(Written one month ago)
Oh my, what a journey we're on. Pastoring's quite a journey, and it's not one I really expected to do. I think at seminary, or after, I expected God to redirect my path again. To say, okay, you got your M.Div., but you're not going to be a pastor. You're going to do this instead. I really didn't expect 100% to be a pastor, even during seminary. And I wasn't ready to be a pastor, until that ten day Local Pastor Licensing School. Boot camp. The work you've been given to do, whether you want it or not. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to be a missionary. I wanted to be a mother. I never wanted to be a pastor. Some days I still don't. Some days, I do.
I wanted to be a mother, but I never expected a solid 24 hours of doing nothing but triage and cleaning up, like happened the weekend we all shared a 24 hour stomach bug.
I wanted to be a teacher, but I never expected the problems I had student teaching and with behavior management (partly because I didn't want to "manage" behavior in the first place).
I wanted to be a missionary, but I never dreamed that the nights when I complained to God that he could have at least sent me somewhere with air conditioning, he'd send me to pastor in Maryland.
Teaching in North Carolina
Teaching in Nicaragua
Pastoring in North Carolina
Pastoring in Maryland
Maybe I've simply come full circle and this is the answer to the prayer I didn't really mean (or only halfheartedly meant) about serving somewhere with air conditioning. Be careful what you wish for, huh? This is not what I meant, God! What about Costa Rica? They have cooler weather and air conditioning is more common there. Or Matagalpa, Nicaragua, in the mountains? Or... somewhere else? Why am I needed here? I know, I know, the scandal of particularity. Still, not what I meant. I didn't expect to become a pastor.
Yet God calls, and I answer.
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