God, it's hard to be called.

This week is more than crazy for me. I started my new job. I'm taking a summer school course. I'm beginning my pastoral ministry at Camp Fraser. I'm only nannying in the mornings-- thank goodness, I couldn't do anything else! And more than ever, I'm trying to remember that I am indeed equipped with all I need in order to be able to handle all of these things. It would be easy to forget on a normal day. But I'm still learning to believe that I can be used by God-- learning to believe in myself, in the woman that God created me to be, with the gifts that God has given me.

This past weekend, I went home to Texas for the first time in six months. Six months is a long time, but in the face of the tremendous spiritual and personal growth I've experienced, six months is literally a lifetime. Life has changed in those six months for me. And I found myself struggling when I was with my family, struggling to be the daughter, sister-- the CHILD that they had known me as; expected me to be, and still be the woman that I've become.

I always go home and yearn for what I know I can no longer have. Mine is a family of proximity. We're a small family here, no extended family nearby, and not good at communicating. My older sister and her husband and daughter live thirty minutes away from my parents. My younger sister still lives at home. They do things together. They see each other. They know what's going on. And I don't, because I'm busy with the life I've made for myself in DC. How can I explain what I mean by a 'family of proximity'? If you live nearby, you know what's going on and you see each other. But if you live far away, the things you miss out on are not the things that would be reported-- they are the little things, the 'daily life things' that you miss out on witnessing. And when you come to visit, you won't DO things. You won't go out, you won't make plans. You'll just be. There. Together. A family of proximity.


I come home and I realize how much I've missed them. I realize how much I miss and can never have, when I live away. But I KNOW that I'm where I'm supposed to be, and that is the hard part. I think I'll never have the life of my sister: graduate from college, move back home, get a job, get married, have a baby, buy a house. A part of me yearns for a life like that. But, without a trace of condescension, I know that I am called to something more than that. I'm not saying I won't ever own a house, or get married, or have a baby, but it will be different. And it's not going to be soon. In my life, there's something else that is coming first. It's calling out to me, and God, it's hard to be called to something shapeless when I think I could be happy with the shape called tradition.


I hadn't completely formulated these thoughts on why it was so hard to be myself until my mother called me out on it. She said, "Amy, I feel like you're a different person in DC than you feel like you have to be when you come home. You don't have to be. We know you're called to something different, something bigger." And that's when I saw a little of what my mother saw, my struggle, my desire for a life I'm not meant to have, for something I consider normal instead of abnormal, simple instead of complicated. Known instead of unknown.

Leaving home was a paradox this time. It was both easier and harder to say my goodbyes. As I pulled out of the driveway of my sister's home, I thought, "God, it's so hard to be called apart." Now that I know that my journey means there will be separation, it's easier to go-- it's easier to say goodbye when you know that God has a plan for you. But it was so much harder to say goodbye this time, to the last shreds of hope I kept that God meant for me what I sometimes want when I am scared of the life I will live instead. I will finally accept that my life will be different than what I hoped and planned for as a little girl. Different from what I have been raised to seek.

But still, I fear the sacrifices. I will miss out on the first steps, words, and consumption of solid food by my niece. I will not be there, the first person, if things I fear to mention go wrong. I won't be there to help my sister register for her first college classes. And I'm already seeing frailty and age creep across the faces of my parents. I grieve for these things I will miss as I accept that God has a purpose for me missing them.


I have begun to pray for a partner. If my course will veer off the beaten path of my family, I pray that I don't have to pioneer a new path through the jungle alone. This is a selfish prayer, but I feel that it's time. The complete and utter commitment in my heart to follow the call to the depths of the deepest recesses of Creation should merit the request for a companion. At least, I hope it does. That's a decision for God, but I can certainly make a petition. Hope for family. I leave you with images of family that will sustain me until my next journey home.