❤️An Unconventional Calling❤️

When I was young and growing up in church, I was taught that the highest calling was ministry. I remember kneeling on the gathering place carpet, listening to the youth pastor lead worship, & watching my peers announce mid-sob after the altar call that God had called them to Africa.

I stared at the flags from every country hanging from the ceiling. I looked around the room and felt small. I didn’t exactly fit the bill of other radical, evangelical teen Christians around me. I loved Jesus, I just didn’t understand why it was so hard for me to act like everyone else. They prayed harder, fasted longer, spoke in tongues better, went to the same private school, hung out in the same circles, and listened to the same bands. I liked dance dance revolution, bright colors, light up shoes, and musicals. One day I got told that I “worshipped too hard.” Even in a charismatic church, I guess I was embarrassing.

So I sat with my hands on my chin and wondered – How can God use a loud, boisterous, embarrassing girl like me?

Fast forward to now, here I am 5 years in to a business venture that I can only describe as a miracle. I make a living dressing up in 20+ different costumes and singing to strangers, day in and day out. I have sung for anniversaries, birthdays, retirements, engagements, promposals, and bachelorette parties. I’ve been given the gift of helping celebrate people’s special moments in a truly baffling way. People have told me that I live up to my name, spreading “Joy” quite literally.

But not every telegram has been a celebration. There are moments that you will never see, ones that have gutted me and had me sobbing in my car.

I sang for my friend right before she lost her battle to Leukemia. She was fighting so hard to hold on until her trip to Disney with her son, but it had become too aggressive. Her mom messaged me and I showed up to her house with a big Disney princess balloon and a song from the little mermaid. A week later, she passed away surrounded by love.

I sang to a boy that was spending his 16th birthday in the chemo ward for lymphoma. I joked and laughed with him, but I sat in my car quietly afterwards. His little face looked so tired, and I’m not sure my singing helped him feel better.

I received a song request from a sweet old woman, and while I sang it her son slow danced with her. She came up to me after, tears in her eyes while squeezing my hand, and said “My husband passed a year ago, and that was our wedding song. Thank you for singing it so beautifully.”

A girl came up to me in a bar and said “You sang to my dad on Valentine’s Day! I want you to know that you saved my parent’s marriage. He was so happy and giggly over it and I will never forget what you did for them.” I stood there, high noon in hand, stunned.

Even Simon Cowell – I was planning on just delivering the song, but production emailed me the night before panicked and said he was sick as a dog with no voice. I showed up with a cluster of get well balloons and a song to cheer him up. I thought he would absolutely hate me, but to my surprise his face lit up and he was so kind.

So what would I tell the girl in youth group that felt insecure because she was different? Would I tell her that singing & dancing in stupid costumes is beneath God’s plan for her, or that God can and will use absolutely anybody in any way?

You might not fit the bill of a “normal” person who still believes in Jesus. You might be like me, somewhere in-between hot tears of anger at the damage self-proclaimed Christians have done in the name of God, getting blocked and deleted for being too much,” and yet still constantly meeting him in the quiet moments. Still seeing him in the faces of strangers.

God isn’t an aesthetic, a bumper sticker, or a political affiliation. He’s not a bill, a law, a denomination, or a podcast. He’s not limited to specific countries, careers, or “callings.” God’s not a 5-step program, an award-winning Bible study, or a megachurch.

God has no limits. I was never not good enough; I was simply surrounded by people who had a very limited definition of ministry. I am still walking in spirit, even if I do it in sparkly boots over Birkenstocks.

Sometimes “picking up your cross” means putting on a pickle costume when you’re having one of the absolute worst days of your life, and giving someone else one of the best days of theirs. Don’t let someone with a limited perspective of God tell you that you’re not enough of a religious stereotype to be the light – cause it truly doesn’t matter. He will always show up, just watch.

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