Listen and Obey

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Therese, “The Little Flower.”  Having the honor of working a few hours a week at a Catholic school in Kokomo, I had the privilege of being present as the Serra Club and Father Bennett provided a lunch celebration for the female students.  They served ham sandwiches cut in the shape of flowers and cupcakes with a floral swirl on top.  They shared photos and stories from the three young women from Kokomo now a part of a religious order.  The heart of the event – listen to God’s call on your life and follow it.   Everyone is called into a vocation.  Everyone has a plan and purpose for their lives.  Our job is simple.  We are to listen and obey.

The job is simple, but not always easy.  Listening means being quiet and making space to hear.  We live in a culture that prides itself in our rushing to the next activity.  “How are you doing?”  Answer, “Busy, so busy and exhausted [insert big, groaning sigh].”  And behind the exclamation and sigh of busy I secretly am saying, “Yes, I am important.  I am needed.  I have many things that rely on me.”   I find myself fighting this temptation to use my activity level as a measure of my significance.  What I am really doing is pushing away from what is most important and what brings the most meaning and joy.  I fill the anxious void with busy and in turn create “legitimate” excuses to avoid intimacy and connection with God and those around me.  I miss the mark of who I am called to be – to be Christ’s love and presence to those I encounter.  

I read a quote recently, “I will be most remembered by what brings me the most joy.”  When I am following my purpose in life, following my vocation, I find I am filled with joy.  And for me, I find that my vocation has not changed, but how it is lived out has radically shifted.

Fifteen years ago, what brought me the most joy was traveling to third world countries and physically improving lives.  I built houses.  I built latrines to help eliminate disease and prevent contaminated drinking water.   The dirtier and sweatier I got, the more satisfaction I received.  I assumed my vocation would always involve digging in third world dirt.  I found joy investing my life in broken and abandoned youth – visiting their homeless “castles”, taking them to Wishard when they broke their arm from a drunken catastrophe, and being “Pizza Mom” by feeding 150 youth on Saturday nights.

Then I got married.  I finished grad school and started working as a therapist.  I had children.  Third world dirt and late Saturday nights with homeless youth were no longer feasible, at least for this next season of life.  But, I found a new front line to live out my vocation.  I worked with people on probation and with the Department of Child Services.  It was a new territory to get dirty and make a small part of the world a better place.  I experienced great joy on these “front lines.”  But, family demands increased, and again this line of work did not seem feasible in lieu of what my family needed.  I stepped away from the “front line” for a few years and entered a vocational crisis.  I felt guilty for not getting my hands dirty.  I felt guilty for choosing safety, security, and comfortable living.

 

I struggled (and still struggle) to find the balance between my vocation of family and my vocation to take Christ into the world.  In a sense, I felt I was not obeying my call – I had listened, but I was no longer walking into the front lines.   I live in comfortable suburbia, we have not one, but now two minivans (three boosters do not fit across a backseat), and I do things like lead the kindergarten Daisy troop.  By the way, I had three things on my “I will never list.”  I would never drive a minivan, I would never be a girl scout, and I would never own an RV.  I think I am doomed to someday own an RV.  

As mother, it is my job and vocation to teach my children to listen to the call on their life and to take Christ into the world.  Yesterday, my son asked his sisters if they knew what the Church was.  They threw out a few random answers that were not “right” and then he said, “We are the Church.”  Good reminder.  We are the Church and we are all uniquely different.  My vocation as mother is to help my children discover their role to play in being the Church.  I have taught them all about the third world, specifically Haiti.  Haiti clicked with my oldest, especially learning that access to medical care is not always available.  For her birthday, instead of presents, she collected medical supplies that she sent to Haiti with a team from our church.  For Christmas, she wants a sewing machine so that she can learn to make dresses for her dolls AND for little girls in Haiti.  This brings me great joy.  I want to be remembered for helping her make this happen.  And if anyone knows how to sew and is willing to teach me, please let me know.  Domestic skills were not my first vocation!

And one last thing, as I gave up the front lines of third world dirt and homeless castles, God has been faithful and brought me to a new front line.   As I entered my vocational crisis, I came to learn that what brings me the most joy (besides my three fabulous kids and patient husband), is being a healing presence.  I am in my sixth month of nursing school (only 10 to go, but who is counting!)  I find myself on the front lines of people’s lives dramatically changing.  On Friday, it was a rough day.  A patient came in with shortness of breath and hours later was being whisked into the OR for multiple biopsies.  This was a young patient whose life was just radically flipped upside down in a matter of hours.  For ninety minutes, I was with that person and their significant other.  I had tears in my eyes right alongside them.  My hand on their shoulders, I was able to be present in their anxious silence.  I knew this was exactly where God had brought me.

A year ago, I listened to God’s call toward a new direction.  I took a crazy leap and decided in my mid-thirties to add more letters behind my name, take on student loans, rely on my family to pick up the slack with me still working and now adding study time and clinicals, asking my children to sacrifice time away from me and two of our annual summer trips to Florida . . . and on Friday, I was assured this is the new front line where my unique gifts and talents are called to be.  In my tears and broken heart, I was filled with joy. 

Listen and obey . . . it will bring us the most joy.