Deciding to Intern

Ever since I was in my second semester of my senior year of high school, calling has remained a scary word for me. I am confident in the idea that God is a dreamer and invites us to dream with Him, but somehow knowing that abstractly is far less intimidating than praying for and dreaming for my own future. This whole school year has been filled with wild, fun and crazy daydreams of what the next year or even the next 20 years could look like. Dreams of traveling the world (whenever it is safe to do so), of owning a small business, of communicating big and powerful stories, or sharing the small ones that otherwise would remain unknown. However, thinking in this way opened doors to feeling a lot of anxiety with the uncertainties that came with each of these scenarios.

Winter break was even more anxiety-inducing in terms of calling as my friends became more settled in their post-grad plans, and I still had a million options that I wasn’t sure sat quite right with me. I had been praying into calling for years, but only felt gentle nudges from God that somehow led me to discover a passion for people and their stories. Going into my first group discipleship for this semester, I sat as the other girls in my group shared about not feeling like they were in a place of growth or hearing God, and I immediately related and got chills because I could tell that the Lord was and is going to continue to use that shared similar circumstance to do crazy things. I had been stuck in a place of not knowing what the Lord wanted next for me and had tried so desperately on my own to figure it out and make something happen.

Interning at Wesley has always sounded like an incredible opportunity, but I was very set in my head that my time in Athens would be over in May, and I didn’t need to hold onto the season of college forever. So, I thought finding a new place to call home should be my next step. Within a week of that first group discipleship for this semester, I could feel God soften my heart towards Athens for next year. I wasn’t initially sure what that meant, but the idea of being here another year didn’t seem to have the same stigma in my mind of just being a safe place to stay when I couldn’t figure things out. I feel overwhelming peace in what the Lord has recently placed on my heart, and I think Athens is slowly shifting in my mind of being a place that’s safe to being a place that’s risky, but conducive to growth and new depths. I am certainly excited about the possibility that God could use this next year or more interning at Wesley to do something big in my life and in others’ lives.

Author | Emma Kate Shelton