Finding Your Purpose
Jasmine Pope, Instructor in the Social Work Department at Lourdes, is a mental health professional, entrepreneur, and author who helps people find their purpose in life. In addition to this, she is also a wife and mother. Read on to find out how Professor Pope found her purpose, and was led to helping others find theirs.
As a little girl, I loved going to Cedar Point. When I first started going to what is affectionately known as “America’s Rocking Roller Coast,” it was during my summer visits when I would travel from North Carolina to spend time with my father. Once I moved back to Ohio to live with him, it would then become the place where I would spend time with my friends and family enjoying the food, fun, and games from the time the park opened to the few minutes before it closed because you didn’t want to get caught in the parking lot rush to get out of there. The thrill, the ups and downs, the twists, and the turns, and feeling the butterflies in the pit of my stomach were all so scary yet so exhilarating.
Who knew that those roller coaster rides were a forewarning of how my life would be? A life of many twists and turns, ups and downs, and continual moments of butterflies in the pit of my stomach. My journey to purpose wasn’t a linear path. I needed those moments to help develop me into the woman that I am today and will be in the future. They helped make me into a woman of faith, passion, purpose, and perseverance.
Not only did I need the ups and downs, but I also needed the time of waiting in those long lines. The waiting at times was often hot, uncomfortable, and often lasted longer than I wanted it to, but at the end of the waiting, I got on that ride and went through all the ups and downs until I came to that anticipated end. It has been my time of waiting that led me to the roller coaster journey of my purpose. Without the waiting and without the ups and downs, you would not see the woman that is now a collegiate professor, owner of a successful mental health private practice, author of the book entitled In the Middle: Learning How to Navigate the Process to Purpose, and so much more. I have endured the death of my mother, a miscarriage, my own battles with anxiety and depression, among other things that could have broken me, but I know God put them in my life to see me prosper and to not harm me.
My journey to purpose hasn’t been easy by any means, but I believe in the words of Proverbs 3:5-6 that say, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” My path has had many crazy twists and turns and I expect to have many more, but I trust that it’s all a part of the preparation for the purpose and plan that God has for my life.