"You're doing what?!" This is the typical response I would hear from my friends and family when I told them I would be leaving my comfortable life in Corporate America in the country outskirts of St. Louis to be a full-time volunteer at Mission: St. Louis, a non-profit in the inner city. Let me explain. I served on a few disaster relief trips in college and I knew that I loved helping those affected by tragedy. Last year, during a time when multiple tragic events occurred in my own life, I decided to go on a trip to Joplin, Missouri to help tornado victims who had lost everything. I heard people's stories. I listened. And then it hit me. This is what it's all about: RELATIONSHIPS! While I couldn't bring back their houses or loved ones, I could stand along side them in their brokenness, encourage them, and point them to Christ, the one who will someday restore this broken world. Coming home that weekend, I found out about an open position at Mission: St. Louis where I could use my skills to help broken people in my own city.

It's been an interesting transition, but I know that all my work here is helping to empower, educate, and restore St. Louis. I'm reminded daily of the brokenness in my city as well as in my own life but encouraged that Christ came to bring restoration. All I can do is use the small life I've been given to invest in relationships with anyone and everyone and be used for something so much bigger than I could imagine! Readers, I'll leave you with this challenge: How can you take your day-to-day life to be used for something bigger than yourself? For me, it took leaving my comfortable life in Corporate America to work in the inner city, but maybe for you it looks like loving your coworkers well even if you get nothing in return, engaging that family member you'd rather avoid, working diligently on a boring project, etc... I don't know what it looks like for you, but I hope you'll take the challenge.