Note from Michelle: As some of you may know, I’m writing a book about spiritual formation at midlife for Moody Publishers. It’s scheduled for release next spring. Today, I’m sharing a bit of a chapter I’m working on right now as it fits with our identity and vocation theme this month at The Perennial Gen blog. If you read to the end of this post, I’m announcing here for the first time the title for this book. You’ve been a part of this process maybe more than you could ever know, so I wanted to reveal the title to you all first!
I never imagined my five high school BFF’s and I were a clique. We were bound to one another by the excitement of our newfound faith in Jesus, and tried hard to invite others to know him, too, which meant that the boundaries of our social circle were fairly porous. But we also played an outsized role in one another’s lives as we faced those first big decisions about who each one of us was going to be as we moved beyond high school. Nowhere was our cliquishness more evident than when we each had to make decisions during senior year about where to attend college and what major to choose.
Because our high school was the magnet school for all of the deaf students in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, we’d always had sign language interpreters in our classrooms, and our school offered courses in sign for interested hearing students. The hand dance of the interpreters mesmerized quite a few students, and the opportunity to learn to communicate so we could befriend the deaf students drew most of us to study sign in my “we’re-not-a-clique” group.
Each one of us was animated by a God-given desire to make a difference by serving others, which mixed with the missionary zeal of our newfound faith and our unhealthy reliance on one another as a sort of surrogate family. When it came time to choose a college and major, all six of us us felt God calling us to attend Illinois State University and major in special education or a closely-related field.
It’s hard to believe that no one in our lives seemed to question this seemingly-miraculous congruence of callings, but I doubt any of us would have listened anyway. I was a young believer from a family hostile to my newfound faith, and my high school friends shared with me the joy of falling in love with Jesus. In some ways, we all fell in love with him together, and our bond was very, very deep.
God knew we served as one another’s training wheels as each of us rolled toward adulthood and graciously permitted all six of us to begin college in Normal, Illinois. Of the six, two graduated four years later with degrees in special education. One has been in the field for over thirty years and has earned a doctorate along the way. Another led a classroom of deaf students for several years before moving to a mainstream elementary school classroom, where she continues to teach. A third received a degree in recreational therapy and worked in that field for decades. The three of them found career paths that were a good fit for them.
The other three, including me, never completed our undergraduate degrees. Though my high school pals have maintained some level of connection with one another through the years, our paths diverged as each of us moved into young adulthood. One of the first lessons we all had to learn was that there was no one-size-fits-six answer to the questions each one of us faced about how to build an adult life.
None of us had begun to explore an even more essential question than that of career choice – the question of vocation. Most use the words “career” and “vocation” interchangeably, conflated to mean “an occupation, preferably with opportunities for growth”. This may be true of career, but the word “vocation” literally means “calling”. As a teen, I knew I wanted a career that would help others. But I had no idea how to begin thinking more deeply about why I’d been created, and what God had called me to bring to the world.
At least, not then.
After I dropped out of college at the end of my sophomore year, the future loomed before me like the Grand Canyon. I felt I had to come up with a Plan B, stat! If I wasn’t going to be a teacher, what could I do? I looked at myself in the funhouse mirror of other people’s lives, and used those inaccurate reflections of myself as clues that would help me discern a career path.
For instance, I had a friend who was a bank teller. I decided if banking was a good career for him, it was obvious that it would be a good career for me, too. I was so poorly suited for the job that when the person training me told me that it didn’t seem like I was catching on and would need to take the unusual step of going through at least another week of “remedial” training, I told her that I didn’t think forty years of training would turn me into a good bank teller. I thanked her for her time, apologized for wasting it, and resigned.
I looked at myself through the mirrors held up by the people at my new church, too. There I learned the highest form of Christian service was to be a missionary in a foreign land. For a while, I entertained this as a career possibility because I wanted to do Big Things For God, and there didn’t seem to be any bigger thing than getting off a plane in a foreign country and telling people about Jesus. It took me a long time to admit that my zeal to become a missionary had more to do with being able to answer people’s questions about what I was planning to do with my life after I dropped out of college than any sort of deep care for people living in a distant place who didn’t know Jesus…
Question, PerGen readers: What vocational or career path did you first choose as you entered young adulthood?
Oh, and the book’s title?
Becoming Sage: Cultivating Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality in Midlife
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Cover photo by Khara Woods on Unsplash
Love the title, and can’t wait to read the final product! -C.D.
Thanks, Carole !
