In Spite of Me
By Erin Davis 

     I remember it well.  It was my freshman year of college.  I was baffled by the fact that at age 18, I was expected to choose the vocation I would spend 40 hours a week in for the rest of my life and I decided to throw a rebel fist in the face of God.

     I had felt God tugging on my heart and calling me into teaching for a while.  “Surely,” I thought, “I was misinterpreting the message.”  My mom was a teacher and I had watched her live from paycheck to paycheck for years.  God wanted more for me than that, right?  On top of that I was engaged to a man studying for the ministry.  I had never settled for anything ordinary of cliché and at age 18, with the world seemingly at my fingertips, I decided I wasn’t about to start.  The union of a minister and a teacher seemed far too humdrum for me.  So, on the cold floor of my dorm room I told God that I had considered the matter and that I would not be going into teaching.  He would just have to work around that.

     After a year of marriage and what seemed like an eternity in the field of news reporting I heard God speak again.  My job had become a tremendous burden.   I dreaded the sounding of my alarm clock and became prone to tearful fits of despair.  I prayed for deliverance.  I prayed for wisdom.  I prayed fervently for a new job.

     One tearful morning I told God that I would do what He asked.  “If you want me to teach, I’ll teach,” I cried in an emotional act of surrender.

     That night I told my husband, “I don’t know how to say this, but I am supposed to be a teacher.”

     He replied, “I’ve known that for a long time.”

     “Thanks for telling me,” I snapped.  But, the truth was, I had known for a long time also.  That was a Monday.

     On Tuesday I grabbed my reporter’s notebook and went to cover the local school board meeting.  As part of the agenda, the school board members reluctantly accepted the resignation of the high school broadcast journalism teacher.

     My heart raced.  Surely God was not going to honor me so quickly after I rebelled against him.

     I lingered after the meeting to talk with the district’s superintendent.  “Mr. Little,”  I said in a small voice.  “Can I ask you something?”

     Without any further indication of my intentions, he looked at me and asserted, “You want to be a teacher.”

     As I went through the process of interviewing for a teaching position Satan began to whisper in my ear.  “You won’t get this job,” he hissed.  “God won’t use you.  You’ve missed your calling.”

     To protect me, God wrote a verse on my heart.  Over and over the words of Romans 8:28 came to min.  “All things work for the good of those who live in Christ” became my comfort.

     A few days later I sat in the superintendent’s office and signed my contract to teach.  As if to eliminate any doubt that this was God’s work, the superintendent waited until all the paperwork was signed and said, “I wanted to share with you Romans 8:28.”  I gasped.  He finished, “All things work for the good of those who love Christ.”

     Despite my attempts to thwart God’s plan for my life, through His grace and goodness, I ended up fulfilling the purpose that I was designed for.  God used me, in spite of me, and I am forever thankful.