Adora Namigadde

This article originally appeared in the January 2017 Renewal Ministries newsletter.

More than one-hundred young adults recently attended the i.d.9:16 Summit on Heartbreak: Embracing Holy Discontent. The Summit is an annual weekend retreat that inspires and empowers the i.d.9:16 family through engaging talks, personal prayer, powerful worship, and fellowship. Speakers included Paco Gavrilides on The Heartbreak of God, Debbie Herbeck on Surrendering Our Hearts, Pete Burak on Holy Discontent, Julianna Macari on Obstacles We Face, Peter Herbeck on Moving Forward, as well as Mass and an empowerment night before the Blessed Sacrament with Fr. Mathias Thelen. Below are excerpts from a testimony shared by Adora Namigadde, a member of the i.d.9:16 community.

When I was thirteen years old, I had this desire in my heart to be a journalist. That desire kept growing and growing and finally I got my first shot, working at a TV station. This had been my dream for a long time—but when I got there, it completely flopped. I had moved [to a rural area in northern Michigan], and was not doing well at all. I was getting horrible feedback from my boss. I was at risk for losing my job.

I cried myself to sleep every night. I prayed, “Lord, please just get me through tomorrow, because nothing’s going according to how I thought it was going to go.”

It was very day in, day out. God used that first six months to teach me that I couldn’t put my identity in my career—because, let’s be real, it was not working out.

God helped me learn that there’s a lot more to who I am, and to my purpose in this world, than my job. He helped me realize the worst thing that could happen was that I would get fired from my job—that an employer only has a certain amount of power in your life.

He also taught me to keep leaning on Him every day. The Our Father says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Not bread for a week, not for a month—give us this day our daily bread. It was very day in, day out, go to work, pray, go home, cry, sleep.

Among this monotony, God brought me a surprise miracle! One day, my boss wanted to meet with me. I thought, “This is it.” But instead of firing me, my boss moved me to the morning show—the number one program—and gave me a camera person every day, which is a big deal.

This made no sense! The spot that I had been moved to, which I currently work in, did not exist before that day. With all of the possibilities I thought could happen—that I could get fired or somehow things could improve—I couldn’t have thought that I could be moved to this position. God literally made that for me. He taught me that sometimes it looks like things are between A and B, but He has a plan C, so don’t limit Him.

Once I moved to the show, I tried getting outside myself more—I started doing youth group at church, and I started volunteering at a youth center, and it helped me get outside myself and have purpose beyond my job.

I’ve been doing tiny evangelizing at my job—basically just witnessing day to day by living my life. God has somehow been using that—praise Him! For example, I have a coworker who is a good friend now. One day recently, she said, “Adora, what do you have that I don’t have?” What a gateway to talk about Christ! That was what I had that she didn’t have. That was a clear pathway to talk about prayer and to talk about my relationship with Christ.

I will close with something that has been on my heart a lot—the present moment, using now, now, now. St. Faustina wrote,

“O my God, when I look into the future I am frightened, but why plunge into the future? Only the present moment is precious to me, as the future may never enter my soul at all. It is no longer in my power to change, correct, or add to the past, for neither sages nor prophets could even do that. And so, what the past has embraced I must entrust to you.

“O present moment, you belong to me whole and entire. I desire to use you as best as I can, and although I am weak and small, you grant me the grace of your omnipotence, and so trusting in your mercy, I walk through life like a little child, offering you each day this heart burning with love for your greater glory. Amen.”