Calling

What a strange word. I know in the Christian circles, we hear it all the time. Pastors and ministers are called or they have received "the call". What on earth does that mean?

Okay, I'm not really asking. I feel I have that pretty clear, but what's not so clear is how on earth I can be called to so many things. I am called to be a mother, wife, daughter, friend and mentor. I am called as a women of God (and there are lots of things there...that could be its own blog post, or book, or whatever). I am called to service. I am called to witness. I am called give to the poor. I am called to forgive. I am called to love others. I really could go on and on about all the thing we to which Christians, women and people are called.

BUT...what is my calling? Each Christian has a specific calling. God designed us as individuals and calls us each to something different. AND...do those callings change? Do we get new callings even though we feel we may not have finished the first calling? How do we figure out His calling on our lives and where do we get the road map to figure out how to walk in it? When do we start that walk? With whom do we walk? Why does it seem that callings can be fuzzy or undefined yet so exciting and purposeful at the same time?

Okay, this blog post isn't about answering all these question though I will say there are answers to all of them (some of the answer we may not like, but none the less there are answers). This is about asking the questions. I have discovered recently, that if I'm not asking God questions, He's not giving me answers, not showing me the way, not directing my path.

It's not God that's not doing His job...it's me.

I need to be apart of His plan for me. He's not going to make me do it. As my Heavenly Father, He teaches me a lesson and then maybe He teaches it again and again and again.

Here's the thing...it's not because I'm dumb and can't get it. It's not because I'm bad. It's because just like my kids, repetition is the key to learning. My kids didn't jump into a pool and know how to swim. They got in the pool everyday, summer after summer and slowly learned how to do all kinds of swimming things. They had to swallow a lot of water to learn to close their mouths and pinch their noses. They had to ask for help when they got too far out and couldn't get back. They had to practice blowing bubbles and kicking their legs, but today, I could throw them in the pool and they can swim. It's been a lot of hard work, for them and for me. We had lots of tears. We had times when they wanted to give up and so did I. We had good moments followed by really bad ones. They still have a long way to go and still could learn so much more, but they can swim if only for a little bit but certainly enough to have fun.

So is it with our calling. I didn't get it at first and it felt like God threw me in the deep end. The truth is that if I had stopped freaking out for just one minute, I would have realized I was in shallow water and could just stand. The other part is that it is like swimming and not so much like being on a path to my calling. In the water there are a thousand different ways I can swim but I can see in the horizon where I am going. Sometimes the current pulls me one way and I may need to fight to get out of that current to get where I'm going. Other times the current seems to just push me towards my goal. There isn't one defined path if I step off it I'm lost. I can usually see where I'm going. Sometimes I can't see though because I needed to take a break and float on my back of a minute...but in the end, I "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la," to quote Dory from "Finding Nemo".