FC Missional Moments
Finding Myself in A Grander Story
“Why does everything have to be so hard? Did I miss God? Maybe I should quit.”
These doubts clouded my mind constantly for the first fifteen months in my new position as chair of my department.
But one day on the way to yet another meeting, something broke through the cloud of doubt and caught my attention. A student wearing earbuds and a backpack with “Cru” on it crossed my path. He didn’t hear me call out to him, but the Lord heard the cry of my heart to find out if the organization that had been so foundational in my walk with God was active on this campus.
No Cru here.
Soon I began asking others and searching the campus website for any information on Christian groups on campus. I found very little. No Cru here.
Yet as the end of spring semester neared and busyness increased in preparation for graduation, fear and doubt continued with a vengeance. Feelings of inadequacy – that I had made a terrible mistake in applying for and accepting the daunting responsibility of leading my department came and went like angry waves.
For stress relief, my husband encouraged me to look for a Christian conference to attend after the semester ended in order to get away for a few days.
A Grander Story
While searching for a conference, I decided to look up CRU which resulted in finding the Faculty Commons website. There I read about a book called A Grander Story and an upcoming conference for faculty.
I called to get more information during lunch the following day. Before getting off the phone, the kind man on the other end offered to pray for me. Tears welled up in my eyes as I sensed the Lord’s love and care for me through this total stranger, hundreds of miles away.
Finally, he asked if I’d read A Grander Story and I told him I had recently learned of it and planned to buy it. He quickly offered to mail it to me. As I hung up the phone, I smiled with a sense of encouragement and comfort from the Lord through this unseen brother in Christ.
But by the end of the week I had a painfully severe sinus infection which took me off my feet for a few days …and the promised book had arrived. I had no idea that God was answering my prayers.
Between medicine induced naps, I read about faculty members from various institutions and their stories of how God was using them in ordinary ways to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with students, staff, and colleagues.
Not only was I feeling better after three days, but the Lord had used a book and a prayer from a stranger on the phone across the country to clarify my vision for being in my new position.
The dark clouds of questions and doubts have been replaced with faith that my God has called me to be salt and light on my campus.
— Cynthia Shamberger, Fayetteville State