By default, I tend to pick up this burden that everything I do must turn into a business, a stream of income. And while I fully acknowledge the importance of having an income and being able to pay the bills, I wonder if sometimes we ignore God’s call on our lives because it doesn’t look like a career.

I have spent the better part of the last fifteen years wrestling through God’s purposes for me, and while I don’t think this is something that is necessarily easily answered nor defined, there’s something to this wrestling. I have never been one satisfied with the idea that we are merely here to take up space on the earth, and—for better or worse—I have never been satisfied with the idea that my purpose is simply to lead an ordinary life and then die.

For some, that is okay. I have talked to many people for whom that is okay. I just have never been one of those people. The need for inspiration and meaning and a larger thread weaving through my ordinary days has always been a part of me.

I guess this is what thinkers call vocation, though I have been one to assume that vocation is merely what you do to pay the bills. And while I believe that God can use me and is using me for His purposes while I wash dishes or teach students how to write five-page essays, I find myself always asking for more—not in the sense that I want an award or accolades. But in the sense that there has always been something stirring in my soul, this need to reach down deeper for something that goes beyond merely existing. And I am beginning to think it is a need for vocation, that is a calling, mission, and purpose . . .

My coach recently shared this quote by author, minister, and theologian Frederick Buechner with me: “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Woah. Deep gladness.

I think part of the wrestling I have experienced over the last decade is due to the fact that I thought I would find that meeting of deep gladness and deep hunger in particular areas. Maybe it would be marriage or motherhood. Maybe it would be in homeschooling or running a business. Maybe it would be in music or cooking or art. And while all of those things are very good and very much shape the person that I am . . . well, how do I put this without sounding ungrateful? They are not where gladness and hunger meet in my world.

Do you ever make a list of the people you know and their skill sets, so that, when you need something, you can reach out to the right person? If I have a serious medical question—like my kid just tripped into the corner of the coffee table and busted his lip (real life, y’all)—I call my aunt, the nurse. “Do you think he needs stitches?” I ask, while texting her a picture. On the other hand, if my computer is giving me all sorts of attitude, I call my dad, the computer guru, who spent hours over his Christmas vacation bringing our desktop computer back to life after a tragic “corrupted file” error. If I’ve got a question about the best new board games or toys, my sister-in-law is wonderfully resourceful. One of my friends is particularly knowledgeable about good places to eat; another about the best chapter books for elementary students; another about how to parent with a clear head and right outlook.

You know what I mean, right? It isn’t that I look for people in my life based on what they can provide me, but we each have something (or things) that we are deeply interested in and knowledgeable about, and since we can’t all be devoted to and passionate about everything, we need other people in our lives—for help with practical needs, for different perspectives, for filling the inevitable gaps of being one, limited person.

I follow a fair number of writers, curriculum developers, and other creatives on the internet—and how lovely it would be, I think, if I could be one of them. Perhaps my vocation could simply be teaching other people to write. Maybe it could be teaching other people how to become successful with their writing. Maybe I could create courses that teach people how to begin and run a small business. How nice it would be if my passion were homeschooling and raising kids, and I could write deeply about the impact of morning time and certain educational methods and spending inordinate amounts of time outdoors. Or maybe I could develop gentle pre-school curriculum. Maybe I could just make cakes or sew something or be a photographer.

I guess I had kind of hoped that I could be the person on your list to call if you just wanted some new recipes (I mean, I do love to cook, so I won’t turn down the chance to talk about what’s happening in my kitchen). Or maybe, if you had a random question about the different figure skating jumps, you would know that I know (I’m guessing that’s not really a question you’d ever have; I’m just dreaming). Maybe even, you’d know me for being a book connoisseur or grammar nerd and reach out to me with your most pressing questions about MLA format.

Yet again, as much as I had thought I’d find the convergence of gladness and hunger in those places, they have never fit right on me. When I have dipped my toes into those pools, it has more been in an attempt to fit a mold that I created for myself, more an attempt to quiet the ever-present questions of vocation in my mind. I don’t discount any of those things and fully believe that each person has their own lane—it’s just that those lanes are not mine.

The road of my life has been one laced with questions and doubts, often overwhelming waves of darkness, a journey that has involved staring sorrow and brokenness dead in the face. But maybe it’s not all for nothing. Maybe, my deep gladness could be found in being able to make space for conversations of sorrow and weariness that are so difficult, so rare, and often so filled with shame. Maybe my deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger could meet in making a space for people who feel shattered, for questions that are almost too preposterous to pose, for places that feel dark and hopeless. I have found that it is in those conversations, in those places and spaces, that God is stirring something in my soul, and although I realize such topics basically put a plaque on my forehead shouting “I am not the fun friend,” I’m here for all of it. Yes, I’ll still take your questions about whatever is a roux or how to cite a website any day, but if you find yourself asking other—harder—questions you never thought you would, I just want you to know that I am listening.