Divine Markers

By Melissa McGath | June 15, 2026

I have been thinking about alignment a lot lately, and not the kind we talk about in planning meetings or strategy conversations, but spiritual alignment. It is the alignment you recognize only when you look back and realize God was arranging things in your past to bring you exactly to where you are now. 

Over time I have come to call these moments Divine Markers, and looking back, I have realized many of the leadership lessons I rely on today were formed through them. At the time, they felt like ordinary moments, painful seasons, or difficult decisions. Now I can see they were part of God’s process of aligning my heart, my faith, and ultimately my leadership. 

Divine Markers can be beautiful, painful, or somewhere in between, but all of them are pivotal. Alignment in leadership rarely feels like alignment in the moment. It usually feels like tension, uncertainty, or loss, but later it becomes clear how faithfully God was guiding the entire time. 

Divine Marker #1: Salvation 

I was five years old, sitting in Sunday school while my aunt taught our class and held up an illustration of hell. Even as a child, I felt the weight of what she described when she explained that salvation was not something I could earn but something I could only receive through Jesus Christ alone. That moment marked me deeply and shaped my perspective in every way, including how I eventually came to understand leadership. 

The same truth that governs salvation governs leadership: I cannot manufacture what only God can build, and the sooner I stop striving to earn what has already been given, the freer I become to lead from that place. 

Divine Marker #2: Motherhood 

Parenting changes you in ways that are hard to articulate until you are in it. You step into roles you don’t feel prepared for (teacher, guide, authority, and comforter) and carry them out every single day as you nurture lives that ultimately belong to God. Motherhood, like leadership, taught me that you can do everything right and still not control the outcome. 

Genuine leadership is not managing results but stewarding the people behind them. That realization changed how I parent, how I lead every team member, and how I make every hard call. 

Divine Marker #3: Burnout and Realignment 

There was a point when I hit deep exhaustion and the weight of leadership felt heavier than I could carry, with culture, people, vision, and financial responsibility pressing in all at once. At the same time, there was noticeable tension within the team and growing misalignment around values and direction. As I began integrating my faith more openly into the business, I felt the resistance settle in. Some relationships shifted and some people left. 

I remember going to the Lord with open hands, asking Him to lead even if it meant letting go of what I had spent a decade building. 

What became clear was simple and, honestly, a relief. I could no longer separate my faith from how I lead, and I was not meant to. Some things were rebuilt and some were released, but underneath all of it was a steady sense that God was not dismantling the work. He was aligning it. 

More recently, I was asked to share my testimony with a group of leaders reflecting on this season. As I prepared, I realized this was not an isolated moment. It was part of a larger pattern of alignment God had been working in me for years. These markers are not just memories but evidence that He has been leading all along. 

If you are in a season that does not yet make sense, I want to offer you this: look back before you look forward. Somewhere behind you is a marker you have not fully recognized yet, and what it is still teaching you may be exactly what your leadership needs right now. 

He is still leading now, which means He is still leading you. 

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 Alignment rarely announces itself in real time, but it becomes clear in hindsight if we are willing to look back with honesty. I created a simple worksheet to help you identify your own Divine Markers. You can download it here.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”

Proverbs 16:9