In the past few weeks I have been spending a considerable amount of time reading, thinking, talking and praying about purpose. As in an individuals life purpose. Their calling. Wanting to understand the concept, as a whole, better. But also to understand my own personal purpose better. I have been able to detect several strong currents flowing through me that lend themselves to some obvious and some not so obvious purposes... but my biggest stumbling block in this self excavation project has been my compulsion to fit all of those separate callings together into one neatly wrapped box. Or perhaps more accurately, a map with several roads that intersect and tie together to end at a destination that encompasses all of them together. And maybe they do, in a way that I just can't see right now. But, right now, I'm struggling with how my purpose as a wife and a mother fit in to my life's purpose of writing and helping hurt people, people with brokenness in their minds and hearts.... specifically adolescent girls and young women.
How does my desire for a large family and a stomach-churningly sweet marriage fit in to this other piece? Does it need to? How does my shared family life fit in to my individual calling which I alone can fulfill? From my limited point of view it seems readily apparent that my family does not exist merely to serve my individual calling... it is so much more than that. And on the flip side my individual calling does not exist merely to serve my family... it, too, is so much more than that. It seems pretty plain and simple, but for some reason I have this nagging feeling that there is a link between them that I am missing. Or perhaps I am simply overwhelmed at the prospect of fulfilling two equally as important callings simultaneously, not to mention the other passions less pressing during this season in my life.
When you think about famous people who have accomplished huge things, people who dedicated their lives to a specific purpose, the purpose itself is almost always the most notable thing about them. Many of these people had families. Families who most people never hear about or bother to learn about. Did these family members all buy in to the one persons purpose or was that simply one of many purposes that existed not only within the family but within the person themselves? Was it simply the only purpose of the group that was external enough to be noticed? Or could it be that marriage and parenting as a purpose is secondary. Not secondary when held up against your other purposes, but secondary in that, the height of accomplishment in marriage or parenting is creating a foundation on which the other members of your family can choose to go out and fulfill their own individual purposes. Do we all play a supporting role to each others purposes, instead of being each others purpose. Or even one of their purposes....
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