There is a phrase I’ve found myself returning to over and over this year:
God is always ahead of us.
Not by a few steps.
By generations.
For most of my life, I thought I was collecting unrelated experiences.
Brooklyn.
The Fresh Air Fund.
Church.
Corporate America.
Motherhood.
Athletics.
Writing.
Children’s Ministry.
Each season felt like its own chapter, disconnected from the one before it. I didn’t realize that God wasn’t handing me separate stories.
He was writing one.
This past year has been filled with what looked like new beginnings. New responsibilities. New opportunities. New doors opening in places I never expected to serve.
At times, it felt as though I was starting over.
Now I realize I wasn’t starting over at all.
I was finally standing where years of quiet preparation had been leading me.
Looking back, I can see that God has never wasted a season of my life.
The administrative work I once thought was simply a job taught me how to bring order to complex situations.
Writing taught me how to notice the details other people might overlook.
Motherhood taught me patience I didn’t know I possessed.
Walking alongside three beautifully unique children taught me that one-size-fits-all was never God’s design for people.
Every assignment left something in my hands.
Not for me to keep.
But for me to give away.
As I’ve stepped more deeply into Children’s Ministry, I’ve found myself using skills that were cultivated in conference rooms, school districts, church offices, and around my own kitchen table.
Sometimes I laugh when I realize that a Standard Operating Procedure and a Bible lesson aren’t as different as they seem.
Both exist to help people flourish.
Both require clarity.
Both are acts of service.
The setting changes.
The heart doesn’t.
This year has also reminded me that ministry is rarely about having all the answers.
It’s about building places where people feel seen.
Places where parents can exhale.
Where volunteers feel supported.
Where children know they belong before they ever memorize a Bible verse.
That’s the kind of church I pray we continue becoming.
Not simply a place people attend.
A village people experience.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that God has always worked through villages.
Families.
Churches.
Mentors.
Friends.
Teachers.
Neighbors.
People willing to say yes to one another.
When I think back over my own life, I realize I’ve been loved by far more people than my younger self could have counted.
Some shared my last name.
Many didn’t.
Yet every one of them helped shape the woman I’m still becoming.
Perhaps that’s why I find myself drawn toward building communities instead of simply completing tasks.
I’m no longer interested in doing meaningful work alone.
I want to leave behind systems that outlive me.
Resources that lighten someone else’s load.
Words that remind another weary traveler to keep going.
Open doors for families searching for belonging.
Maybe legacy isn’t measured by what we build for ourselves.
Maybe it’s measured by what continues serving others after we’re gone.
I’ve stopped asking God to simply bless the work of my hands.
Instead, I find myself praying something different.
“Lord, let whatever You’ve entrusted to me become a blessing for someone else.”
That prayer has changed me.
Because it reminds me that my assignments were never about recognition.
They’ve always been about stewardship.
When I look around today, I don’t see random pieces anymore.
I see threads.
The little girl from Brooklyn.
The woman balancing calendars and ministries.
The mother learning from her children every single day.
The writer finding healing through sentences.
The servant trying her best to say yes whenever God whispers, “This way.”
She’s always been the same person.
God has simply been revealing more of who He created her to be.
As I grow older, I’ve become less interested in asking, “How did I get here?” and more interested in asking, “Who helped me get here?”
The answer is never one person.
It’s a chorus.
Some were family by birth.
Others became family by choice.
Some appeared for only a season, while others have faithfully walked beside me for decades.
Each left fingerprints on my life.
Each became part of my story.
I’ve often told people that I can’t tell the full breadth of my life without including the chapters they were part of. Some have been main characters. Some have been recurring characters. Others made what seemed like a brief guest appearance, only to leave behind a lesson that lasted a lifetime.
Looking back, I don’t think those encounters were accidental.
I think they were appointments.
God has always had a way of placing the right people in my path at the right time—not because they were perfect, but because each carried something I needed for the next season of my journey.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve always loved meaningful conversations.
Not small talk.
Not conversations meant simply to pass the time.
The kind that leave both people changed.
The kind that help you see yourself, your purpose, or even God a little more clearly than you did before.
Even as technology continues to evolve, one thing remains unchanged.
Connection still matters.
Whether it’s a conversation across a kitchen table, a handwritten letter, a phone call, a voice note, or words shared through a screen, every meaningful exchange begins the same way.
One person reaches out.
Another responds.
Understanding is born somewhere in between.
Maybe that’s what a village really is.
Not merely a place.
Not merely a group of people.
A village is created every time we choose to see one another, to listen well, to encourage, to teach, to learn, to laugh, to grieve, and to grow together.
None of us writes a life story alone.
We’re all co-authors in one another’s chapters.
And if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s this:
The greatest legacy we leave behind isn’t simply what we accomplish.
It’s the lives we help shape while we’re here.
Perhaps I wasn’t starting over after all.
Perhaps God was simply introducing me to the next chapter of a story He had been writing all along.
And what a privilege it is to discover that the pages ahead are still waiting to be written.
From the Margins
The Year I Thought I Was Starting Over is the first memoir arc in From the Margins, an ongoing memoir series by Lela Jefferson Fagan exploring faith, family, purpose, resilience, and the people who help shape our lives.
Read the complete series:
🌐 Memoirs of a Black Girl
https://www.memoirsofablackgirl.com
📝 Substack
https://lelajfagan.substack.com
Follow the journey: @LelaJFagan
© 2026, Lela Fagan. All rights reserved.
