A is for Align

The LAYER Method, Part Two

The elders in my community use to have a saying (and I find myself saying it now myself as an up and coming elder, Ha!), “The Lord takes care of babies and fools!” I didn’t quite understand what that meant when I was younger, because I didn’t really know who the Lord was, nor did I understand how or why He cared for babies and fools so much. But now at 52 and having survived being both baby and fool (with the latter at one period or another being a regular occurrence), I totally get it…and I am so grateful!

When I went to college at 17, I had almost no real frame of reference for who I was or what I wanted to be. My world was relatively small and limited to experiences in my hometown and maybe the occasional adventure to cities along the East Coast and a few states in the Midwest. And yet, like most college-bound teenagers, here I was being asked to declare a major, choosing a field of study that would establish one of the most important paths for the rest of my life – my career.

I landed on political science. Partly because it seemed financially smart – I knew it was a good segue into the legal field and at the time, that’s what made sense to me. And partly because I love intellectual political and social debate. I remember having a mock debate and election at school as a kid during the Carter-Reagan presidential campaign. That sparked my initial interest in politics, but it was also fueled growing up in a predominantly African American community, where from an early age I had been introduced and drawn to figures like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela. I spent hours reading about African (American) history and Caribbean culture, fascinated by how those rich, layered identities shaped the community I grew up in. By college, that curiosity had expanded significantly, and by 19-20, I was starting to develop some conviction around my plans for the future…law school after graduation, followed by a career rooted in history, culture, and justice. For a brief moment, all the pieces seemed to be coming together.

And then like life in your 20s, quietly, almost invisibly, distractions started to appear, dividing my attention. And unconsciously, my plan slowly started to feel less and less of a priority.

As graduation drew closer, procrastination would set in and an internal voice emerged, quiet at first but over time growing louder, telling me I couldn’t pass the LSAT, that law school would be harder than I could handle, that I simply didn’t have what it took. Around that same time, several of my closest friends were planning to move to D.C. after graduation, and the idea of extending the community and energy of college felt far more appealing than more years of difficult study and grinding through law school. By the time I walked across the stage to get my degree, the thought of a legal career was practically a memory.

What came next was the first of many future seasons with its fair share of difficulty. Financial struggles that required me to lean on family longer than comfortable (I’m sure more for them than for me). Letting other people’s opinions about what I’d be good at steer decisions that should have been my own. Temporary employment for about a year before one of those temp positions eventually turned into something permanent in state government (Thank God). Excited to have my first real “Big Girl” job, my emotion was honestly more about the idea of a steady paycheck and stability than it was about seeing a path for the future.

For the next eight or so years, I lived what I now call the formative years of my career. I completed graduate school with a Master’s in Public Administration, a choice that seemed a good fit, mostly because my boss/mentor had an MPA and hers was a career and a life I truly admired. I started slowly figuring out what I was naturally good at, creating programs, developing policy, building consensus around ideas and actions, learning how to navigate the bureaucracy of government. I was finally starting to figure life out, caught somewhere in between building an adult life but still holding on to as much fun as I possibly could, having the time of my life coming of age in Washington, D.C. Now I was still making some genuinely bad (and might I add, dumb) decisions, largely financial, but because I was also building a community of support and guidance, I was able to catch myself and recover from my mistakes a lot sooner, and finally without being a burden to my family. A life that once felt like it had no direction and was completely off the rails, was suddenly finding its way onto a track, even if the destination was still a bit unknown.

It was during this season that I also landed my first leadership position.

In hindsight, I honestly wasn’t the most obvious candidate, and part of me knew it. I still lacked confidence and had no real sense of purpose or direction beyond the day in front of me. But something innate drew me to it. Growing up as the firstborn, I had been assuming responsibility for people for as long as I could remember. Self-proclaimed “Deputy Parent” to my siblings (and they hate when I call myself that – I can’t wait to put it on a t-shirt!), and Family Manager the older I got, by default. While not legal titles (although they should be), the weight of them definitely shaped me long before any job description did.

