Amanda Robinson

Jeremiah 29:11

If you had shown me 30 years ago what my life would look like today, I'm not sure I would have believed you.

I started my career in banking when I was young and eventually became an Assistant Branch Manager. I enjoyed working with people, and I was learning a lot about leadership, customer service, responsibility, and the financial world.

For a while, that was the direction I thought my life was going.

But after my husband, Demond, and I started our family, I stepped away from the workforce to raise our children. We eventually moved to St. Louis and spent 14 1/2 years there in ministry. Much of my life during those years centered around our family, our church, and serving other people. I worked with children from nursery through elementary age and also had opportunities to serve moms.

On paper, there was now a pretty big gap in my professional résumé. At the time, though, I wasn't thinking about building a résumé. I was raising my children and doing what I believed God had called me to do in that season.

Looking back, I can see how much those years shaped me.

I learned to lead without having a title. I learned how to care for people, organize things, solve problems, adjust when plans changed, and simply do what needed to be done. Those were skills I would eventually use again professionally, even though I didn't realize it at the time.

Our lives changed when Demond became sick, and we moved back to the Kansas City area.

I had been away from the traditional workforce for years, and now I needed to go back. That was intimidating. I wasn't sure where I fit anymore or whether employers would see value in everything I had been doing during the years I was home and in ministry.

There wasn't some big moment when I suddenly knew exactly what to do. I just started taking the next steps in front of me.

I went back to work, first in outreach, and eventually returned to financial services. In 2021, I joined StrongBox Wealth and entered the wealth management industry. Later, I became Director of Client Services at Wise Wealth. When Wise Wealth merged with Wealth Enhancement, I continued serving clients and advisors as a Senior Client Service Associate.

My career definitely hasn't followed a straight path. When I look at my life as a whole, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that.

One Scripture that has stayed with me through all of these changes is Jeremiah 29:11:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11

I've known that verse for a long time, but it means something different when you're actually living through a season where you don't know the plan.

We believed God was leading us when we moved to St. Louis. Years later, when Demond's illness brought us back to Kansas City, I had to believe He was still leading us, even though that wasn't how we expected things to happen. Returning to work required that same kind of trust.

I'm in another one of those seasons now.

I don't know exactly what comes next for me, and that's probably one reason Jeremiah 29:11 means so much to me today. It's easier to talk about trusting God when you're looking back and can connect all the dots. It's harder when you're living it and don't know yet how everything is going to turn out.

I've been in that place before.

There are things in my life that make much more sense to me now than they did while I was going through them. Experiences I didn't necessarily understand at the time ended up preparing me for things that came later.

Something else I've realized is that no matter what role I've been in, I've always enjoyed serving people.

That was true when I worked in banking. It was true while I was raising our children and serving families in ministry. And it has been true in wealth management, where so much of my work has involved taking care of clients and supporting advisors.

The jobs and circumstances have changed, but that part of me really hasn't.

I think there are probably other women who can relate to parts of my story. Maybe you stayed home to raise your children, and now you're wondering what it would look like to return to work. Maybe something happened in your family that changed the plans you had made. You may simply be at a point where you're asking, "What now?"

I've asked that question too.

I don't have an answer for everything that is ahead in my own life, so I certainly can't tell someone else exactly what her next chapter will look like. What I can say is that I've seen God be faithful in mine.

That's why I hold onto Jeremiah 29:11. Not because everything in my life has worked out according to my plan. Quite a bit of it hasn't.

I've had to start over. I've had plans change. I've walked through difficult circumstances and stepped into things I didn't feel completely prepared for. And I'm still figuring out what this next season looks like.

But I've also lived long enough to look back and see that God was present in places where I couldn't always see what He was doing at the time.

So that's what I'm holding onto now.

I don't know exactly what comes next, but I trust God with whatever it is.