When I returned to North Park University as the campus pastor, my former Political Science professor, Dr. Warren Wade, took me out to lunch and said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you are the last person I thought would be in this position.” I smiled because it was an honest and accurate assessment and although I’m not sure I was the “last person,” based on my prior behavior in my previous life I was indeed an unlikely candidate.
Eighteen years prior to my return to NPU I had begun my undergraduate career with thoughts of becoming a doctor. Upon entering as a freshman I encountered several hurdles. Calculus was at 8:00am Monday through Friday and I had a penchant for parties. I failed calculus and crossed off medical school. Still wanting to be in a helping profession I turned my attention to nursing. I took Biology and dissected a cat and went on to memorize the elements for my Chemistry class. I managed to pass the classes but the following summer I worked at Swedish Covenant Hospital as a unit assistant and learned that bags of fluid sent me reeling and so I went back to the drawing board in pursuit of a different profession.
If I couldn’t heal people I thought perhaps I could defend them. I had a knack for being argumentative and loved the underdog and so I began to pursue both Sociology and Political Science with an eye toward Law School. My final two years at NPU I rallied all the discipline I possessed and managed to graduate with honors but received unremarkable scores on my GRE’s due to an all-night social commitment the night before the exam. I hate to admit it but at 21 years old my social life outranked any serious pursuits.The years that followed graduation found me teaching in a day treatment facility on the south side of Chicago, a job I loved but one for which I was utterly unqualified. I spent a year in south Texas working with a ministry, a job I was committed to but was not spiritually ready for. I painted houses and I worked laying sod for a landscape company, both jobs I didn’t love and to which I was uncommitted. I was a waitress, a law clerk, an administrative assistant, a bartender and a barista. Although uncommitted to a particular professional trajectory, my social life remained right on track.
One day while making a latte, light on the foam with a sprinkle of cinnamon, the gentleman on the other side of the counter said, “You should get a real job.” I told him I had a real job but I knew what he meant. I had long ago mastered the art of the latte and I knew my life needed a change, but serious pursuits would require a radical shift in my social life and I wasn’t sure I had what it took to make the turn.
It was around that time that a friend of mine, a former classmate from North Park, invited to me to attend a small group bible study. I was a bit suspicious that she had set up some kind of intervention but upon attending found only faithful people who were also trying to figure out their lives. Over the course of the following year I found Jesus, or perhaps it is more accurate to say, I let him find me, and my entire life changed course.
I committed my life to Jesus Christ in April of 1996 and three months later I walked into the admissions office of North Park Theological Seminary, committed to Christ, but clueless about what was required to become a pastor and unsure if someone like myself even qualified. With my past still in such close proximity to my present I didn’t dare assume I had what it took to become a real pastor and so when the admissions director asked me about the nature of my calling I responded simply, “I want to be a waitress that knows a lot about Jesus.” In hindsight it seems I was much more concerned about my past than Jesus ever was.
Jesus changed the course of my life. As the song says, “He picked me up and turned me around and set my feet on solid ground.” I have an ‘after’ to my ‘before’ and the change is as remarkable as any makeover you will ever see in print. I have experienced in the flesh the promise of the scriptures that God makes all things new and that people truly can become new creations. I believe real and radical change can happen in any life because real and radical change happened in mine. And I think it’s important to add that this turn from darkness to light, from bartender to pastor did not happen because I was a particularly good person, but because Jesus entered into my particular life in and made it really good.
In this first week following our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ I invite you to consider the truth that real and radical, dark to light, death to life change remains possible for you and for me and for all those who enter into a life with Jesus. I pray that the transformation will be so visible to those around you that they too would take you to lunch and proclaim that the impossible has actually taken place.
This morning in chapel we have the opportunity to hear from several students who have experienced real and radical change this year. Come and celebrate the truth that God is at work on this campus and that he continues to change and resurrect real lives.
