QUESTIONS OF CALLING
unearthing beauty, mining meaning, and seeking truth
This is a place for anyone who wants more, who is not content to be comfortable, who seeks a life of truth and meaning, not just happiness.
Here, we ask hard questions, tell true stories, and turn life inside out to unearth the ragged beauty within.
I’m honored to have you to join me.
A Vocation of Personhood: Discovering a Sense of Calling in the Messy Middle
guest post by Kat Wordsworth
“Perhaps your personhood is a vocation of such beauty and significance that souls will be saved through your simple fidelity to being human.” - K.J. Ramsey
Questions of vocation, calling, and purpose in my life have been on the back burner for over a decade. I didn’t believe myself worthy of the conversation, worthy of thinking that I had anything to contribute. To me, a sense of calling was deeply entwined with being a confident and secure Christian. To be called meant hearing God’s voice and plan for your life. And that was not something I had ever experienced. . .
Learning to Doubt Without Fear
When I started teaching teens at a Christian school a decade ago, I was baffled by how classroom discussion of controversial topics seemed to provoke panic among many parents.
What surprised me was not simply that parents objected to my choice of material but rather the terror that seemed to underlie their objections. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t even theological. It was emotional: a nameless, faceless, gaping fear.
I’m still not sure what those parents were so afraid of, but I know it had something to do with their children learning to question their faith, to honestly consider other options and opinions . . .
The Shape of Your Soul
Ever feel like you just don’t fit in?
Sometimes I think I’ve spent more than half my waking hours feeling this way. Maybe it’s my Enneagram 4-ness coming out and no one else feels this way and you’re all going to think I’m a big weirdo (see how quickly that feeling comes to the surface?), but feeling out of place and ill-equipped to adapt is as familiar to me as breathing.
Questions of Calling
Why am I here?
This is the question that ultimately drives all of human striving. It appears in many forms: what is the meaning of life? what does it look like to live life well? what is the deeper purpose to which God is calling me?
There are no easy answers.
Not All Who Wander
From the outside, in our world of five-year plans and goal-setting and ladder-climbing, wandering looks aimless, restless, wasteful, even lazy. And it certainly can be. But wandering can also be purposeful—a form of intentional surrender aimed at letting the ego take a back seat and allowing God to guide us.
Sometimes God speaks by slamming doors in our faces or setting our hearts ablaze with an undeniable desire, but more often I find he speaks in whispers and nudges that are all too easy to miss.
A Childlike Faith
We were taking an evening walk around the neighborhood, dodging the thunderstorm that menaced on the radar forecast. My infant was strapped to my chest, and I pushed my worn out three-year-old in the stroller. My five-year-old walked on her own two feet, running and skipping, leaping and twirling, her legs long like a gazelle, her voice a constant stream of questions and commentary.
Suddenly the conversation took a serious turn. "Mom, I wish God didn't exist."
Laurie Davis: Embracing the Unexpected
Life never ends up looking quite the way we imagine, and this is especially true for the postpartum stage. No matter how much we try to prepare, we will be bombarded with challenges—and joys—that we did not expect.
This was especially true for Laurie, but as she shares in this story about an at-birth Down syndrome diagnosis, there is one thing about motherhood that we can count on absolutely: our purpose.
What About Mary? Ruminations on the Postpartum Journey of the Mother of God
My perspective on Christmas has changed dramatically after having a baby (or three). I still love it: the twinkle lights, the carols, the sense of hunkering down during the long, dark nights, the joy of Christmas morning gift giving. And of course, the reason for the season—the celebration of the miraculous incarnation of God in the form of a tiny, helpless human.
But having incubated, birthed, and cared for three tiny, helpless humans myself, I am acutely aware of Mary's experience in all this. The Christmas season, for me, has become intimately tied to the experience of late pregnancy (Advent), labor and delivery (Christmas Day), and postpartum motherhood (the other eleven days of the Christmas season leading up to Epiphany). And I can’t help but wonder: how did Mary fare those first weeks and months after she gave birth?
The Annunciation: Mary’s Unexpected Calling
Do you ever wish that God would just tell you what to do with your life? That he would just announce your calling and eliminate all the confusion and struggle that usually accompanies that process of discernment?
I know I have.
But there's a mercy that comes with that process too. It allows us to adjust to that call slowly, to learn the skills and discipline required bit by bit, to gradually come to terms with the difference between what we thought our lives would look like and the reality in store for us and to begin to understand how that reality will ultimately surpass all our hopes and dreams even as it crushes many of them. . . .