Everything Happens for a Reason

17 May Everything Happens for a Reason

By: Rilee Lansing, Digital Marketing Intern One year ago I had no idea I would be sitting here typing a blog post for a marketing firm’s blog. It is crazy that a year of success, failure, learning and heartache has brought me this opportunity. Everything happens for a reason.

Let’s back up and paint the picture of where I was a year ago. We were in the middle of a pandemic. I was a senior in high school. I had just missed out on my senior prom. My graduation ceremony was cancelled. I broke up with my boyfriend, and I had no idea what my college experience was going to include. To say I felt like I had nothing going for me and everything seemed to be falling apart would be an understatement.

However, looking back now I realize that the time during quarantine was a blessing. It allowed me to be alone in my own thoughts and to really think about my future and what I wanted in life. I would stay up at night thinking about what my future life, career, people I would meet, things I would do, and why this pandemic had to happen. When I thought about my future career, I thought about what I was passionate about. I knew I wanted to have a job that I was passionate about and made me excited to work every day. I would scroll Instagram, Pinterest, and Tik Tok seeing people create, inspire, share and I realized I wanted to be able to incorporate that into my job someday as well.

Spring 2021

Fast forward to now, I have just finished my first year of college, have this amazing internship with Emerge Marketing Solutions and the story of how I got here is nothing short of crazy. Seriously though, how did I, a girl from Cedar Rapids, Iowa (eastern Iowa), get connected with a marketing firm in Manning (rural western Iowa)? Sometimes God has bigger plans than we could ever imagine.  Everything happens for a reason.

The simple version is that my friend had showed me a video that was made about her hometown of Perry, a small town in central Iowa. I watched it and thought there had to be someone who created this video, so I dug deeper.  Low and behold, it was Emerge Marketing Solution’s ‘Off the Beaten Path’ series. So, I called up Shelly to see if she had any opportunities for a student intern; sent her my resume; had a few conversations about a new project she wanted to create and boom…here we are. Ignite was the project and I am now the intern.

Passion Fuels Passion

After hearing Shelly’s visions for Ignite, I realized that all three components of my ‘perfect job’ were wrapped up in this project: creating, inspiring, and sharing. I am not saying this is the end game for my job search, but I can already tell that I was meant for this journey. These events are not just by chance, they were all perfectly placed together by God. I can honestly say that I am blessed for all the experiences I have gone through, because they have allowed me to have this amazing opportunity to do what I am passionate about create, inspire, and share.

Have faith. Everything happens for a reason.

Everything happens for a reason.