Our Calling

One of our quiet times at camp had to do with our "calling". We read an excerpt from a book about a man who was never really brought up believing in callings, but he soon realized that he did have a calling. He kept saying he was looking through windows of his vocation. He thought his calling was seminary, but noticed that he really got more joy out of writing that he did preaching. He was troubled by this idea, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that when he was a child he loved to read books, and he especially loved to be read books by his teacher. This man discovered that he thought he knew is own calling, but really Jesus was just telling him through these windows, and he finally discovered what his calling was.

I am in the same spot as the man right now. I just knew for sure that I wanted to go to school for Nursing and that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But basically all semester I have doubted my decision. Is nursing really what I will get the most joy from? Is nursing really what Jesus has been trying to tell me my whole life? The reason I ask myself these questions is because I continuously keep going back to teaching. From kindergarden til sophomore year teaching is what I would've said I wanted to do with my life. But then sometime during junior year I persuaded myself differently. All through elementary school and middle school I would play school. We had two desks, a chalkboard wall that I could write on, and I would go around after school looking in teachers recycling for extra worksheets they had thrown away. I would round up my sister and he friends and we would play school. And I'm talking real school. I made them do worksheets and workbook pages, I made them get their parents signature for bad grades, and we even had pizza parties. I was the best 10 year old teacher ever. Even as I type this I have a smirk on my face because I can remember just how fun I had pretending to be a teacher. This is why I am so confused. What am I called to do?

There was a prayer at the end of the excerpt we read that was the perfect prayer for me right now:

Help me, O God, to listen to what it is that makes me heart glad and to follow where it leads. May joy, not guilt, your voice, not the voice of others, your will, not my willingness, be the guides that lead me to my vocation. Help me to unearth the passion of my heart that lay buried in my youth. And help me to go over that ground again and again until I can hold in my hands, until I can hold in my hands, hold and treasure, your calling on my life.


On a sad note, today is the last day of my break. I'm devastated. I don't want to pack up my clothes. I don't want to move in the dorms. And I definitely don't want to start class tomorrow. Oh well. It's time. On a happy note, I'm pretty pumped to go to the UT basketball game tonight.

This is random, but at the end of every post I want to start doing an "if you really knew me you would know..." so here goes.

If you really knew me you would know that I've secretly missed living on campus.
If you really knew me you would know that I love basketball, and all of UT's players.
If you really knew me you would know that I purposely run over road kill in the road.