Today happens to be my birthday. My fiance surprised me with a weekend away in Salt Lake City and Park City for some skiing, snowshoeing, and Utah fun. What a wonderful break from the day to day.
It's back to the grindstone today. I am paging my way through the current Lutheran magazine, something I hope to read more regularly as I continue on this path to someday be a Lutheran pastor. The whole March mag seems to be about vocation, calling, vocational identity (pastoral identity in my case). Peter Marty wrote the opening article. One paragraph caught my eye - I love how he defines what it's like to have a calling. I had to share:
"If you are ever wondering what it is really like to experience a true calling, just be ready for the next time you find yourself totally absorbed in something. Your energy is high. Your have lost all sense of time. Your passion is unmistakable. A great sense of satisfaction has overtaken you. This is typically when we experience one of the greatest possible luxuries in life - the inability to know for sure whether we are working or doing something else altogether." (Peter Marty, The Lutheran Magazine, March 2011)
We all have a calling. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have our calling be the same as our vocation. As I think about graduates across the spectrum, I hope this quote can inspire someone like me - who just wanted to be told what would be best for me to do. Unfortunately, that doesn't exactly happen - there might be voices who tell you what to do, but I don't think anyone can know as well as God what it is you would be best at. It really is a process of discernment, one that lasts a lifetime.
