Pursuit of a Purpose
It was another Saturday evening and I was headed to Cleveland to put in yet another graveyard shift at the hospital. At this point, I had been a nurse for about 3 months, and every single drive to work I was in tears. This night was no exception.
I hated going to work. Loathed. I was miserable. Everyone told me over and over, “Working is just a part of life, you have to get used to it.” But they weren’t getting it. This couldn’t possibly be my life for the next 40+ years. I was unsettled.
I was confused, and I felt guilty. I had done what everyone was so proud of me for. I finished college. I earned my bachelor’s degree. I was working at an amazing hospital and making great money, yet I was miserable and all I wanted to do was go home. There was something more.
After about three more months of tears, my family told me maybe I should apply to somewhere more local. The night shift was probably getting to me. I obliged. I applied to one of my dream hospitals: a children’s hospital. I was offered a job, and I was so, so thankful. I worked, and I met friends, and I loved my job and my patients. I truly did, yet I still dreaded working. I was still unsettled.
“Is this just the way it is?”
I had done everything everyone expected of me. I’d done everything I’d expected of myself, yet I still felt this churning deep down in my gut that there was something more.
“Why am I miserable?”
About a year and 3,000 miles later after a cross-country move, I found myself at another hospital in Southern California. Still giving it my all, yet still unfulfilled. I wanted to be with my kids. I had this chaos constantly spinning around in my head and I couldn’t find peace. There were countless conversations between Corey and me, many of them involved me crying, begging and pleading for me to be home. I wasn’t sure that was what I was put on this earth to do, but I felt a pull toward being with my kids, and nothing could cause more discord in my mind than my current circumstances. We couldn’t afford what I was so deeply longing for.
I was a travel nurse, and one of my three-month assignments came to an end. The kids and I went back to Ohio for two months to visit, and somehow, we were able to make ends meet while I was off work. Miraculously, month after month, the finances were tight, but the bills were paid and I still wasn’t working. Things were more peaceful at home. Our kids were better behaved, and I was able to help Corey with work. We decided that we would see how this played out, and finally, Corey agreed for me to stop applying for my next nursing assignment.
In those moments, I was met with a subtle peace. I felt slightly more in my element for once. I began to spend more time with God, and I began to hear a familiar voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was one that came from within me. The one that was trying so hard to scream above the noise of the chaos of my life. It was the voice I previously couldn’t hear, but I could feel being displayed through the discontentment I was sensing when the noise of my life was drowning that voice out. That voice was my purpose, and although I couldn’t hear exactly what that voice was saying, it wasn’t as distant anymore. It wasn’t so foreign. It was starting to get a little louder, and with each passing day that I made time to silence the world around me, I started relearning how to hear that voice again.
As the days passed, the demands of our business grew, so I agreed to take on a sales position. I was thankful for the opportunity to make extra income for our family while also helping the business out. I told myself it would be temporary to make it through. Again, I didn’t feel at peace. I started working again and while I quickly excelled, I began to get the feeling that I was veering off course again. I felt restless, and I started losing the voice. This time though, I refused to let that happen.
I found myself driving a lot in between appointments, so I took that time to drive in silence and pray and listen. There seems to be an irony in listening to the silence, but there’s something magical that happens in that place. There’s so much to be heard there. I also began to plug into podcasts about self-discovery, and self-improvement. During those times, I found that the voice was fueled, and it became louder and louder until one day I heard it loud and clear.
“Write again. It’s not supposed to be this way.”
I used to love to write. I had books and books full of writing, but as I got busy in college, became a mom and started my career, my time to write dwindled.
“Write again. It’s not supposed to be this way.”
Because I had nothing to lose, I started writing but I told no one. I felt a sense of satisfaction that I hadn’t felt. I also felt convicted because everyone around me said it, in fact, was supposed to be this way…maybe writing is just an outlet…a pipe dream.
They’d say, “Work hard. Keep your head down. It’s just part of life.”
