Are You in the Center of God’s Will?

Hey, friends! Join me over at The Glorious Table today, where I’m talking about honoring your calling even when it means your life doesn’t look the way other people think it should. 

Have you ever felt like your life doesn’t measure up to someone else’s expectations? Maybe more than one someone? Maybe even your own? If you are nodding your head yes, I’m here to tell you I know how you feel. If we were sitting in a coffee shop talking about this in person, I’d probably reach out and squeeze your hand or lean over and give you a hug. Because it can be both heavy and guilt-inducing, carrying around unmet expectations.

Then, I’d take a sip of my coffee for courage, and I’d tell you how to find freedom, how to lay that burden down and walk away.

I don’t think my life looks the way other people imagined it would. I don’t think it looks the way I once thought it would. I don’t think my family ever expected me to move 600+ miles from home or to keep on moving. I don’t think my parents expected me to marry so late, to have children in my late thirties and early forties. I’m pretty sure they worried a lot about that, and I’m even more certain that now, they wish they could see their grandkids more often.

I know plenty of people shook their heads when I walked away from a fruitful ten-year career in public education and jumped headlong into a season of joblessness because I was absolutely sure God had something else planned for me. (Spoiler alert: he did, and it arrived at exactly the right time. “The appointed time,” Scripture calls it. Just a side note on why it’s a good idea to follow God’s call.)

I know there are people who raise an eyebrow at the fact that I homeschool, because I also work, and they wonder how on earth I can do both of those things well. I know, based on occasional comments, that some people aren’t sure homeschooling is the best decision I could be making for my daughters.

If you’re like me, and you feel the silent but palpable weight of other people’s disappointment and/or disapproval at the shape of your life, then I have one question for you: Are you in the center of God’s will?

To read the rest, click on over to The Glorious Table.