Here is my journal entry from 5/23/2003... Course selection was coming up, and Marylyn Lazlo (a speaker and Bible translator for Wycliffe Bible Translators) had recently spoken in chapel at Houghton College. I was debating about whether to seek a linguistics minor during my senior year, or take some other classes (which at that time I thought were important, but now I can't even remember what they were!) For about a year before writing this, I had been struggling a lot, and my walk with God was suffering as well. But on this night, God called me to go out into the parking lot behind the college townhouse where I lived and walk with Him. What He impressed on my mind that night is revealed (to the best of my writing ability) in this journal entry.

"Today You revealed to me Your greater promise. I obeyed when You called... (simply by following Him into the parking lot!) and You called me higher. From so many years ago - I find that my choice for the gift of tongues (in actuality I remember saying that I wanted "Your gift") - my choice on that day was greater than I could imagine. You gave me directly the gift of speaking in tongues... now You show me that it is exactly the gift of tongues that I will need to translate the Bible into an "unknown" language. I still believe You will give me the horse You promised... although now it hardly seems as important to me. All along You have been giving me a gift of horses - which I believe also fulfills Your promise for a horse on that one day in the woods long ago. First You gave me specifically the gift of tongues and symbollically/generally the gift of horses. Now I wait, fully believing that You will finish the good work You started in me. You will fulfill Your promises in a way I was blind to before, but which is now revealed to me so clearly... a specific gift of a horse... and a general gift of language - both which I am sure You are already at work on. I see the general gift of language already... and I anticipate all that You will do. The horse as well is in Your hands. May all things glorify You!"