52/ Between Beginnings and Endings: What 72 Hours Taught Me About the Assignment
Between beginnings and endings, there is still purpose. In just 72 hours, I encountered legacy, possibility, grief, faith, mentorship, and calling—each moment reminding me that the gifts we carry are meant to be shared, especially in the ordinary spaces where we least expect to use them.
I thought my next blog would be about life after conferences.
About what happens when the presentations are over, the name badges are put away, the flights are finished, and the research that has occupied so much of my professional life has to find its place outside of conference rooms and carefully timed presentation slides.
Apparently, life had another lesson prepared for me.
“Over the course of approximately 72 hours, I encountered people standing at remarkably different places in life: someone reflecting on a legacy she built, a young man preparing to begin his college journey, a colleague whose life ended without warning, a stranger wrestling with his faith, and a former colleague preparing to pursue the same doctoral journey I recently completed.”
Beginnings.
Endings.
Questions.
Legacy.
Faith.
Purpose.
All within a matter of days.
And as I write this, it is raining outside.
There is something about the rain that feels appropriate.
Not necessarily sadness. Not lament. Not even heaviness alone.
Stillness.
A washing.
A reminder that something can be ending while something else is simultaneously being made new.
The Woman Who Saw a Need
Monday began at a car dealership of all places.
There, I had the opportunity to speak with a woman who shared that she had been involved in starting Sojourner Center, an organization created to serve women experiencing circumstances for which, at the time, there simply were not adequate resources available in Arizona.
What struck me was not merely what she built.
It was why.
She shared pieces of her story—experiences she had endured as a young woman, challenges she encountered while pursuing her education, and losses that could have easily changed the trajectory of her life.
Yet she continued.
She persevered.
And somewhere along the way, her experiences became more than something she survived. They became part of the foundation from which she helped create something for other women.
That stayed with me.
There is a particular kind of selflessness involved in deciding that what hurt you will not simply become part of your private history. Instead, you allow what you learned through it to become shelter, opportunity, advocacy, or possibility for someone else.
Sometimes legacy begins with someone noticing what is missing and deciding, Someone has to do something about this.
And then becoming the someone.
The Young Man at the Beginning
That same day, I met a young man preparing to begin his college career at a university where I once worked.
He plans to study criminal justice.
We talked about college, his future, and his desire to eventually become a police officer. We even discussed cities where he might someday want to serve, and interestingly, one of the places he had already considered was also one I thought could be a good fit for him.
But what stayed with me was his reasoning.
There is a great deal happening in our communities right now, and in the way he spoke, I could hear something deeper than simply wanting a profession.
He wanted to be one of the people doing it right.
There was an idealism there that I hope life does not take from him.
So I did what educators often do even when we are nowhere near a classroom.
I encouraged him.
I told him he was going to have a great experience at the university. I hyped him up about what was ahead. I wanted him to walk toward this next chapter believing that he belonged there and that something meaningful could come from it.
For a few minutes, I was speaking to someone standing at the very beginning of something.
Less than 24 hours later, I would be reminded how unexpectedly things can end.
The Email I Wasn't Expecting
Tuesday evening, I was going through my email when I saw a message informing us that one of my colleagues had passed away.
I stopped.
This was not someone I believed to be sick.
This was someone I had met, someone I knew professionally, someone I followed on social media, someone I had recently seen over the summer.
A professor.
A scholar.
A doctor in her discipline.
Someone who had occupied spaces similar to the ones I occupy.
And suddenly, she was gone.
I later learned that she had died unexpectedly in a car accident over the weekend.
There is something deeply unsettling about learning that someone has died through an email.
One moment, you are moving through your inbox as usual.
The next, you are trying to reconcile the person you remember seeing with the reality that you will not see her again.
It immediately made the conversations of the previous day feel different.
The woman reflecting on what she had built.
The young man imagining who he might become.
And now, someone whose professional and personal journey had abruptly ended.
Life had placed legacy, beginning, and ending almost beside one another.
And I could not ignore it.
Then a Stranger Asked Me About God
That same evening brought another unexpected conversation.
I met a man wrestling with questions about his faith. He comes from a Roman Catholic background but had heard about the church I attend.
What began as a conversation became an opportunity for me to share part of my testimony.
I told him about my experience.
About my church.
About what faith has looked like for me.
About being welcomed.
About transformation.
About what it means to continue walking with God even when life does not unfold neatly.
I did not have a prepared speech.
There were no presentation slides.
There was no conference proposal.
There was simply a person with questions and another person willing to share what she had experienced.
