My time as a teacher in a classroom is quickly dwindling away. I am having big feelings about that. And then. AND THEN the Mudroom went and had Vocation as their February theme. Good, but brutal.
When I was twelve I heard the voice of God. Like, literally. I know. I think it is totally weird too. I was the most awkward almost thirteen year old you could possibly imagine, and I heard the voice of God, behind me and to the left. I was at church camp. God told me God would use my voice.
I know. I too don’t really believe it. But it happened, so what else was I to do?
I came home and told my parents. The even crazier thing is that they believed me. They believed their twelve-year-old daughter and even trusted me to interpret it. I was an almost thirteen-year-old in the Evangelical nineties. What else could it mean? I was going to be the next Rebecca St. James, Jennifer Knapp, Jaci Velasquez. They found the money to get me voice lessons at the local university.
The voice lessons faded out, but the call on my life did not. At fifteen I was at the front of the church sobbing after an altar call for future missionaries. I remember the sweater I was wearing, the name of the boy I was sitting next to during the service. (Thank the good Lord I gained better taste in men.) I remember thinking, okay. This is it. This is how God will use my voice.