When I left home for college at just 18, I did so with a head full of dreams.
I was going to be famous.
I would audition at some point for a well-known company and they’d love my voice and my comedic style. They’d hone me and perfect me into the next star.
My goal was Broadway.
I loved the stage and the intimacy required with the audience. Right in front of everyone - to reach down inside of myself and become whomever I was required to be in a particular role for a few hours on a daily basis seemed to me to be the ultimate in life! The audience would love me and I would perform for them - a perfectly symbiotic relationship.
Well… you know what happens when we make our plans…
I was granted an audition at the New York School of Dramatic Arts. I called my parents and told them that I was on my way! I was in my second year of college and determined to do everything I had set my mind on.
My dad, who was the kindest person I have ever known, graciously offered to drive me to my audition! Drive me into the big city! I had no idea at the time how immense this offer was.
I just assumed it was what happened when your daughter was auditioning.
“OK” I took his offer.
We never made it.
I never made it.
I didn’t go.
Sometime in between Dad saying “I’ll take you”, and the day we were supposed to go, I had an encounter.
With God.
God had transformation in mind for me.
I was sitting on a choir bus, and a friend sitting behind me handed me an application. I felt nudged. Mmm maybe “told” is a better word. The application was for a short term mission training program.
Suddenly, the stage seemed far away and the God who loves and helps young girls make wiser decisions seemed very near.
I stood at the fork in the road. One way seemed very glorious and full of work, but also fame. The other way seemed hidden and also challenging, but in a way that would change me, transform me - probably for the better.
I’m sure Dad and Mom were praying.
So. I didn’t go to New York.
I went to its smaller cousin, Philadelphia. My dad did drive me. All the way from Wisconsin.
While I was sleeping and lounging and gazing out the window wondering what kind of a decision I had made, Dad drove.
He dropped me off in front of a big stone house. It had a Japanese maple in front, which was hiding a deep porch.
It felt anticlimactic. After helping me haul my luggage in (I didn’t pack light) and making sure I was set and in the right place, I said goodbye to my dad.
It is only in hindsight that I can think back on that day - how humid the air was, how different the city smells, how much traffic there was - that I realize how foreign it all must have been to my farmer-carpenter dad. He loved his morning walks in the woods and sitting on the banks of Main Creek with his fishing pole. Looking back, I wonder, how did he do that?
Did he know that he was playing a significant role in his daughter's transformation?
Did he know how much doubt I carried and how scared I was when he dropped me off?
I think of this time as the time my fathers (one with a capital F, one with a lower case) conspired to save me from myself.
I think of all the transformation that has happened in me since then.
I think of how God still takes me as a passenger, invites me to ride shotgun and allows me to look out the window and enjoy the ride on the way to the next step in my life.