Putting on the Crown of Purpose

SETBACKS AND FAILURE 

“I don’t understand, God! I don’t understand! I don’t understand!” 22-year-old Debbye Turner cried on the floor of her hotel room. She’d won first-runner-up to Miss Arkansas, for the second year in a row, her third time in the pageant. Debbye had been declared the “odds-on favorite” by the local newspaper, the church had prayed for her, and there was the fact that first runners up typically win the following year.  

Even the audience gasped when her name was called for first runner-up versus Miss Arkansas. While she lay on the floor sobbing harder than she ever had, she heard a voice say, “Debbye, I’m faithful. Now get up.”

She sensed the Lord was telling her He had a plan, despite the defeat. “Getting up is hardest when we lease expect failure,” she says. Debbye got up, washed her face, and went downstairs to eat dinner with her loving family. It took seven years, 11 pageants, and moving to another state before Debbye was crowned Miss America 1990.

A few years after that triumphant win, in 1994, Debbye experienced her most painful setback. Her beloved, Godly, ultra-supportive mother, Gussie Lee Turner, died at age 55, after a bout with cancer. “The grief of losing my mother was a distinct physical pain. My body hurt. My mind ached. My thoughts spun out of control,” she recalls. “Mommy’s death was the first time I’d believed God for something this significant and it didn’t happen the way I prayed. I was surprised as well as devastated. Mommy’s death shook my confidence in the goodness of God – not in His existence, but in His temperament … I was mad at God.”     

After many years of career success, Debbye married Gerald Bell in 2008, at the age of 42. The couple was thrilled to welcome a daughter into their lives in 2010. Before Baby Lynlee was even a year old, Debbye experienced another time of profound disappointment in the form of a miscarriage.

Two-and-a-half years later, Debbye became pregnant again, but just after the first trimester, when pregnancies are usually thought to be “safe,” she miscarried once more. “I was crestfallen. The first miscarriage was hard.  This one was a punch in the gut,” Debbye recounts.   

ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER 

Sharing the important lessons she’s learned in the most painful times of her life are what motivates Debbye today: “I wasn’t in control of the circumstance that put that crown on my head.  I wasn’t a better Debbye because I’d won. This is so important for us all to realize, for you to understand,” she says.  “You pursue excellence not because it is a guarantee of a new career, or a better house, or winning an honor like Miss America. You pursue excellence because an excellent God created you for excellence. It is your birthright. Your real reward is in the light of His presence. The greatest success you can achieve is to be exactly who God created you to be.”   

Regarding her mother’s death, Debbye sought counseling and the comfort of close friends. It took a long time to work through her anger and hurt, but God gently helped her see His goodness even in the terrible pain. “When we experience loss, God always provides what we need -- even more than we had before.  When we learn to trust in God’s provision for our lives, losses in life sometimes lead to other gains,” she believes.  

Remembering the depth of pain of her two miscarriages, Debbye can now say, “There are painful tragedies and experiences that seem like no words will ever soothe; despair so deep that there is no visible way of escape. But there is hope. There is help. What helped me? I trusted God. I didn’t understand why I lost those babies. But I trusted God. I opened my heart to His healing love. I poured out my sorrow, knowing He is near the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18). I knew I would be whole again. Someday.”  And she was.      

GOD’S DREAMS ARE BIGGER 

Debbye’s life has taken turns and twists she never would have expected, both wonderful and painful. Through it all, she sees His loving, sovereign hand, and how crucial it is to seek Him in all things.

For instance, though she worked extremely hard to become a veterinarian, she chose to use those skills through media education versus practicing traditional veterinary medicine, and felt guilty about it for several years. “The obligation could have robbed me of some pretty wonderful opportunities that would come later. I may have turned down the television opportunities out of a sense of duty to the education that I received …”  

Debbye has clear convictions about what constitutes true success and greatness. “Success in life is not only about finding our purpose but about finding the purpose God has for us. Usually there is a big difference between the two,” she states.

Success from a biblical perspective is not simply the accumulation of things or the achievement of power and status, nor is it defined by our education, careers, jobs, homes, or stock portfolios. Divine success is being who and what God created us to be. Meanwhile, true greatness is service to our fellow humans – being kind to one another, extending ourselves to people. Greatness is living out lives for something bigger than just ourselves, our appetite and desires.”