values helped shape the next few years toward a positive direction. I was on my way.
Sadly, though, life can get in the way of living a defined purpose. Steven Covey refers to it as the tyranny of the urgent. There came a point where I stopped putting first things first and buried my mission and purpose under the rubbish of selfishness. I ended up divorced and decided to run from a God who I thought failed me.
Ten years later, I found myself at another milestone birthday left with an indelible negative mark from spinning my wheels in the rut of doing the same thing over again expecting different results. I ignored it for a couple of years and ended up divorced…again.
Face down in the gutter of reality, I tackled the issue with God and vowed to find my compass, map, and anchor once again. I spent several months alone with God, my Bible, and a notebook. I wrote my current mission and purpose statements and found renewed passion along with the peace and joy that comes from knowing the truth.
MISSION: My mission is to find joy, fulfillment, and value in living out my God-given purpose. I will be a beacon of light, a bridge of understanding, and a castle of positive influence in my relationships and my community. I will live from a center of honesty and integrity and balance in my own life by setting appropriate boundaries and priorities based on my core values of faith, family, friends, finances, fitness, and fun.
PURPOSE: My God-given purpose is to use my total life experiences to come alongside, comfort, encourage, and exhort the people God places in my life to become well-rounded individuals who understand and realize their full potential. I endeavor to create opportunities for growth in those individuals by listening, offering compassion, explaining grace and forgiveness, and offering wisdom obtained through my own successes and failures.
My life choices and personal goals reflect that personal growth and maintaining good, healthy relationships are important to me. I try to make right choices based on honesty, integrity, and self-awareness. I build in intentional growth and learning opportunities to help me reach my highest human potential.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Hebrews 12:1
I may stumble and fall, but I will keep getting up and finish the race to obtain my ultimate prize. I encourage you to do the same.
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