It Calls Me

“It calls me,” a well-known author told her peers at a recent writer’s meeting about her passion for writing. I understand that. It calls me just before I fall asleep. It calls me when I’m driving down the road. It calls me when I’m working at a job that makes “real” money. It calls me when I hear sad stories. It calls me when I’m alone. It calls me when I’m with people. But my kids scream. Loud.

Their screams make me run. Run to rescue them, to scoop them, to hug them and kiss them and tell them it’s all okay. Other times their screams make me want to run the other direction rather than work through their emotional or developmental need. For three years their cries and screams have silenced my passion. They needed me.

At the end of the silence was a deep, dark place. I hated being there. I didn’t like who I had become. There was nothing left to do but to cry out to God. I begged for mercy and a way out of that pit.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you,” is what Jesus said in Luke 11:9. Within 24 hours He gave what I asked for. He restored what I was seeking, and the doors to many opportunities had opened. One of the answers to prayer came in the blessing of three pre-teen home-schooled girls that came to my house every day from 7 to 9 a.m. so I could write. Followed by their commitment was the blessing of a back-breaking, knee-swelling, hot, sticky, smelly, aggravating-at-times job as a waitress so I could afford to pay those God-given girls to watch my precious little ones. God is so good. Every morning I heard my passion calling and the laughter of my girls in the background.

Within three months my passion was overflowing and three projects God called me to do (some more than five years ago) were finished. I now have four projects out to publishers because of God’s answer to my prayer and because of my obedience to His calling on my life. Everyday it calls me.

In Romans 12:6 Paul writes, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.” I had faith God would answer my prayer. I have faith He created me for a purpose. And I have faith (recently found though I admit it) that He gave me the gift to write.

What is your gift? What kind of faith do you have? What change or changes do you need to make to use your gift according to your faith?