Since we call this the “Founder” letter, I thought I’d start out today by saying I truly didn’t try to “found” anything.
At one point, I said yes to mentoring one college-aged girl named Britany, and she invited 20-some friends.
Before you knew it, they invited a few friends who invited a few friends who invited YOU.
But I want to take us back for a moment because I sense that you might need to hear something I needed to hear.
When this “Collide” thing started to become a thing, I wasn’t trying to make it a thing. In fact, I was in college ministry and not looking to start a women’s nonprofit ministry. I felt led to leave that college ministry position and go speak and write. When the elder board of that church invited me to come so they could pray over me, they said something I will never forget.
I told them that even though they had hired a college minister to replace my position, there was this thing called “Collide” that was now an intergenerational ministry drawing hundreds of women from all different churches and women outside the church, too. I told them they could have it or they could kill it, but my plan was to go be a messenger.
And I kid you not. They looked at me and said, “Willow, this is anointed and you need to pay attention to what God is doing.”
Their emphasis on the move of God that I was not taking seriously enough changed the trajectory of my life and has, in turn, transformed many other lives.
And here is why I share this with you.
I have a feeling there is a move of God happening around you that you might not be paying attention to. Maybe because it’s not in the “plan.” Maybe because it’s not what you pictured for yourself. Maybe because you are too busy exiting stage left to go do the thing you always thought you’d do that you can’t see there is something happening right around you. Maybe even in you.
So friend, this is me popping into your inbox to be bold with you in saying this:
Don’t get so hung up on the “plan” that you don’t pay attention to what God is doing.
Maybe, just maybe, the thing you thought was a random accident, an experiment, a pit stop is actually the thing God has been planning to invite you into all along.
You don’t have to have a five-year plan for it. You don’t have to know where it’s going. You just have to be willing to notice.
Because sometimes God will call you to be part of something way bigger than you could have imagined for yourself. And isn’t that what’s really cool?
So don’t settle for your plan.
Pay attention to His.
Because you might look back one day and realize:
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to find this. But God found me.”
P.S. I shared more in my Founder Letter – if you want to receive these before they’re published, you can join here.