– Michelle
Michelle,
Like you, I have tried several different hats on over the years. My initial career choice was Nursing because (ah, so silly!) I liked the IDEA and the uniform 🙄, but it didn’t really dawn on me nurses had to study such things as chemistry, biology etc. Ewwwww!! That did not last!
It ended up taking me 20 years to earn my degree, and I did so through an Adult Degree Completion Program at a local College. My degree is in Management.
Love your story about your nursing studies. 🙂 And I’m celebrating your degree completion after 20 years. That is a major accomplishment! I returned to school at midlife, and found it a really affirming and encouraging experience.
– Michelle
I also love the title! Looking forward to reading it.
After high school I felt God calling me to Bible College and I had in mind a career in overseas ministry. God had a different plan. I feel like he gave me that initial desire in order to get me to the place he wanted me to be. And in my life he seems to lead more in small steps rather than big lifelong plans. And yet there has been a consistent calling to ministry of some sort in our local church.
I also think that midlife is an interesting place of reassessment, where the possibilities open up again similar to those post high school days!
So good! I felt like I was reading a page from my own biography. I was in ministry at a local church for some of the reasons you mentioned above. Then I spent ten years working at Starbucks ( a fun job, but not what I wanted to do long term), tried the bank teller thing (also stunk at it!!) and then spent a few years as a file clerk at a law firm. Now I’m in my early 40’s, unemployed (by choice) as I figure out my next step. So grateful for this site, and your writing. I can’t wait to read your book!
Connie, keep us posted on your journey. I’ve learned that God doesn’t waste any of the experiences we’ve had (even the ones where we worked at a bank!)
– Michelle
Love the title, love the premise!
Heehee, I majored in music then switched to psychology. Taught nursery school, then did counseling, then “retired” to homeschool my 3 children through high school. Started an online business, and now I’m teaching English online to children in China. You are right that God uses everything!
He does! But never in ways we can anticipate!
Yes yes yes! I came from a family who thought life after college was linear, and if not, what’s wrong with you?? And to make matters worse, my chosen career path (which worked out great for 20 years) was to work on Broadway shows. They thought I was insane. I was able to support myself in theater for 2 decades, and to make matters worse, a lot of people in the Christian community thought I was being deceived to enter that vocation. I was even “guilted” into considering becoming a missionary at a Christian concert, because that’s what Jesus commanded in the Bible. The only thing that was a good fit was my work in theater. I have aged out of that profession, and am now thinking that I am called to write. I am trying to figure out what my next steps are. But your writing here is spot on!
Arlene, thank you for being open in your comment about being a Christian and working in theatre. I understand.
I love your story, Arlene. Most of my early writing credits were plays and skits. I wrote for the Church, but also wrote 3 full-length plays for the academic/”secular” market. I cherished my experiences in that world, even though (maybe especially because) it didn’t fit in the Christian box. Please keep us posted here on what unfolds next in your life. – Michelle
I went to college because my parents said I had to. I dutifully listened while the love of my life, now husband, went in the army. I meandered my way through college, first a business major then finally fine arts. I did graduate, tried to be a freelance illustrator (ha ha I’m not motivated to be anything freelance) got married to my man, and I thankfully had a career in advertising, which I loved. I was an admin in the creative department, it was like being a mom (labor of “birthing” a project, timing, and keeping everyone and everything in line). 6 years later I left that career world to me a mom to my kids. Thankful to stay home for 24 years.
I was a stay-at-home mom, too, Kathleen. And boy, did I ever learn a lot during those years. 🙂 – Michelle
I always love and excelled in English in school. But, my teenage self thought, what could I do with an English major? I noticed most of the girls in my small Christian high school did not go on to college, so I thought a Home Economics Education degree would be practical. I could teach Home Ec. in high school and help girls prepare for life – because whatever they did, even if they never married, they’d still have a home.
But I was surprised to struggle with my major. I wasn’t used to getting Cs regularly (and even one D – in Food Prep!) Even though I wasn’t failing, I felt like I was failing – and not doing well in Home Ec. felt like failing as a woman. I was still making straight As in English classes, though – I wish my adviser had noticed that and commented. I thought many times about changing my major, but just never felt like that’s what I should do. By my sr. year, when I student taught, I knew the last thing I wanted to do was teach. I liked the imparting knowledge part, but not the disciplinary issues.
