What If I Can't Find My Calling in Life?

What if you can't find your calling in life? What if it seems as if everyone else has a goal, a plan, and a direction, but you just feel as if you're floundering? And what's a "calling", anyway?

I'm way beyond my 20's and wondering what the trajectory of my life might be (hello, 8 children!), but I now have the majority of those kids in that stage of talking through, wondering about, and praying over their calling. Their purpose. What the heck they're supposed to be doing with the rest of their lives.

I triple love my adult kids. They are the most fun stage of parenting so far! 

Within a typical week, I have texted and/or talked to every one of my adult kids at some point, and on every topic from cultural memes to theology to finances (read: They need money.) I love technology.

This one came to me from our 18-year-old at a university in Southern California one morning in April, and I loved her honest questions and the ensuing discussion:

I was thinking, "What happened to asking why the sky is blue?". Phew, huh? But these deeper discussions are why I am so loving these young adult kids. And the part about understanding her better than google? Oh gosh. Insert the heart-eyed emoji here because this is the girl who told me when she left home that if she ever needed to know how to do something, she could just look up a tutorial online. Kinda crushed my mama heart, TBH.

How to Know What Your Calling Is

We have to tread carefully into this topic because no one can lead you to this path other than God. Yes, he uses people in our lives and circumstances, but he really is the only one who can give us peace and certainty about what he has for us. In short, I can't tell you what your calling is. No one else should venture there, either. Turn off the voices that are so sure they know what you should be doing with your life. Listen to the voices that point you back to God.

What Every Calling Boils Down To

Every calling, every life's purpose, every dream and goal and desire and life plan boils down to two things:

Love God.

Love people.

Both can be unimpressive. Both are usually extremely untidy. Both can be discouraging at times. Both are often hidden from the applause of the world. 

Both bring peace and joy and actual, authentic fulfillment, but not if we're constantly looking for our calling to be extraordinary.

The Truth About Most People's Callings (and Most People Is Probably You)

We should all be following what God has for us, but the truth is, most of us are called to the mundane: going to work, feeding our children, getting up each day and doing the same thing over and over. . .

In short, callings can be certain from God, but they are rarely flashy and exciting. Usually, we're called to do the hard thing. The unselfish thing. The sacrificial thing.

Sometimes the calling is to homeschool kids for two decades and then last week have the 6th grader announce he wants to be homeschooled through high school, which means your mundane homeschooling calling that started with great trepidation in 1997 won't be finished until 2025. (That's me, if you hadn't guessed.)

When Your "Calling" Gets Ripped Out From Underneath You

This is where the whole thing gets dicey. 

When we are sure about that thing we are supposed to be doing, that career we're supposed to pursue, that "best life now" that we know we should be living and it all gets ripped out from underneath us, it can be a whopping blow. I can name a hundred women who watched their callings sink to the bottom of the sea as they suddenly found themselves with an extremely needy baby, an unexpected loss of income, a debilitating illness, and any number of other detours.

A road block like that doesn't necessarily mean your life is over. I wrote about having everything but not all at the same time in this post: Yes, Young Woman, You Can Have It All. Sometimes our callings are just put on hold and the new calling takes over for a time.

And sometimes, we learn that God had that thing for us temporarily, or that he really didn't have it for us at all. 

Come to Terms With Your Calling

I don't want to kill your dreams. That's not what this post has been about. In fact, the role I have most adored over the past 25 years has been that of cheerleader. If you need someone to brainstorm and help you chart a path to your dreams, I'm your girl.

But as you're praying through what God might have for your life, I want you to consider one crucial question:

Am I adding something to Jesus?

Are you? It's a trap, and one every single follower of Jesus falls into regularly. None of us is immune. It's the classic case of an idolatrous heart that believes the lie that we can be greater than if only we have Jesus plus {fill in the blank}. 

As you consider that your calling is simply an outflow of two things (loving God and loving people), ask yourself if you're adding to it a hope to be something more because it feeds your ego or pride or simply makes you believe you'll ultimately have some sort of fulfillment through that career that really, only God can supply.

