Missing Your Calling

We Christians have the idea that God will "call" us to service. There are things that need doing in this world, and we expect God will call us to do some of them. Most people never hear God's voice out loud, so the question of how you know to what you have been called is an interesting one. Most people agree that you should pray and seek the advice of respected and mature Christians. After that, well, you might just have to struggle a bit with this question. Ann Voskamp is a mother and a writer. Like all of us who have tended the home and the children, there are those days when you realize that your entire day will be focused on sweeping, cooking, and soothing a child with a tummy ache. Ann has had those days. And she has wondered if perhaps she missed her calling.

Hat tip to Joy Messimer for this one. Last week Saturday, while the fields yielded up their gold and wagons filled with corn kernels, I stood at the window, phone receiver pressed to ear and that deep inner cochlear reverberated. The voice crackled, typical static of answering machine recording. “Sorry we missed your call.” Wind rustles through dried corn leaves, and I wonder if I’ve missed mine too. Missed my calling. The one call that can’t be missed. That ceramic plaque with its signature seventies style hung in my mother-in-law’s house, it’s words ready on her lips too, words that keep ringing me, “Only one life, will soon be past, only what’s done for Jesus will last.” I pray those words every night over God-masterpieces wrapped in tired limbs, these grandchildren of hers tucked under quilts. We pass this way but once. We can’t afford to miss the call....Read More