a question of calling

I went to church sunday partially because I didn’t want to miss the next sermon in the series, but, I’ll be honest, primarily because I’d had the girls by myself for going on four days and wanted to have a coffee and sit in peace for an hour or so while the girls were in nursery. Not the best motivation, but it did get us out the door. 

my pastor ‘s vocation is teaching at a private school in town. He was talking about how work is worship—that we are created to work and to worship,  and we worship through our work too. he said that he is an introvert, the intj personality (me too).  yet he has an extrovert job, teaching (me too!). and sometimes it just wears him out because of that (me too…). but God created him to be a teacher, even though it is hard for him at times. And sometimes God made us to do a work that is hard for us.

i half expected him to stop and say "i'm talking to you, RENEE EMERSON!"

 

Since I got my job, I had always thought it was going to be a temporary thing. after all, my kids are really little and we want more in the future.  my husband is really involved in ministry, so he needs my support. I’m bad at public speaking—in college I often cried or fainted after/during speaking in public. 

Despite all that, here I am, two years later, still teaching.  I’ve struggled with it. often in my prayers, I ask God what is the deal—how could he have me doing this job for when I’m obviously not made for it. 

I know I was made, like many women, to be a wife and mother, and made, more specifically to me, to be a writer. Maybe it is possible that  I was also made to teach and my having a teaching job is not just a stop-over on my way to doing what I’m really supposed to do, whatever that is. Maybe it isn’t a roadblock or a hindrance or a heavy burden but it is God allowing me to use a gift he’s given me, the gift of teaching. 

Two years of thinking a certain way, changed by a five-minute rabbit-trail in a sermon. God’s given me much to think on this month.