Following His Calling. . .No Matter What

When I was very young, at six years of age, God placed a calling on my heart. It was a calling that I was not yet able to fully understand at that time in my life, but it was my calling nevertheless. It was a calling to the foreign mission field. Over these past years of my life, I have never been able to part from that calling. Over these past years of my life, the desire to fulfill that calling has only grown, as well as my understanding of what it means to be a foreign missionary. As the years have gone by, I have oftentimes found myself slowly pushing myself away from my calling, only to be jerked right back to an even greater desire to pursue it. There have been so many times over the years where I have been faced with new challenges in regards to being a missionary; fears about what could end up not happening if I did become a missionary. In this blog post, I will be focusing on how God has helped me look to Him when it comes to one very specific fear and one very specific challenge that have both come with the calling He has given me. I imagine that this will end up being a rather lengthy post, as this is completely being written from the heart, but I do pray that it may bless those of you who read it.

What is that one very specific fear and challenge? Well, the one fear started a long, long time ago at a very young age. The one challenge has only come to my realization recently. But for now, I am going to focus on the one fear that started a long time ago. That would be the fear of not getting married if I were to follow my God-given call and become a foreign missionary.

I remember sitting at my sewing table down in my 'sewing room', which is now my bedroom. I was sitting there thinking about my calling to be a foreign missionary. I was sitting there thinking if it was really and truly what God wanted me to do with my life. I was questioning an already so obvious call. I was questioning that call for one reason: I wanted to get married. I wanted to experience the joy and blessings that come with being a mother and a wife. That was a desire that I didn't believe could go along with pursuing my call as a foreign missionary. I was more than willing at that point in time to completely abandon my calling to insure a greater possibility of getting married in the future. I kept walking in that way, ignoring my calling for quite some time, until God jerked me right back to it.

I've always considered it so amazing how God has continually brought me back to my calling to be a foreign missionary, no matter why or for what reason I try to run from it. I am always jerked back to it, never able to ignore it for long. Such is what happened when I was running from my calling to 'insure a greater possibility of getting married in the future.' Through that being 'jerked back', God taught me a valuable lesson: He is all that I need, and in whatever way He is calling me and leading me, I am to follow, no matter what. That means that I am to be a foreign missionary, because I know without one doubt that God has called me to that in life. That does not mean, however, that I do not still have a fear of never getting married. What that means is that I am trusting in what He knows is best for me, what He is calling me to. It is trusting that I am to follow Him, in whatever way He leads, and He will provide for me what He sees fit. It is abandoning all 'fear' over something that I am afraid that I will not have, and knowing that I will indeed have it if that is His will, no matter how impossible it may seem. If it never comes, then praise His blessed name, for I am content in Him! If it does come, then praise His blessed name, for He has blessed me with something that I deemed impossible.

Now I would like to focus on the one challenge that has most recently come into my life: leaving my family. Never before has considering that been difficult. In the past, I have thought about it, but considered it to be one of the least of my fears, and it was most definitely not a challenge. Yet, recently, it has become a challenge. . .a very big challenge.

The other night I was sitting in my sister Hannah and Grace's room, braiding Grace's hair for her. We were talking and laughing, just enjoying having that 'sister time' together. Then out of the middle of nowhere Grace asks me this question: 'Kristin, when you go to college, how long will you be gone for?' I then had to explain to her that 'going to college' didn't always mean that you had to 'go away', but if I were to 'go away' it would be for a couple of years. Grace then frowns and says, 'I really don't want you to go away for that long.' Right then, my heart started to ache. While I won't be 'going away' for college, I knew that I would be 'going away' to the mission field at some point in my life, for time longer than just two years. I sat there pondering those things, thinking about how hard it would be not only on myself when I leave, but for my family also.

When I sat there on my sister's bed thinking about that, I did not once consider not becoming a foreign missionary. By this time, I have known full well that I cannot run from it, but have to meet head on my fears and challenges that come with it. The thought of leaving my family has become one of those challenges. When I think about it--really think about it--it is not an easy thought. When I think about how I may have children and a family and serving on the mission field, I think about how my very own family will not be able to apart of that as much as they would be able to here in the States. It is a challenge. It is a challenge that He will help me in.

The overall point of this blog post is this: God gives us callings in life. He leads us places that we, as human-beings, do not always want to go. We want what we want, we want to do what we want to do. We are oftentimes willing to ignore the obvious callings that He has placed in our lives to make ourselves happy, to make others happy; we do not want to feel like we're being asked to do something that is difficult, or something that takes us out of our comfort zones. The fact of the matter is that God has given each of us a calling in life; a calling that we are to follow and live out to the best of our abilities with His help. Yes, times will come when we are fearful of not getting something that we want if we follow that calling. Yes, times will come where we will be faced with challenges and discomforts by following our calling. Those things do not mean that we do not follow the calling God has given us. We follow it, no matter how difficult or insecure we feel, because He gave us that calling. We are called to look to Him for comfort in all things, to look to Him in every area in our lives that we feel we are lacking in. Every fear, every challenge; we can succeed all when we look to Him, when we view Him as our all in all. He will give us things that we cannot seemingly handle, or find too difficult, but He will be there to help us, to sustain us, to draw us closer to Him.