Then I got married and worked a few odd jobs before I had kids. I wondered if I missed the Lord’s will for my life. I had a desire to write, and that English major sure would have been handy. After a few years of thinking and a lot of discussion with my husband, I came to realize God may have had a reason for my Home Ec. major after all. I had not come from a Christian family, and this major provided a lot of classes in family and child care. Since I was in a Christian college, I had a Christian emphasis in those classes – as well as chapel and other classes. Plus my dear mom wasn’t very domestic. She worked full time and commuted across Houston, so there wasn’t much left for homey endeavors afterward. Though I’ve never lived up to the ideal of “the professional home economist” portrayed in college, at least I am not as much of a bumpkin as I could have been. And my education classes helped with people skills and other ways.
I did have an opportunity to write a few magazine articles and a ladies’ newsletter for a couple of churches. Now I am (finally) working on my first book.
I have been frustrated with something you alluded to – in my youth group as well as my kids’, the epitome of serving Christ was presented as “full time Christian service” – being a missionary, teaching in a Christian school, marrying a pastor, etc. I wish instead that kids were taught that we’re all in full time Christian service, no matter what our vocation is. People can have vital ministries and opportunities to be a testimony in any field. My husband has had opportunities to share with people who would never come to church or read the Bible on their own.
Sorry to take up so much space here – but these are matters that have been on my heart all my adult life.
I wish you all the best on your book! It sounds good!
BTW, when I said I felt like maybe I missed God’s will for my life – I didn’t mean in reference to being a wife and mother. In all of the other possible things I wanted to be when I grew up, being a wife and mom were at the top, and I loved being able to be home while raising my family.
I really liked hearing your story, Barbara.
A word about Home Ec: My mom wasn’t at all into the domestic arts, except for maybe cleaning. So when I took my first Home Ec class in 7th grade, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. I wasn’t a great seamstress, though I eventually got into quilting when my kids were young. I adored meal planning and cooking, and because of those classes, I ended up doing quite a bit of cooking for my family once I learned my way around a saute pan. So I share your gratitude for those classes.
It’s interesting that at midlife, once we move past our ideas about what others expect of us, we often find our way to what we were wired by God to do. You’ve written for us before here at Per Gen, Barbara, and you communicate with kindness and simplicity. That’s a gift. Looking forward to seeing what will unfold in your life as you move further along this track. – Michelle
From first grade until I knew I didn’t have the means to do it, I wanted to be a teacher. My mother chose a secretarial course for me and after a full year of study, I worked as a medical secretary which included transcription of the doctor’s notes and editing. I look back now and see this was a perfect groove for me as I am a writer today. At the time, I still longed to teach. Teaching came along through church with women’s Bible study. I also spent a couple of semesters with a homeschool group teaching history and Bible. I’m at the age, 58, and place of finally feeling secure in my own skin. I see the paths, while not my own choosing, worked out well and have allowed me to teach. I finished a community college degree and presently, in this sandwich generation, care for elderly parents and travel to Japan and the West coast to visit my children and grandchildren. Still writing but no teaching positions at the moment. Looking back, I sure grumbled along the way. Thankful in recent years for the ability to look at the big picture. If only we could have a big picture mentality in the midst of doing things we feel are not of our own choosing.
It’s profound and holy to realize that God gave you the desire and the opportunity to teach – though his answer didn’t come in the package you were expecting when you were younger. The perspective of time and life lived is a gift.
May God strengthen you as you serve your family in new ways during this season of your life.
That’s where I’m at! The sandwich generation. I don’t think I’ve heard that before. I do totally agree with your last statement wanting to see the big picture while “in the midst of doing things we feel are not of our own choosing.”
We’ve run some wonderful posts about caregiving and the pressures of being sandwiched between two generations. Maybe something in this group will encourage you, Kathleen: https://theperennialgen.com/category/caregiving/
How cool to have five close friends, all new believers, as you graduated high school. So maybe it had drawbacks, like the same college major thing. But friends and community are so vital. I can see that as I read all these wonderful comments. One of the blessings of Becoming Sage (love that title) is cultivating friendships without losing our individuality in them. Your book sounds awesome, Michelle!
Thank you, Peggi. I recognize now how rare and wonderful if was to have a group of friends like that in high school (and college!). The sweetest thing of all is that each one of these women is still walking with the Lord all these years later.
I love the book title. I’m in the middle of seeking direction for my spiritual formation so I’m excited to read your book.
I’ve had so many jobs though the years, in addition to being a stay at home, homeschooling mom. After spending years as a theater professional, in costumes and stage management, I’m content right now to be a grandmother, and figuring out where God wants me and learning to walk with Him and be holy.
I was sure I was called to be a missionary… so I transferred to a Christian school and majored in it there. I did a few stints and enjoyed it, but God called me into marriage and children and then honed that calling and those skills to lead into counseling, which I pursued and still do today.