SMU professor Dr. Maria Dixon reflected on how faith has been a factor throughout her life during Wednesday’s Faith @ Work lecture, which is put on by the Office of the Chaplain.

The lecture series allows faculty and staff to hear fellow colleagues in different departments express their opinion on their faith.

Dixon explained that at the age of 12, her dreams were crushed. She was no longer allowed to play football. But today, she realizes God had another plan for her life.

In her speech, titled “Too Short for Football,” Dixon used her love of football to tie together the events in her life through the term, ‘turnover.’

After graduating from the University of Alabama, Dixon took a high paying job. Yet, it was years after working there that she went to write down her goals and realized that she was not on the path her heart desired. This accounted for the first turnover in Dixon’s life.

She fell in love with organizational communication at the University of Missouri. She started looking for a position she wanted at a university that combined faith, communication and student affairs all in one. She applied to numerous universities including Purdue and the University of Texas, but she wanted to work at Southern Methodist University.

There were no positions available when she was applying, and it was not until the last moment before accepting another job that a position opened up in the communication department at SMU.

Throughout the lecture, she reflected on how her faith has taken her places in life that she would not have expected, including becoming a member of Highland Park United Methodist Church, which she first thought was too big when she arrived on SMU’s campus.

Angela Jones, senior technical services librarian at Underwood Law Library, has attended a few of the other sessions.

Jones said the thing she learned most through Wednesday’s speech was “God will work in your life to guide you where you will need to be.”

With the success of this year’s Brown Bag sessions allowing faculty and staff to discuss how to balance faith and work, the Chaplain’s office plans to continue the Brown Bag events next school year.

“We want to help people think about how their faith shapes the way they think about their work and how they engage their work,” University Chaplain Steve Rankin said.