But that voice told me not to accept that as an answer. So, I began to write again and it fueled me and I knew in fact that it wasn’t supposed to be this way. But how many other people were believing the lie that I believed and continue to suffer in the rat race of life sitting in a seat they were never created to sit in? I became so fueled that my passion and what I felt like was becoming my purpose was pouring out of me.
Finally, I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. I told Corey, and timing wasn’t ideal. He was at one of his unhappiest points in his life. He was working 16+ hour days, grinding it out for our business and feeling burned out. Because of the stress, our marriage was a mess, his temper was short with our kids, and there seemed to be no end in sight. I could sense he was feeling the same disconnect that I was. He was alive but not living.
I couldn’t hold it in. My revelation was changing me from the inside out.
So, I told him…
“It’s not supposed to be this way.”
It wasn’t living, what we were doing. It was surviving if you could even call it that.
Maybe it would better be described as killing ourselves. Killing our marriage. Killing our relationships with our kids.
And it was no one’s fault but our own because no one can hear your voice but you.
It’s not supposed to be this way. We were the ones sitting in seats that we didn’t belong in and it was helping no one. God didn’t create us to work and barely survive and live unfulfilled lives, and that’s what happens when you’re sitting in a seat designed for someone else. It’s a lie that “this is just the way it is,” and there are so many people around us buying into that lie.
That feeling, that discontentment, the discord. That’s you ignoring your God-given purpose whether it be because you’re scared, or you’re living someone else’s dream, or you’re embarrassed, or you’re a people pleaser like I was.
I wanted my family to be proud of me. The only way I knew how to do that at the time was to go to college and get a degree. If my family was pleased with me, I would be pleased with myself.
And becoming successful or going to college isn’t the problem. Ignoring the voice within you in order to please those around you is the problem.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
It’s not.
And now we know, and now we are changing it. And we are determined to spread that message.
It’s not supposed to be this way.
This way: The uneasy feeling, the discord between your head and your heart, the lack of fulfillment. It’s not supposed to be this way, and you can change it. And you’re doing everyone around you a disservice if you don’t because no one is asking you to live half of your potential. If they are, they are poison.
If you feel this way, it’s because you are sitting in a seat that doesn’t belong to you. Not only does that create discontentment for you, but it takes away from the person who was actually designed for that seat.
Some people are created to be entrepreneurs, some are not.
Some are made to be teachers, some are not.
Some are designed to be missionaries, some are not.
Stop sitting in the wrong seat.
You don’t have to suffer through your job for the next 40+ years. You don’t have to go to college. You don’t have to not go to college. You don’t have to do any of it if it doesn’t make you feel at peace.
I said at peace.
I didn’t say happy.
I didn’t say rich.
I didn’t say successful.
I said at peace.
I am learning that true peace comes when we pursue what that small voice is pushing us toward. That small voice is our purpose. That small voice is God.
That doesn’t mean it will be easy. That doesn’t mean it will be comfortable. That doesn’t mean it will always be fun. But the peace that comes with it is worth more than any amount of ease, comfort, or money.
And if your family shames you for it, find a better support system. But my hunch is that when your family sees you truly step into what God is calling you to do; when they see the life in your eyes because you are living on purpose, and when they see you giving 150% instead of your normal 85% because for the first time in years your soul is on fire, they will beam with pride.
We are all walking zombies until we step into what God has designed us to do. And for each of us, it looks different. The only person that can know what your purpose is, is you.
Wake up.
We weren’t sure what our purpose was, but it’s becoming clearer every day:
Silence the noise.
Listen to the voice.
Do what GOD has called you to do.
Not what the people are calling you to do.
Not what the money is calling you to do.
And spend your life encouraging others to do the same.
We will pursue our purpose until the day we die because we know the agonizing feeling of wandering down our own path of our selfish wants and desires for our life. It doesn’t work.
God has given us a mission, and who are we to tell him no?
Do you know your purpose?
Join us if you need encouragement to pursue your purpose.
Join us if you need help discovering your purpose.
Join us.
God has designed you and only you for something very special. He has made a seat that only you can fill. That seat is your purpose.
Are you ready to be in pursuit of a purpose?