One of my students gave me an Amazon gift card for Christmas. I knew exactly what I would use it to buy: Rebekah Lyons' book Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning. I ordered it online and couldn't wait until it arrived. It came in just three days.

This was my first time buying a book online. There's just something about walking into a bookstore and finding the perfect book. I love technology, but some things I just want to keep technology-free. To cherish and savor those moments in life that screens can't recreate. The sight of hundreds of shelves filled with books. The smell of the pages in a brand-new tome. Sitting down and reading so much of the book that you can't leave the store without it. Walking to the register to take your treasure home with you.

Okay. I'll admit I'm a little bit of a book nerd. I love books. I have so many books, it's kind of embarrassing. But I once heard that readers make writers, so I read and I read and I read so that I can write.

However, buying this book online was really fun. I didn't know exactly when it would arrive on my doorstep and surprise me.

When Freefall to Fly arrived, I squealed with delight. It came at the perfect time - on the first day back at school after winter break. I happily tore open the brown-paper to find a new book to read nestled inside. It felt like Christmas all over again. A January Christmas.

Immediately, I began to dive into the book, turning page after page. I didn't want to put it down.

Rebekah's story resonates with me to my core.

I mean, there is so much different about us. She's a forty-something. I'm a twenty-something. She has a husband and kids. I have no husband (yet) and no little ones. She lives in Tennessee. I live 20 minutes from Seattle.

But her heart longs for the same thing mine does: She wants to become the woman God created her to be. She longs to live her life to the fullest and find abundant life in Jesus Christ. She hungers for a meaningful existence every day of her life.

Me too.

I want all of that. This book challenged and encouraged me on my own journey of meaning. I'm twenty-six years old and lived enough life to realize that it goes by faster than you think it will, tomorrow is not promised to any of us, and our time is so precious.

I want my every second to mean something.

I've always been like this. On a quest of meaning ever since I can remember. Striving to live my life to the full, to never miss what God has for me, what He wants me to do, who He wants me to help.

I've always looked at the big picture. I like the big picture.

Lately, though, God has been challenging me to look at the little details. Those small, seemingly insignificant things of life. To see meaning in those things. To not just wait or work for the big things, but to embrace the tiny tasks as opportunities to show His love and to glorify Him.

My heart longs for my book to be published one day. I want to write for God's glory. I pray for opportunities to share my story with others. There is nothing more joyous and amazing than being able to tell someone about Jesus Christ.

And yet, God calls me to not wait. He wants to use me in all things and at all times. In my work as a preschool teacher. In how I care for the children. Being patient and caring. Often, we long to do great things for God because we think that these things will hold the meaning we search for.

But what I've learned is that everything we do - whether it's sweeping Cheerios up off the floor or speaking to an audience, we can show the love of Christ in that moment. We must not wait for meaning to find us in the big things. Everything is big to God. He cares about it all. Everything means something to Him.

God isn't waiting to use us when we publish the book, produce the album, climb the corporate ladder. He wants to use us now.

It's truly spectacular when I think about how God knows exactly where each of us are and He is able to get us where we need to go. And it's super humbling to realize that many of the blessings and doors of opportunity in my past were things I could never have planned for, but things that God prepared me for. He used my past and present to prepare me for the future only He could see.

Which makes me think: What is He preparing me for right now? How is He using my present now as a college grad, as a preschool teacher, as a Pacific Northwestern, as a twenty-something to prepare me for what's ahead. Only He knows, but I don't want to miss it.

This leads me back to Rebekah's story. There's too many quotes that I want to share from her book, but they would make this blog post a million times too long. So...I'll just share a couple things.

Here goes:

- There's a sentence on page 15 that made me say "Whoa" aloud as I read it. It's this: "We freefall because we never figured out what makes us fly." Whoa again. How many of us are falling because we don't truly know what makes us fly? How many of us are missing out on what our true purpose is? Why have we settled for mediocrity? Why have we settled for a life that feels like we are falling when God wants us to fly? Why have you? Why have I? What are we going to do about it? And how do we find our wings?

- Another thing Rebekah shares is this idea that our greatest fear gives way to our highest calling. When I first read that, I'll admit it: I thought that sounded like some random self-help psychobabble. How could something I am afraid of, in fact the thing I am afraid of the most, be the very thing to help me identify my purpose. It sounds totally erroneous and backwards. But I decided to test it and I wept when I realized the truth in this.

I believe in Jesus Christ and I don't like to say that anything makes me afraid. I think fear is an ugly, ugly thing and it's robbed me many times. I hate fear because all fear is are lies masquerading as truth. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus has set me free from many fears.

And so naturally when fear is brought up, I cringe. It's not a favorite topic and it's not one I want to spend any more time on. Because of Jesus, I can be brave and courageous, strong and fearless. Without Jesus, I would have ever right to be afraid. But, even as a Christian, how many years did I live in fear?

