Called

The blue shag carpet collected between my fingers and toes as if springtime grass.  The handles of my white dresser drawers, like old castle door knockers, challenged me in a staring contest.  Black out blinds pulled nearly shut.  Afternoon sun peeking in the room beckoning and reminding me of the fun just beyond our front door.  The fun I wasn’t having.  It was nap-time.  I was five or six years old.  But, I wasn’t tired.  After all, I was about to have a very serious conversation. 

With head bowed gracefully, thoughts organized around perfect words and sequences, I mustered up all of the will I could and whispered my defence argument:

"Dear God, 

I'm a likeable kid.  I haven't done too many bad things.  I'll be good and do good, I promise.  Just please....I beg of you...please don't ever ask me to be a nun." Amen.

It's laughable now, I know.  But decades ago I spent the day in angst about this particular concern.  The idea that God had a say in my future.  That he also had a plan for my life and it may just be something I hadn't set my heart on.  My idealistic, romance loving, fairy-tailed, bride dreaming self worried that this man in the sky would take her dreams away from her.  And instead, saddle her with cranky, uptight roommates, as she yawned another Hallelujah.  Not to mention those hideous habits.

It was my first experience with the knowledge of a calling.  And maybe it was on the backdrop of a Cathecism class, or an existential conversation with my mom, but the idea mildly stressed me out.  And suddenly I had to distance myself from this God and his Jesus who let the little children come to him.  He couldn't be trusted if he was going to rope me into something like the nun hood.

Years passed and like many of you I spent my twenties trying to figure “it” out.  What I was supposed to do.  Who I was supposed to marry.  Where I was supposed to study.  Eager to answer the phone of a calling.  Confused about ringtones and messengers.

Existential struggles that were hard on my moldable heart and permeable mind. More often than not, taking myself off the crossroads of life, preferring to sit in the neighboring field, than make a wrong directional decision.  In a crop of confusion, feeling alone and misunderstood. Wishing the universe would be a little more direct with its communication.

Alas, decades later and I’m not a nun.  And after flights overseas and years spent in different cities, I’m back in my childhood one.  I’m a mom.  My fairy-tale romance, anything but linear, and still unconcluded.  

And the calling?  It’s quite simple.  It turns out the phone did ring. Multiple times in fact.  I answered it.  Sometimes.  I listened.  Partly.  Busy, doing dishes, or watching a good show on tv.  Other times, too tired to answer.  Not wanting to be interrupted in my selfish container of life.  But, in moments of trial or time spent too long in the crops of confusion I held the receiver, cupped in both hands, really listening.  And in these moments, this is what His phone call told me to do:

Accept my love.

Bring me your brokenness.

Know I’m your Savior.

Trust me.

Get to know me.

Talk with me.

Listen.

Answer your phone.

God’s calling on our lives is quite simple.  You just need to pick up the phone.

~Then Jesus told her, I am the Messiah~ John 4:26

{This post is in response to Holley Gerth's blog, for the entry: In God's heart I am...Called.  Check out her inspiring writings at www.holleygerth.com}