A few years ago a life coach observed that I was beating my head against a brick wall. She knew I wanted to fly.

Up until that point I hadn’t considered it really, but I came to acknowledge that I felt like I was living in a straitjacket, that all my options were wrapped up and, boy, did I really want to stretch. What would it feel like to be set free? What would it feel like to exercise my abilities and to move beyond the boundaries that felt stifling?

Around the time I met with this wonderful life coach I wrote the following in my journal about what the word “thrive” meant to me:

• to be excited, somewhere to channel the excitement
• to blossom, to flower, to spread arms wide and run toward the light
• to be uniquely used
• to feel alive, vibrant, meant to be, purposeful
• to be DELIGHTED & DELIGHTFUL & DELIGHTED IN

For years my prayers had begged God for some pretty specific things. I suffered greatly in spirit, going over my giftings with a fine toothed comb, reviewing my resume to see if I was falsely understanding who God had made me to be. My girlfriends, bless their hearts, heard my woes for many years and I am certain I exhausted them. My husband supported my pursuits, heard all the hardness and sadness in my heart, and in turns affirmed me, held me while I cried, challenged my thinking, and then set me back on my feet. And through it all, I turned the the One who made me and we talked. We talked a lot.

In this instance, my internal struggles made it very easy to say yes when an opportunity finally came my way. The yes was so immediate that I forced myself to take a breath and then consult with both my 17-year-old daughter and my husband. And then a whole bunch of other circumstances came into play—and I haven’t wrapped my head around all of that yet. Being in one position—a life-giving position—yielded to another position and now I find myself at the end of a school year preparing to say goodbye, for a season, to my students.

I graduated in 2001 with a Bachelors of Science in Education and a teaching degree in Missouri and here I am in 2022 planning out my final weeks of academia for my middle school students. To say I did not see this coming is an understatement, but all I can do for the moment is to turn back to that concept of thriving and how utterly freeing it is to abandon that straitjacket that hindered me.

I am trusted in my position in the classroom. Appointed to it, seen worthy of it, entrusted with it.

I am released to be my very best self. In this space I’m encouraged to be creative, to teach, to shepherd, to encourage, to raise up these precious young people into their futures.

I have autonomy here. There is always accountability and structure, which is so important, but also autonomy.

I work within a team of godly and wise people to bring excellence to all we do.

I’m compensated fairly for my hard work and for my resume.

I still find it tremendously sad that the place where I felt most restricted and bound against being fully myself was in the church. I don’t think it has to be that way by any means, but it’s the reality for many women with leadership skills.

For now I praise God for the good gift of work, for my incredible co-teachers, and for the students I spend time with each week. They engage my mind and spirit, they challenge me, and in our classroom I am free to exercise my gifts in a thousand fulfilling ways.