Many are called

I'm loving this conversation over at Reflectionary. I started to comment, but it got A Little Out of Hand, so I am just going ahead and making it just a post.

I was raised, Songbird, in the tradition you are in now. So there was no expectation of a moment of conversion, more an expectation of a lifetime of questioning, seeking, wonder.

Now I wonder, at this time in my life, still in that same tradition, if you can have BOTH a moment of conversion AND a constant turning toward?

Because I DID have a moment of conversion, which was not a dramatic one externally, but a radical internal shift/transformation. I was in a conversation with a spiritual director in which I expressed doubt, and she said something so simple "You have one foot on the dock and one foot in the boat. Just get in the boat." And then I (as she said) "got in the boat" and that was it. I have had lots of ups and downs since then, but never doubted, never questioned if there actually IS One who is holding us all, which had been real source of grief and frustration for me until then.

On the other hand, I'm not saying this HAS to happen for every Christian! Only that it was as real for me as my everyday everyday everyday waking up and saying "ok, God. help me do it the way you would want today, whatever it is."

Both the moment of conversation and the daily juggling routine took/take effort. Both are grace.

So far, there isn't much conversation in the comments about another theme of the post, which is the underlying tension of calls to ministry/motherhood (or fill in the blank where motherhood is to be whatever your Other Call is). I think about and pray about that tension in my own life all the time. Could I be a Rock Star Pastor by now if I had not married a disabled person, had a baby, etc? Perhaps. But is Rock Stardom really what God wants from me? I dont think so. Because this constant tension is what makes my call really authentic. I am always trying to practice what I'm always trying to preach - that God wants our WHOLE lives. That EVERYTHING can be a prayer, can be in service to God, can be for the creation of the realm to come.

So that my soothing a 6 year old (and I"m doing LOTS of that lately) is as important and as much an answer to the call as writing a sermon. When I'm able to remember that, I'm just so grateful that I get to do both.