1 Corinthians 1:3-9

"God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
1 Corinthians 1:3-9

I have always struggled with "vocation" as it applied to what I was doing with my life. I was raised with the idea that if I tried hard enough, anything was possible. I was also raised with the idea that my life should be 100% devoted to God and his "plan" for my life. It's not that the two were incompatible necessarily, I've just never known what I wanted and never felt like God was pulling me in any particular direction (at least the way I expected him to). I'm good at a lot of things, and I kind of shifted around uncomfortably from job to job after college not really feeling attached to any particular career but deathly afraid of "missing the boat" of what God had planned as my destiny. When it came time to think about kids, I figured I'd try that too. (How hard could it be?) In a not-surprising-to-God twist, motherhood has been the opposite of easy for me. In fact, having to care for little people in the face of postpartum depression, anxiety, and misguided religious fulfillment in my predestined “purpose” has dumped almost everything I thought I knew about God and his purpose and plan for my life on its head. I'm four years in and I'm only starting to wrestle with some of the things motherhood has laid bare.

Whether or not you've been in my position, you've probably found yourself  in a season of just trying to spiritually limp through. Maybe that is what Paul was recalling when he admonished the Corinthians that "God is faithful, by whom you have been called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ." As I sit in my mundane; as I wish I could name the heaviness that sits with me in the night of confusion; in this season of limping, I am holding on to the truth that God's "calling" on my life is not strictly vocational. Foremost, his calling is simply an invitation to fellowship with God in the flesh.

Thanks be to God for the advent of His Son Jesus Christ, who very specifically came into our timeline to be with us in our darkness. Emmanuel! With the advent season inevitably comes the season of busyness and the extra emotional highs and lows that Christmastime brings. God incarnate- the reason we can fellowship with him- means that I can limp toward the fullness of God with faltering faith in an uncertain season armed with the hope that comes simply from holding on to God’s faithfulness.