This question has been plaguing me lately: What would total acceptance of my calling look like?

I don’t know if I have a neat and succinct answer, but a few things have struck me as I reflected on my calling to be a writer.

I wasted a big portion of my time juggling a stressful job while working on a backup career, while trying to improve my writing skills so I can be a published author.

And that definitely didn’t work out. I burned myself. After all the work I put in, I realized, even if it did work out, I didn’t really want to follow through with this job. I wanted more money and approval from everyone who thinks I’m wasting my life on this silly pursuit of writing. I thought having a back up was responsible when in reality, I was scared to go all-in. Scared to admit I didn’t believe I needed a backup plan. Scared everyone in my life would think I’m either arrogant, delusional or irresponsible enough to think I can make a career out of writing. And I was afraid of waking up in my forties and still working the same entry level jobs I worked in my twenties.

And once I realized all those stupid reasons for pursuing a path that wasn’t right for me, I was so grateful it didn’t work out. At the time, I was devastated and had a complete quarter-life crisis over it. I was furious at myself for thinking I’d be a published author by twenty-five when I was twenty-six and painfully aware of how naïve that had been. I was angry at God for not helping me make this backup career work even though I didn’t even feel like He told me to do it, which is petty. God gives me what I need and not what I want and in this instance He definitely gave me what I needed.

With some distance from that specific time in my life, I realized I needed to get over the fact that not everyone is going to approve of my life choices. Aside from my family, not many people have or will encourage me to keep writing. And that’s going to have to be okay. I know God gave me this gift for a reason, and if He’s the one who put it on my heart then His approval needs to be enough. Which I want to acknowledge is way easier said than done. I think it’s a lifelong struggle for us to see God’s approval as more important than the approval of people around us.

I’ve wrestled with my expectations and I feel at peace about my current and future work situation. If I have to work entry level jobs into my forties, so be it. He also didn’t promise I’d be a published author. But I will try my hardest to pursue that and see what happens. I’m trying to give myself grace. Reminding myself that wanting enough money to make ends meet is not necessarily a bad wish to have, but I can’t let my security or peace rest on how much money I’m making or not making.

Though I’ve worked through a lot of those fears, the one I still struggle mightily with is letting go of needing people to see me as responsible and mature by pursuing a career instead of just a job to pay the bills.

Because no one else sees writing as my calling, it makes me doubt that it truly is from God. I can’t be certain, but I think people are uncomfortable when I share about being a writer because they don’t know what pursuing that dream entails and therefore don’t know what to ask me about it. Or perhaps they feel overly responsible for me and have an irresistible need to control my expectations. For some reason, they assume I don’t know how much hard work and rejection I’ll face, or assume that I’ve haven’t researched publishing. I really wish I could tell these people that it’s not their job to control my expectations. I’ve already gone through the grief and frustration of having my unrealistic expectations demolished. It’s a natural part of life, called maturing and no one who loves me should shield me from it.

I also was unsure if it was my calling because I didn’t have this big ‘ah-ha’ moment. Where God specifically told me writing is my calling. I’ve never believed being passionate about writing meant it’s my calling. Not all our desires are pure and good and come to pass. It’s probably not healthy, but I feel so much and I feel so very deeply. I’ve always been afraid of being controlled by my emotions.

But luckily, God is good and He sent me some encouragement surrounding this matter last year when I was at a coffee shop working on writing exercises. A guy who was meeting with a friend for coffee stopped at my table on his way out. He told me, “I can tell you connect with God through your writing.”

He didn’t say it was a calling from God or anything specific, but that encouragement was exactly what I needed. I wanted to hear my writing was meaningful and God delighted in it from someone who didn’t know me. I love it when God speaks to me through other people. It was exactly what I needed to hear during one of the worst years of my life. I was feeling uncertain and anxious about my writing. Specifically, at that time, I was feeling angsty and guilty for having no interest in writing Christian fiction. The man told me his wife was a writer too and he loved how much joy it brought her. He mentioned he was married like five times in our very short conversation, probably to make it clear he wasn’t hitting on me. (Which still makes me laugh.) It’s hard and so uncomfortable walking up to a stranger and delivering a message from God and I’m so grateful that this man obeyed.

I don’t know specifically how God will provide for me in the future. I don’t know how my calling will play out exactly. He didn’t promise me material success like lots of money and an internationally bestselling book. Expressing to others what I believe my calling is will bring me closer to acceptance. I’m not at a point of total acceptance of my calling. Maybe that doesn’t even exist, maybe I’ll always have moments of doubt and fear. But I do know being bold enough to share the dreams on my heart is a step in the right direction. I hear the call, and I will do my best to answer it. It won’t turn out the way I expect, but it will turn out the way God intended it to, and I can rest in that truth.