Gretchen’s Story:
Five years ago, I graduated with a petroleum engineering degree from Texas A&M. Needing hands-on experience, I took my first job in Denver City, a town so small the HR department suggested I live in nearby Seminole, Texas, a “metropolis” with a population of 5,000. I signed a lease on the only apartment available in town.
Although I felt confident in God’s leading, I was incredibly nervous to take this leap of faith. In the month between graduation and moving to Seminole, I spent a lot of time in prayer about this scary step, asking the Lord to help me trust Him as I stepped into the unknown.
I spent my last night at home—the Fourth of July—with my parents and my best friend, who cheered me on for my next step. We hugged, cried and prayed. The next morning, my mom reminded me she and my dad were confident in God’s plan for me. Not feeling confident myself, I leaned on their faith that God had good plans in store. So I backed out of the driveway and drove eight hours to Seminole, Texas, crying and praying along the way. I was afraid of change, loneliness and failure. Yet I clung to the God who had never failed me yet.
Starting my job and getting settled in a new town was surprisingly hard. I held it together the best I could during workdays, then came home and cried every single night. I had struggled with loneliness during college transitions and summers when friendships changed, but I had never felt as alone as I did those first two months in Seminole. I knew nobody, and nobody knew me.
I went for walks in the park, tried to start conversations with my coworkers and visited almost every church in town. Yet nothing magically clicked to make me feel connected or give me any sense of what God was up to. Even though I was doing everything I could in my situation, I felt stuck in a slow, painful transition. As I talked to college friends settling into bigger cities with exciting social opportunities, I fought comparison and envy. Yet the Lord remained my comfort, and I clung to Him.
After a few weeks, I began attending First Baptist Seminole, desperately hoping God would provide purpose and community. The church seemed small to me, but I knew God was at work everywhere. I had spent my last semester of college studying the book of James, and I clung to the promise that when we ask for wisdom, God will give it to us. I also read and recited Psalm 121 so many times I memorized it without trying. I prayed, “God, You are where my help comes from; You watch over my life.”
After I pressed on for weeks, I slowly began to feel less overwhelmed by loneliness and hopelessness. I came to terms with the truth that God has lined out the spaces and places for all our days (Acts 17:26). I also knew God had good works prepared for me in Seminole, and I asked to see them (Ephesians 2:10).
And in His time, God showed me. After two months in Seminole, I was invited to my first social event in September, a baby shower for a family from my church I hadn’t even met yet! About that time a new Sunday school class formed for church members in their 20s, which included five married couples and me. Conversations at our class gatherings often focused on marriage issues, infertility, foster care and raising children—areas foreign to me. It certainly wasn’t the community I would have chosen at first, but God was up to something.
God taught me to value singleness: I had energy, time and flexibility unlike my married friends. I prayed God would use my single status and its assets. Practical outcomes of this prayer included hosting dinners in my tiny apartment, babysitting, and active listening during marriage and parenting conversations. I also sang on the church worship team and taught children in a weekly Bible memory program. And to my surprise, I began to love my life! Though not the vibrant single life I had envied, it was somehow God’s perfect will anyway (Romans 12:1-2).
During the first weeks of daily tears, God had given me a vision to study His word with other women in Seminole. Six months later, God led me to start a women’s Bible study at my church, the first step in my dream for Bible studies that would refresh and rejuvenate women in Seminole.
Sometimes that first group consisted of two other women and me. We used a simple approach to dig into God’s Word, and we followed prepared discussion questions. Our Bible study was a safe place to walk together through some of the hardest things in life. God’s Word and prayer cemented beautiful friendships.
My year in Seminole uncovered surprising gifts. God led me through a season of deep loneliness, then bonded me with believers in different life situations. My Seminole community taught me the power of Christian friendship.
God also taught me He was my very best friend, a concept that fueled my own friendship-ability. Of course, I stumbled in faith as I walked out these truths. But day by day, I learned to “walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps 116:9). In God’s kind and perfect plan, he brought me to a place and a people I needed—who also happened to need me.