And maybe that is why what happened the following day caught my attention.
I completed a SHAPE assessment exploring spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences.
My highest spiritual gift?
Evangelism.
I smiled when I saw it.
Of course.
After everything that had happened over the previous two days, it almost felt like confirmation of something life had already been demonstrating.
Teaching was there too.
So were qualities connected to encouraging, connecting, sharing, and helping others make meaning from what they are experiencing.
These gifts were not showing up inside some grand spiritual moment.
They were appearing in ordinary conversations.
At dealerships.
With strangers.
With students.
With colleagues.
In moments I could never have scheduled.
The Doctoral Conversation
Then last night, I spoke with a former colleague who is considering pursuing an Ed.D.
She is excited.
She is also a believer.
And because I have recently completed that journey myself, I was able to tell her some of what it required of me.
Not just academically.
Personally.
Spiritually.
There were trials.
There were disappointments.
There were moments when the journey looked very different from what I thought earning a doctorate would look like.
There were things I lost along the way.
There were moments I questioned.
There were moments I simply had to keep going.
But I was carried through.
And now, standing on the other side of that journey, I could offer someone else reassurance.
I could tell her that the road may be difficult without telling her that difficulty means she should turn around.
I could share what I learned without pretending I had walked through it untouched.
And somewhere in that conversation, another thought became unmistakably clear:
“The gifts we are given are not supposed to remain hidden.”
Neither are the lessons.
Neither are the testimonies.
Neither is the wisdom earned through difficult seasons.
Perhaps some things are given to us precisely because, eventually, we will encounter someone who needs what we now know.
Maybe This Is Life After the Conference
And perhaps I am writing about life after conferences after all.
Just not in the way I originally imagined.
For months, I have stood in rooms discussing research, higher education, institutional change, student experiences, belonging, equity, and what happens when systems fail to honor the people they were created to serve.
Those conversations matter tremendously to me.
But eventually, every scholar has to leave the conference.
Every educator has to leave the classroom.
Every speaker has to step away from the microphone.
And then comes the question:
“Who are you when nobody has handed you a program and scheduled you to speak?”
Maybe the real measure of our work is what happens afterward.
When a young person tells you what he wants to become.
When another scholar asks whether she should begin.
When someone tells you how she turned pain into an institution that has helped others.
When death reminds you that none of us knows how much time we have.
When a stranger asks you about your faith.
When there are no credentials required and no biography being read aloud.
Just you.
Your experiences.
Your gifts.
And another human being standing in front of you.
Over these past few days, I have been reminded that purpose does not always announce itself.
Sometimes purpose looks remarkably ordinary.
A conversation.
An introduction.
An email.
A question.
A testimony.
A few words of encouragement.
And sometimes, within 72 hours, you can encounter someone reflecting on what she built, someone preparing to begin, someone whose journey has unexpectedly ended, someone wondering what he believes, and someone preparing to pursue a dream you recently survived yourself.
You cannot make these things up.
Maybe we are simply supposed to pay attention when they happen.
And Now, the Rain
It is still raining as I finish writing this.
Arizona rain has a way of making everything stop for a moment.
The temperature shifts.
The air changes.
Dust settles.
The ground receives what it has been waiting for.
And perhaps that is what these past 72 hours have required from me.
Stillness.
Not because everything is peaceful.
Grief and gratitude can exist at the same time.
So can loss and possibility.
An ending does not erase a beginning.
A beginning does not make an ending less painful.
Faith does not prevent questions.
Purpose does not eliminate hardship.
But perhaps all of these things can exist together.
I am grieving the unexpected loss of a colleague.
I am grateful for the opportunity to encourage someone beginning his journey.
I am inspired by a woman who transformed what she experienced into something that has served generations of women after her.
I am hopeful for a former colleague preparing to pursue her doctorate.
And I am still thinking about the stranger who simply needed someone willing to talk with him about God.
Maybe that is the assignment in this season.
Not to force every experience into a perfectly organized explanation.
But to remain available.
To teach when there is something worth teaching.
To encourage when someone needs encouragement.
To speak when testimony might help someone else.
To listen when someone needs to be heard.
To recognize that our gifts were never intended merely to decorate our own lives.
They are supposed to move through us.
From one person to another.
From one generation to another.
From one season to another.
Like rain.
Pouring.
Washing.
Nourishing.
And quietly making room for something new.
Remember, bold conversations, brewed fresh - one cup at a time!
Dr. Courtney Nicole Johnson
Founder of CourtneyCoffeeChats
Bold Conversations, Brewed Fresh.
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