Life On Mission After College: Questioning My Calling
By: Wendy Kruger, Resonate Pullman
On the drive home from my brother’s college graduation last May, my family read a book aloud together in the car. The author prided himself on being careful with his word choice, and he repeatedly used the phrase ‘full-time mom’ to refer to his wife who stays at home with their children. The book was so good in so many ways but to me as a working mom, this phrase continued to play over and over in my mind many months later. Why? Because Satan used those words to try and make me question and doubt my calling. The Lord has called me to be both: a ‘full-time mom’ and a public school teacher. Being a working mom is not easy and neither is discipling your own children at home all day. In the church, we should value and appreciate both choices and empower all mothers to live out what the Lord has for us with confidence.
Satan likes to make us look around and compare our lives to those around us. When our lives and callings look different, he likes to whisper lies that someone must be doing it wrong. I believe the Father’s heart hurts when he sees us isolated in our spaces, unwilling to seek each other out for fear of comparison. We should be able to stand tall; confidently proclaiming the calling the Lord has placed on our lives to further the Kingdom. I am called to be both a mom and a teacher, and I should not spend time doubting where the Lord has placed me; the same goes for whatever it is you are called to do with the hours of your day. If I spend too much time questioning and being timid in my calling, I am missing out on what the Lord has prepared for me to do. King David took a ‘break’ from what the Lord prepared for him to do and stayed home from battle. It was his idleness that caused him to sin and commit adultery. When we aren’t actively living out our callings, this is when we give the enemy a foothold to draw us away from the Lord. Seek the Lord, ask Him for wisdom in what He has for you ,and actively live in it.
The Lord’s timing and orchestration of my career has been on point. After graduation, I wanted Him to write in the clouds what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to work. At village one night, a woman in my community, Amy Bumpus, said that sometimes the Lord just lets us choose and He will work no matter where we are. This was so freeing to me. If I sought the Lord, He would not let me miss the calling He had on my life.
I started as a special education paraprofessional, got hired as a special education teacher, and now 10 years later am a health and physical education teacher. I have built relationships with people in the school district and have lived out some really good and hard seasons of my life with them. I have never been very good at hiding how I feel and thus when life and death happen, the people around me know. Co-workers walked through our miscarriage with me, the births of our children Olivia and David, and the death of my mom. I have been able to share the hope I have in Jesus in the midst of the good and hard seasons with my co-workers. My closest work friend and co-worker suddenly lost her mom a month before mine passed. Another coworker lost her brother to suicide, and another co-worker just lost both his mother and his father in the span of a year. I can see how the Lord has gently taught me how to be present in the midst of hard and how He has prepared me to pray for and with those around me who are hurting. The Lord has me where I am for a reason and He is consistently giving me more and more confidence to share His love and hope with those around me because I have experienced and trust in His sovereignty.
Be confident in your calling, no matter what that may be. Don’t let Satan have a foothold in your life through isolation or doubt in the Lord’s faithfulness and purpose for you. Resist comparing your calling with others. Ask the Lord for wisdom and allow Him to use your joys and sufferings to impact those around you. There is nothing better than to experience the peace and joy of the Lord and to see this verse played out in your life:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our house hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5
