Author: Jennifer

Can a calling be a burden?  I’ve been asking myself that very question a lot lately.  Ok, not lately.  For a long time.  There is something I felt a very definite calling for several years ago.  It was out of the blue and SO not what I would have dreamed up on my own.

The call was clear and definite and unmistakably authentic.  The very second it came to me I sat down and went about answering it!  It was exciting, fulfilling, and felt like a perfect fit.  Until I hit a tough spot.  Then I questioned myself and found that I came up short on what I thought the requirements should be for this particular calling.  So I quit, and ever since then I have gone in and out of throwing myself into it only to pull out as soon as it no longer made sense to me that I actually could have what it takes to pull it off.

Then there are all the reasons  (a.k.a. excuses) that have contributed to why I have not spent time pursuing it.  I’m tired.  My job takes everything out of me.  I’m completely unable to do anymore thinking after working all day.  I don’t want to listen or speak, because I’ve been doing it all day.  I’ve simply got nothing left to offer!  I’m an introvert and need to have time to recharge before the next day rolls around and requires so much of me.

During the times when I’m putting in the work to heed the call, I feel fully alive.  I feel like I’m being ME, which is a completely different feeling than I have at my job where I feel like a complete misfit.   Days and days will go by in this beautiful bliss until the normal things of life start to wear me down.  And I walk away even though these times are so deeply fulfilling.  It’s so frustrating!

Fortunately, the call never quits.  God has not given up; the tug is still strong, the desire within is still great.  So that creates this heavy feeling that something that needs to be done keeps getting put off.

So back to the question – can a calling feel like a burden?  Maybe it does when you aren’t answering the call.  Or when you don’t answer and the caller leaves you a message you know you really need to return but keep putting it off.  Maybe the caller has bad news!  Maybe the caller is going to ask you to do something you don’t want to do!  Maybe you’ll say yes and then find out it’s way beyond your ability.  And so it weights on you, becoming a burden, when actually it is just meant to be a call inviting you to have the best life – the life God created you to have!!

So I’m realizing I need to pick up the phone and call Him back.  I need to call Him back and accept His invitation to live the abundant life He created especially for me.

It’s been a very long day.  A field trip followed by a counseling session, followed by a trip to the grocery store to buy ingredients for a breakfast at school tomorrow, followed by assembling the egg dish in order to avoid having to wake up any earlier than necessary, followed by journaling my thoughts from the counseling session, Bible study, and a time of listening to God.

My life has felt like I’m just going in circles.  For so long now. It turns out that it’s time to put the life coaching on hold (I’m desperate to leave teaching) and get some core issues resolved.  But I’m hopeful.  And this is why.    I’ve felt stuck.  Over the summer I had such creative juices flowing and filling me with confidence that God was pointing me in a direction out of the classroom.  But once school started, I lost it.  I blamed it on the change of my schedule and the almost complete loss of space in my brain to think of anything other than school and how frustrated I was.

The hopeful part is that this week everything I’ve been doing that had started to feel so distant and empty and pointless and was not sinking into my heart (Bible study, bible journaling, writing, listening to God) has in fact been intertwining itself and weaving its way into a strong life-line of a cord.

A few days ago I was practicing something that is fairly new in my life – 5 minutes dedicated to just listening to God.  When I began this practice, I discovered that keeping a piece of paper and pen handy was very helpful.  Sometimes a thought would come to me, like something that I was worried I might forget about, and I’d write it down just to get it out of my head so I could listen.  Other times, I felt a thought impressed upon my heart by God.  And I would write it down so that I could keep listening.  This week I wrote, “unresolved hurts”.  And I forgot about it.  Until tonight when I was journaling.  And there it was sitting on my table, the little piece of paper telling me that I had unresolved hurts that needed to be healed.

That was God speaking to my heart, telling me to quit pushing myself and being frustrated with myself over not being a super achiever creating a whole new career for myself.  And the counseling session in which I hesitantly approached a potential issue was taken quite seriously.  The topic took my counselor and I back to a place we’d been before and showed us that I still have core work to do in the way of healing past hurts.

The Beth Moore Bible study for tonight took me to Psalm 25:16-21.

“Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.  The troubles of my heart have enlarged; bring me out of my distresses! Look on my affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins.  Consider my enemies, for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.  Keep my soul, and deliver me; let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.  Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You.”

Another thread working its way into this life line cord came from Charles Stanley.  I’ve been listening to his messages on meditating on God’s word and being quiet before Him.  And tonight as I listened, it all came together.  How do I begin to work on healing the hurts and strengthening my core?  By reading His word, talking to Him, and listening to Him.  He is there.  Listening and loving me and eager to lead me to the abundant life He has for me!