How do I Know God has a Calling for Me? Part 3

The last two days I have shared two of the three callings I know that God has laid on me, as well as how they have played out in my life.

The first was in 1986 when God called me to a ministry of writing. The second was in 1989 when God called me to the profession of teaching.

The third occurred in the fall of 1998. We had just sent our first and second children off to college that September. It felt like a season of new beginnings, except that my health was failing–at my own doing.

I was overweight. I was huffing and puffing going up and downstairs. I needed painkillers to get to sleep at night because my hips hurt so much. But the worst moment was when I stepped out my back door one day and found myself in a crumpled heap because my knee had given way.

I knew I needed to do something about my health, but I also knew that for some time God had been calling me to a deeper spiritual life with him.

So, I decided to get up a little bit earlier the next morning and walk for about 15 minutes. And while I walked, I would pray.

There was a lot of myness in those beginning days of prayer: my kids, my marriage, my job teaching.

But that all changed one day in the dark hours of the morning when I saw a young man hand over his blanketed baby girl to a daycare worker on the sidewalk of my little town on Main Street.

That little girl then said, “Bye, Daddy. Love you.”

And I knew right then that God had me out on the streets of my town less for the myness of my prayers but more for the needs of others. I prayed for that young man commuting off to work in Reno for a long day–while he left his little one in the hands of workers at the daycare center.

And then I opened up my eyes to the needs of others in my town–business owners on Main Street, loggers heading out into the woods, mill workers heading to the lumber mill, families in their homes.

God changed my life physically through the simple practice of prayerwalking. I lost two dress sizes and all those aches and pains. I also changed emotionally and spiritually . . .and I wrote about all that and more in my book PrayerWalk: Becoming a Woman of Prayer, Strength and Discipline (published in 2001, still in print with WaterBrook/Random House). It is available here: https://www.amazon.com/PrayerWalk-Becoming-Prayer-Strength-Discipline/dp/1578563763/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=PrayerWalk&qid=1599762443&sr=8-1 . . . or on my website: https://www.janetmchenry.com/lookingup/specials

Tomorrow: How YOU can know God’s call on your life.

A former educator, Janet McHenry is a national speaker and the author of 24 books, including the bestselling PrayerWalk. She would love to connect with you: https://www.janetmchenry.com.

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