A Changed Heart
I’ve got some pretty exciting news. At the end of May, I will be officially working on Old Lantern full-time. If you don’t know, I am currently a preschool teacher’s assistant. I love this job so much. I’ve always loved teaching. Before being a teacher’s assistant and before I had kids, I worked as an elementary school teacher. It is such a rewarding job. Difficult, but rewarding. I went into teaching hoping to “change the world.” Children are our future. I wanted to be to the kids what I needed as a kid; hoping to help at least one child know that they are loved and are worthy of being loved. Being a teacher’s assistant was the best of both worlds. I could still develop relationships with the kids and do the fun activities, but I didn’t have to do the planning and carry the mental stress of being the lead teacher. With it being a part-time job, I was also able to spend time with the kids without worrying about all the “extra” work that comes along with being the lead. So all this to say – I was good with being a part-time teacher’s assistant and a wife and mom of two boys. I was happy. I was content. I was comfortable. All was good. In my mind, I was done with Old Lantern because it was too much to keep up with. My feelings toward Old Lantern have ranged from excitement to frustration. Old Lantern started in 2016 and it was an answer to a prayer. (For the full story click here.) Old Lantern has been a “God thing” from the beginning. It grew quickly through word of mouth. I only had a few listings on Etsy, but Our State magazine and Style House Designs reached out after seeing our products. I’ve had support from several of the businesses in downtown Youngsville. Instead of being excited for the success of the business, I was frustrated. Being completely honest, I was mad. I was afraid of being successful. A couple of times, I was in angry tears while working on orders because it wasn’t worth the few extra bucks. After one of my orders I decided – I’m done. It’s not worth the stress. I even went on to delete all of my files. Shortly after I did this, I wasn’t feeling peace about my decision to stop. So I started praying, “God speak to me. Either change my heart and give me excitement about this small business, or tell me it’s ok to stop.” I think deep, deep down I already knew I was to continue with Old Lantern, but I kept reasoning my way out of it. I would often get these nudges of “Old Lantern could be great,” but I was content with good.I would often argue with God… I want to make an impact and be a part of something bigger than myself. How in the world is that going to happen by me making signs?! I’m making a bigger impact by loving on these kids and teaching them about You. That’s way more important than making signs. I would think this often, but the peace about being done with Old Lantern wasn’t there. So I kept praying, “ God, change my heart.”
After several months of praying for God to change my heart and for clear direction I went to a women's conference with a good friend.I went with an expectant heart. I went with the mindset of, “okay God, whatever you tell me at this conference - I’m all in.” As soon as we got to the conference, while my friend was checking us into the hotel, I sat in the car and checked my emails. I received an email from the Town of Wake Forest stating Old Lantern had been accepted into this year’s Meet in the Street. This was cool for a couple of reasons. First, we submitted the application months earlier without any idea of our chances of being accepted. Second, how funny is the timing of the acceptance email? It was literally sent on our short drive to Virginia Beach.
At the conference, one of the messages was on Luke 10 - The Good Shepherd and His Sheep. The speaker said something along the lines of, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. They don’t question when it’s time to leave. They don't look to the shepherd and wonder, ‘Why do you want to move us from this hillside? We’re good here. There’s still green grass. There’s still water.’ They trust the shepherd and just go.” When the speaker was saying this, I was so blown away. I had been having this “argument” with God about good vs. great, and here He was clearly speaking to me. My friend was nudging my arm as the speaker was saying these things because she knew the inner battle I’d been having with Old Lantern.
Towards the end of the conference, we were given tags to write down things we wanted to leave behind. They had a prayer wall where all the tags were to be hung and prayed over. I wrote three words. One of them was “complacency.” A couple days after the conference I was reading through some sermon notes for our church. Chris and I are part of the creative team for our church so we get the sermon notes a few weeks ahead of time. We take a few days to read the notes and then get together as a team to discuss creative elements for the series (videos, songs, takeaways, etc.). As I’m reading the notes for the first weekend of the series, I read this, “God is calling you out of your complacency and apathy – He is calling you away from your small dreams.” Seeing the word complacency was an overwhelming confirmation for me.
A couple days later, I was pricing out shirts for a new shirt design for Old Lantern when I remembered that I wanted to print out the sermon series so I could finish reading them and write down thoughts and ideas. I opened a new tab and opened the document to print. After I clicked “print” I was going to go back to the t-shirt tab. I was confused for a moment by the titles of the two tabs. I got chills when I realized that both the sermon notes tab and the t-shirt tab were titled “Next Level…” Again, I was blown away by God using moments in my every day life to confirm He is close and has been nudging me to take this step of faith.
This step of faith officially begins in May when I’ll be focusing on Old Lantern full-time.
I still don't understand why God would have me focus on this small business over teaching children, but the peace found in trusting God trumps my want to understand.
