Calling

Want to know God's calling on your life? I can tell you! (Sounds like the crazy beginning to an infomercial, doesn't it?!) Love God. Go & Love Others. Make Disciples. Sound over-simplified? Because I don't really think it is... this is what He's called each and every one of us to. (Check out Matthew 22: 37-38 and Matthew 28: 19-20) And what I'm realizing is that we (totally speaking to myself here!) spend so much time pacing the floor begging God to reveal His 'calling' to us, that it's just like shuffling our feet ignoring what we know He wants us to do. This is it!

Now 'how' we do this is as wide and varied as a day is long... but I'm beginning to think that even that isn't as tough as I make it. What has he made me gifted in and passionate about? In my case, I have a deep passion for ministry with mothers. So it's pretty natural that I am going to lean towards doing life with other mommas. That's why I teach the Bible with a group of local moms, and that's why I'm going to Uganda & Ethiopia next year, to love on some sweet babies and their families.

What I'm also realizing is that in this process of doing life and growing with God, I end up serving others in the places of my deepest need for work and healing. The healing begins and continues when I pull from my pain and weaknesses to help others. I can speak to areas that affect other moms because I've walked through them. Paul said to the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 12:9-10) "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." I most often talk with other women about their struggles with hurt, self-image, forgiveness issues, and in walking with them through their pain, God brings healing even to my own heart. It's amazing that God can use our challenges this way, but when He is glorified all the more, why would I mask the things that show Him stronger?

This question of calling is perhaps the one that I have most often heard in Christian circles and have most often asked myself. But I truly think I was over-complicating something that God has made pretty clear. And the things in me that are part of who I am are exactly the keys to figuring out the 'how'. So how has He wired you? What are you passionate about? Do you find that the ways in which you feel led to serve are also the things that are the most healing for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts...