I'm an insurance agent by day, a vocation chosen for one noble reason--it enables me the flexibility to care for my six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son. As a creative person, it also allows me the flexibility to run to the fabric store for materials to build a new costume, or to the recording studio to lay down a voice track. As I tend to production details, I also begin building a small production team: a seamstress friend who designs and sews my costumes, an artist friend who paints background scenery and draws illustrations for the program, my pastor to promote the show for a special Friday night performance.
At last the big day comes. Truth be told, I have barely set foot in my insurance office in a month--I am too deeply involved in preparing for what will surely be my life's work. When God calls, He provides, right? I knew my rent was due in a week and my monthly commission check would be almost nothing. But Pastor has promised he will pass the plate that night, so I rest easily, trusting in His provision.
That night, the show is a hit. Five hundred show up to fill the pews to capacity. Music, lights, and costume changes go smoothly, as do the many lines. My testimony is moving, and at least one person raises her hand to receive Christ when the altar call is given. Only one thing is amiss--Pastor forgets to take that offering as promised.
I am elated by the success of the show, but deflated thinking about my impending rent deadline, and saddened by the thought that my pastor could be so insensitive as to think that a single mom could pull off a production like this without deep financial sacrifice. I quit the church, quit my insurance job, and take a position waiting tables for quick money. I go back to college, this time as an English major. I need to generate an income doing something that will be somewhat enjoyable, if not rewarding. Maybe I should become a teacher? Clearly a Christian female actor with two kids in tow has little hope of making a living from her craft. Those who can't do, teach--a hateful saying among educators, but sadly true in my case.
Fast forward to 2002. Having taught English for seven years now, my heart is crying for the chance to be free again, to express myself in the medium I most love--the dramatic arts. I feel my life as a public school teacher is flying by, with me giving and giving sacrificially in the classroom and having no real love for my work, no sense of a return on my investment. I convince my husband that I am being called to ministry--that I must perform God's word and He who called me will provide. I quit my teaching job and begin seeking venues to perform. A joyful, Spirit-filled, satisfying year passes, and as it does our financial situation gets more and more grim. I have a website, fliers, and a speaking circuit. But people still seem to want to partake of my labors at little or no cost. I can't afford to continue.
Once again I give up my dream and go back to my second choice career, teaching. But this time I determine that I will teach with all my heart. Since the Lord seems to want me to stay in secular work, I will to give it one hundred and fifty percent, if such a thing were possible. I refuse to have a bad attitude. I ask Him to give me the strength and ability to continue in ministry while carrying on a full-blown, "no holds barred" teaching career. He seems to answer that prayer. For the next several years I am never without some kind of ministry--leading worship, directing programs, performing and teaching. I also finish a second masters and commence studying for a doctorate.
2011. I have fought the good fight--finding greater satisfaction in my career as a public school educator, yet always, ever, planning, strategizing, scheming how I will further develop my ministry--polish it, package it, promote it, and perhaps one day, do it full-time again as I did that one blessed year. Deeply invested, both emotionally and financially, to my secular work now, my faith has taken a different shape these days. I no longer scheme about how I will quit and devote my time entirely to His service, but rather search continuously for ways to reach more people and exploit my gifts more effectively in the little bit of time I do have to give--after work, on weekends, during school breaks. Where there's a will, there's a way.
The cool thing is, launching a ministry today is so much more cerebral than it was ten or twenty years ago. Anyone seeking to be heard in the public forum must have a website, a blog, a facebook account, a youtube post, and frequent tweets, of course. Electronic forms of communication are preeminent. It feels like a game sometimes, this jockeying to be heard by unknown, unseen souls around the world. But the stakes are real--eternal, from my worldview. So, like millions of others, I sit in front of my laptop, searching for the right combination of nouns, verbs, and modifiers to capture someone's imagination, to get them to respond in kind. I plug and plug for a chance to perform, to influence, to point in a new direction--His direction, hopefully.
Visit my new website at www.englishteachersbible.com to get a glimpse of how God is leading me to minister presently. Hugs in Jesus.
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