What I understood, even without a framework for it, was that leadership was not primarily about authority. It was about responsibility. Specifically, the responsibility of taking care of people.

Two mentors confirmed that conviction professionally in ways I am still drawing from today. They modeled what I would eventually come to understand, biblically, as Shepherd Leadership (which is basically the same thing as Servant Leadership – academically): the belief/idea that the people you lead are your primary charge, that your role is to know who they are, what they carry, and what they need in order to grow. To advocate for them, anchor them, and stand in the gap when the weight of the work becomes more than any one person should have to carry alone.

I watched them do that. And it formed something in me I’ve never stopped building on.

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Now as I reflect, what I’ve come to understand about every season of my life so far, including the ones that felt like dramatic detours, is that alignment was never optional. I was always moving toward something. Every choice, every distraction, every inner voice that told me I couldn’t pass the LSAT or that D.C. was a much more fun option than being disciplined, every relationship I leaned on for direction that had no real access to God’s plan for my life, all of it was pulling me in a direction. The question was never whether I was aligned. It was what, and who, I was aligned to.

There are only ever two sources at work in our lives. God, who is always moving us forward - toward purpose, toward the fullness of who He created us to be, toward love, community, truth, and service. And the enemy, who is just as active, just as strategic, but far less interested in our flourishing. His tools are the ones most of us know by feel: fear, distraction, comparison, the comfort of the easier path, the voice that sounds like wisdom but leads us further away from peace.

I wasn’t aware of that dynamic back then. I didn’t have any kind of framework for how to navigate life, because I didn’t have the relationship with God that would have helped me recognize it. But it was operating in my life regardless, as it always is, in all of ours.

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So when the elders said “the Lord takes care of babies and fools,” what I now understand is that God’s grace is not contingent on our awareness of it. He was at work in my story long before I knew to look for Him there.

The bad financial decisions. The years of letting other people’s opinions steer my path. The law school plan I abandoned because a voice I should have challenged told me I wasn’t capable. The degree I chose partly because I admired my mentor’s life and wanted to borrow her blueprint. None of those were mistakes God was surprised by. He knew my nature. He knew my fears. He knew exactly which detours I would take and He was already working in them, using every one of them to impart something I would need for what was coming.

The mentors He placed in my path during those formative years weren’t coincidences. The leadership instincts He had been building in me since birth weren’t accidents. The experiences that felt like stumbling were laying the foundation for something greater to come.

That is what grace looks like from the inside. Not dramatic. Not always obvious. But relentlessly present, and extraordinarily patient.

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If my own journey has confirmed anything, it’s this…

With every choice, every season, every relationship, we are moving toward something or away from something. That is not a reason for fear. It is a reason for honesty. And for those of us who are growing in our faith, who are doing the work of becoming a clearer reflection of the God who made us, it is a reason for intentionality.

The goal of Align in the LAYER Method is not perfection. It is not a formula for getting every decision right. It is the ongoing, honest practice of measuring our choices against the nature of God. Does this reflect love? Does it serve others? Does it build something beyond myself? Or is it driven by fear, ego, the hunger for comfort, the need for validation? Paul writes in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will.” That’s the filter that faithfully aligns us.

And the more we grow in our relationship with Him, the more we Listen to His voice over the noise of the world, the more that filter becomes second nature rather than an act of discipline. We begin to recognize, almost instinctively, the difference between what God is calling us toward and what the enemy is using to distract us from it.

The invitation is simply to wake up to it, and to choose, as often and as intentionally as we can, to align ourselves with the One who formed us with purpose and is working with us and through us to see it through to completion.

I appreciate you for joining me on this journey!

Zia

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The My Faith at Work (MFAW) Coaching Methodology, LAYER, stands for (L)isten, (A)lign, (Y)ield, (E)mbed, (R)elease. This is the second in a MFAW series walking through each principle of my coaching framework.