“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

— Deuteronomy 31:8

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READ MORE RECENT POSTS:

Yes, Young Woman, You Can Have it All

I recently posted the following on Facebook:

“A concerned word for moms with very little children: I did not nurse babies, corral toddlers, teach homeschool, write books, travel and speak, work, get my hair and nails done, keep up with trends, Joanna Gaines my house, and do ministry all at the same time. Neither can you. Slow down. Life isn’t a Pinterest board. #rest #thatsourcalling”

I'd been thinking about a few young moms I know and wishing I could bend their ear for a moment, but the truth is, many of us in our 20's and 30's don't want to hear from the women who've gone before us. And then I really wasn't prepared for the overwhelmingly positive response, where so many of you were in agreement with my original statement. It's made me ponder the impact of such a post, especially when Cutzi commented,

“ I can’t stop thinking about this post...I mean, that you even have to say it. We are making ourselves sick and stressed and joyless. And in the end, probably completely unfulfilled and ineffective. ”

Yes, why does it need to be said? Where is all the unnecessary pressure coming from?

There isn't one source that overwhelmingly affects each of us in the same way, but I do think there are some aspects to our western (largely American) culture that factor into this mothering treadmill mentality.

1. Advertising

Here's what it's boiled down to: Company needs to sell a product or service. Company recognizes that they need to create a market. Company makes us believe we need what they're selling.

But we don't. Beyond food, water, shelter, and clothes, we don't need what they're selling. We just want it all. I have to remind myself of this way more often than I want to admit.

2. Cultural Norms

I once took my daughters to hear Condoleeza Rice speak at an event geared toward young women. It was excellent, but the overwhelming message repeated on a continual loop that day by Ms. Rice and the panel of professional and ministerial women who accompanied her, was that education is our hope.

Education is an excellent tool, but it is not our hope. It gives us options and may change our course, but it is a lousy thing to put our hope in.

And yet, a higher education is shouted at us relentlessly, and many of us begin to gauge our worth by whether or not we have a college education, a master's degree, a doctorate, and from where those degrees were earned. It isn't enough to "just" be a mom. You must have more, do more, and be more. 

At least, that's the cultural norm around here.

3. The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes, the Pride

Back (waaay back) when I was in high school, the better Christian bands weren't in the mainstream. Amongst that short list was a band called The 77's, and they sang a song called "The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes, and the Pride of Life". They wrote their lyrics based on 1 John 2:16, which reads,  

“For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

BAM. There it is, swinging us right back to #1. What we want and what we need are two different things, and I think young women fall prey to the wants in a way that drains them dry and makes life exponentially more difficult.

One of the best things said at that event where Condoleeza Rice spoke was when one of the panelists, a circuit court judge and mother of two, was asked, "Can a woman in today's world have it all [both career and hands-on parenting]?" Her reply was dripping pure wisdom. She looked up into the enormous crowd filling the arena and said straight into her mic, "Yes, a woman can have it all. She just can't have it all at the same time."

In any stage of life, from student to young mother to mid-life, to older woman, the great challenge is to figure out what the needs are and what the wants are. They'll change as we enter new seasons and as our circumstances shake up. If we don't learn to be satisfied with where we are and recognize the beauty in each season, we'll never, never find ourselves fulfilled in any other.

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Studying Modern History With My High Schooler: Sonlight 300 & Modernity

>> This is a post about homeschooling. Just giving you non-homeschoolers fair warning so you can skip out and not waste any time. Affiliate links.

My high school junior has asked me to homeschool her English courses each year, and we've done a number of things together to boost her knowledge of great literature and college-prep writing. 

This year we focused on literature of the 20th century, using the Sonlight 300 curriculum. I wrote a couple of posts on the Sonlight blog about how we organized our year using Sonlight 300, and you can read them here if you're interested:

Using Sonlight 300 for Our Unconventional High Schooler

4 Ways to Engage a High Schooler With Literature

In addition to our literature selections that spanned the turn of the century to the 1990's, I wanted Caroline to have some historical framework for the period she was reading and writing about. But I'm also teaching world history to the 5th grader, and we're in the 1700's, so that's no help. My high schooler needed her own level-appropriate historical discussion of the modern era, and specifically of the 20th century.