I know better now. I know this now: God's perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). Yet if we don't know how loved we are by God, we can be Christians and struggle with fear in ways that God never wanted us to. His love destroys ALL fear. When we are aware of His love for us - His extravagant, never failing love for each of us - we see fear for what it really is: lies to keep us from becoming and doing exactly what He made us to become and do. (I write more about this and how Jesus set me free from fear in my book).

So, what's the greatest fear of a girl who doesn't fear anymore? It didn't take me long to realize what it would be. My greatest hypothetical fear would be this: Somehow missing out on what God has for me - not becoming who He made me to be, not doing what He made me to do, not having the abundant life here on earth that Jesus promised. Ultimately, not becoming the Colleen Weimer that God designed me to be when He first thought me up and knit me in my mother's womb. That is my greatest fear.

So...how does that connect to my calling?

I knew instantly. My fear of missing out is not isolated to myself. Not only do I seek to fulfill God's plan for my life, but deep in my heart, I long for others to do so also. I love seeing people achieve their dreams, dreams you just know that Creator of this universe put in their hearts, dreams so big and wonderful that make you see God's glory, love, grace, and truth in beautiful ways.

The thing that absolutely breaks my heart? When I see people who miss it. Those strung out on drugs, those Christians with a foot in the church and the foot in the world, those chasing empty earthly treasures, those who run after everything else but what Jesus wants for them. That's why compromise and sin has always been hard for me to see. It's messy, it's disobedience - but even more than that - it's missing out on God's best. It's a person following their path instead of God's. It's a selfish life that leads to brokenness and disillusionment and regret.

Hear me clear: I don't look at those distanced from Jesus - whether Christians or not - with judgment or criticism. I want to run up to them and shout with all urgency: Don't you know that you are missing it! Don't you know that you are not living God's best? Doesn't your heart long for more? I know it does! Jesus has more for you. Follow Him! Please follow Him! He is a good Shepherd and the only One who can lead you to the life God planned for you, the life you long to live.

I know that only God can truly draw a person to Himself. But I pray that He uses me to inspire people to return to Him. To stop settling for the life that they know deep inside isn't the life that God intended for them when He made them.

I don't want to miss God's best and I don't want others to miss it, either.

Whoa. (There's that word again).

That's truly my greatest fear and calling. That's why I wrote my book, pouring out my life for strangers to one day read. My book is a call to those on the fence, those unsure, those who don't know what to do with Jesus, those who pretend they don't care. Jesus loves you and walking with Him is the only way to experience the very best version of your life. The only way to create the story that He wants you to write with your life. The best story that could ever be written about you.

I know this much for sure: We cannot do this life on our own. And if we try, we'll miss it. We'll fall. Only with Jesus can we fly.

And let me tell you, when you're flying, you want the world to know. You cannot shut up about it. Even if you tried. Following Jesus is greater than anything else, greater than any path we could create by ourselves. It will require sacrifice, patience, trust, forgiveness, surrender. But man oh man is it worth it.

Nothing, absolutely nothing compares to living for Jesus and knowing Jesus. And I won't stop talking about it and letting everyone know this good news.

- One last thing. (I could write about this for days).

Rebekah ends with a list of four thoughts to think about. This concludes her book, but most certainly invites the beginning of a journey for the reader:

1.) Write down your earliest dreams.

2.) Write down the turning points in your life.

3.) Write down your talents. Try to list at least three or four.

4.) Write down your greatest burden.

This exercise was incredibly profound for me. I found myself crying when I recalled certain memories. Tears about God's faithfulness through the sorrow and the joy, tears at the thought that my life has been carefully crafted and orchestrated by a good God whose love never fails and whose mercy endures forever. In light of everything I learned in this book, completing this exercise helped me understand where I've been, where I am right now, and where I'm going by God's grace.

I want to end this post with one of my favorite passages from Rebekah Lyons' book (p. 187-188). It is breathtakingly beautiful:

"How do we find meaning?

I now know that we must start by remembering. Before the children came, before the marriage began, before high school graduation, before the loss of whatever happened...when did your heart sing? Did you lie on your back, barefoot in the meadow at dusk, looking up at the vastness of the stars? Did you find yourself enraptured that a Creator ordered these stars one by one and knows each of them by name? Did you imagine how great you are to God's heart while feeling so small within this cosmos? Did your spirit soar with a glimpse of heartfelt delight from Him?

Can you even remember it? That fullness so great you felt as if you'd burst? That moment when you felt the presence of God in your midst. How long has it been since you felt that again? How long has it been since that fullness broke through your ordinary day and brought you to your knees? How long have you been shackled in bondage, where the wounds are too great?

The new normal is a life of survival. And survival means that dreams die.

Whoever said that life is not big enough for all God's fullness? What lies have we believed that said we are not worthy? That He is not capable?"