My Calling
By Gin
ny Raney
 

     I want to share my testimony as to God working in my life and the power of prayer. 

     I have always known that God called me to be a teacher.  I wasn’t as clear in which field.  But then I married and had our first child.  I believed I was to be a mother and stayed out one year with Beth.  Teaching was still my calling.  When I had our second child, I thought I should be a full-time mother so I resigned.  The person who had been my babysitter the year before decided to go to work and I decided what was one more child in the family, so I became her babysitter.  Let me share with you, there is a reason He had called me to be a high school teacher!!!

     My women friends who had sustained me the first time I stayed out of teaching had all gone to work.  I had no adult companionship during the day.  E.G., my husband, could tell you I was not a happy camper.  I needed to share with other adults my trials and tribulations, and I had no one to discuss exciting current events with.  It isn’t that my students necessarily enjoyed my current events discussions but they were a captive audience.  Somehow, two three year olds and an infant are not ready for in-depth discussions.

     Late in the fall Mr. William Lowery called me and asked if I could teach second semester; there was an opening in the Social Studies department.  That was my way out, but I was torn.  I thought I was supposed to be a mother, in addition I had made a commitment to another family to care for their child.  What was I to do?  God had given me a supportive husband but not one that would tell me what my decision had to be.  I had to make the choice myself.  But God wanted me to be a mother, or so I thought; he blessed me with children.

     As usual I tried on my own to discover God’s plan without asking Him.  Finally, when I could not deal with the issue any longer I laid my problem at Jesus’ feet.  My prayer place was a rocking chair in the living room.  I remember vividly crying, rocking, crying, rocking and listening; but most crying and rocking.  I must have spent two hours in that chair.  Finally, peace came and I got up and went about the business of a homemaker.  As I was doing the dishes a name was revealed to me for a sitter.  I called; she needed a job and was excited to come to our home and take care of the three girls.  I checked with the parents of the child I was caring for and that was acceptable for them.  Everything fell in place.

     God had a plan for me; I just needed to seek His will in my life.

 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call upon me and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”

Jeremiah 29:11-12