As I was pondering the best, most non-mom-involved way to go about this, Compass Classroom released their new Modernity video series. I love it when the stars align! I grabbed the streaming option and we were good to go, assigning her all of the topics and lessons that corresponded with the literature we'd already settled on.

Modernity is an excellent tool. The student can start and stop the videos as needed, take notes on the content, and answer questions sparked by the thoughtful dialog of veteran instructor Dave Raymond. Mr. Raymond teaches from a distinctly Christian worldview, placing events and people in the contexts of prevalent theology, literature, art, and religious views. 

For our purposes, Mr. Raymond's discussions gave my daughter the relevant background she needed to understand the historical context of each literature choice. More often than not, she would finish a video lecture with an "Aha!" realization that helped her comprehend what was driving a character's actions or the plot of a story.

You can find the Modernity series here.

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How We Organized Her Year Using Sonlight 300 and Modernity

1900’s - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Study Guide: 7 Sisters Study Guide

Modernity     12.1 Nationalism: The Principle

                      12.4 Making Nationalism International: Communism

                      12.4 Communist Manifesto

                      16:4 Woodrow Wilson

                      16.5 Wilson’s Presidency

                       17.1 The Principle

                       17.2 The Scope of the Great War & Its Beginning

1930‘s - Murder on the Orient Express 

Study Guide:     Sonlight 

Modernity         21.2 G.K. Chesterton

                         21.3 Evelyn Waugh and Dorothy Sayers

                         21.4 C.S. Lewis

                         21.5 J.R.R. Tolkien

1930’s - The Grapes of Wrath

Study Guide: Penguin Guides

Modernity     20.1 The Principle

                      20.2 Hoover and the Crash

                      20.3 FDR and the New Deal

WWII - The Book Thief 

Study Guide: The Book Thief

Modernity    20.5 The Austrian Devil: Hitler

                    22.1 The Principal and the Rise of Nazi Germany

                    22.2 The Rise of Nazi Germany II and the Start of the War

                    22.3 France, Britain, and The Soviet Union

                    22.4 The Empire of the Rising Sun

                    22.5 American Entrance and Early Battles

                    23.1 The Principle and the Invasion of Fortress Europe

                    23.2 The Fall of Man’s Empires 

                    23.3 The Atomic Bomb and the Holocaust

                    23.4 Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Winston Churchill

                    23.5 Winston Churchill II

Apartheid (1950’s) - Cry the Beloved Country 

Study Guide: Sonlight

Modernity     25.2 The Civil Rights Movement (skipping ahead in time, and also dealing with civil                          rights in America, not the rest of the world, per se)

1960‘s - The Wednesday Wars 

Study Guide: Sonlight

Modernity   24.1 The Principle and Pop Art

                    24.2 TV and Suburbs

                    24.3 The Cold War

                    24.4 M.A.D. and China

                    24.5  

                    25.1 The Principle and Kennedy’s Presidency

                    25.3 The Culture of Revolution

                    25.4 LBJ: War and Peace

                    25.5 The 10,000 Day War: Vietnam

1980's Hope Was Here 

Study Guide: Sonlight

Modernity    26.1 The Principle

                    26.2 The Sexual Revolution and Abortion

                    26.3 Modern Israel

                    26.4 Watergate and Iran

                    26.5 Alexander Solzhenitsyn

1990's My Father’s Daughter

Study Guide: Sonlight

Modernity     27.1 The Principle and the Church Today

                    27.2 Ronald Reagan

                    27.3 Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and the Leaders Against Communism

                    27.4 Gorbachev and the Fall of the Evil Empire

                    27.5 Postmodernity

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You can modify the above schedule to fit your student's needs, but I'm also a big believer in not reinventing the wheel, so if this would work for you, go for it!

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