In all honesty, the calling to write is uncomfortable.
When you’re a kid, being a “gifted writer,” as some teachers would say, is great. The teachers love it, you get used to the accolades and winning Young Writer Awards, and your plan is to one day be a writer.
It’s not as simple after that.
For me, it started to feel different partway through high school, when I went on my first mission trip. In Guatemala we mixed cement and bent rebar, did skits and short teaching presentations, and played with children of all ages. It was an incredible experience and I loved it. However, it was also my first glimpse of the realization that writing is not a very “useful” gift.
Here in Lancaster County, we like to be useful. We’re raised to work hard, to help in the kitchen and everywhere else, to get a job and do it well, and to make ourselves as useful as possible. It’s a county full of Marthas. (See Luke 10:38-42) Working hard, helping out, and being useful are not bad things…unless they become a necessary part of your identity.
When you feel that you’re supposed to be useful and your biggest (and can I admit it often feels like my only?) gift is not useful in most contexts, it can leave you lost, uncomfortable, and unsure. And as much as I loved the next four years of short-term mission trips, it got a little harder each time. There were teammates who were great painters, who were so good with kids, who were more outgoing and energetic, and everything that I wasn’t.
I was at a loss. What good is it to have a writer on a mission trip, I wondered.
Nor was it only mission trips where I felt this disconnect, this discomfort with my calling to write. My job in the restaurant industry, from busser to manager, required my gift of writing to slide into the background as I had to learn to be not quite myself in order to fulfill the needs of my job. At church, I wanted to serve, to give to the body of Christ that I was a part of, to make a difference and make connections. The question was – what did I do? I wasn’t good or comfortable enough with kids to help there; I was burned out on food service, so café was out of the question; my singing voice wasn’t anything special…how could I possibly make myself useful?
I felt like a Mary trying to fit into a community of Marthas, and sometimes I would wish that I had a different gift, because my calling to write was an uncomfortable one.
I felt like a Mary trying to fit into a community of Marthas.
Until, that is, God finally got it through my head that if He gave me a gift and a calling to write, then He has a purpose for it and that perhaps my definition of useful isn’t the same as His.
Is that still hard to remember when I’m not sure where I fit in at church, or how to feel less awkward and more helpful on a mission trip? Absolutely. It is a learning curve to undo the mindset that I’ve had for years. Because yes, writing can be an uncomfortable calling, but it is worth it because it is what God has created me to do.