For a very long time now, I have struggled with my calling to write. Not because I don’t want to write. I love writing fiction and poetry, I love the creative outpouring of the Holy Spirit through my words and ideas.

What I have struggled with is a deep-seated feeling that I should be doing much more besides JUST writing.

I think that issue just presented itself to me fully for the first time just now. For a long time I’d thought that I struggled with writing because I thought I should be doing something INSTEAD of writing. But that’s not it.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve learned a lot about the state of human trafficking in the world, and especially in the United States. That knowledge and research was driven because of my fantasy book series that I’d been working on for a long time, in which God clearly told me that my main character was to be a temple prostitute. When I started researching cultures that used “sacred prostitution” as part of their worship rituals, I actually began to learn about the sex trafficking industry that still plagues the world today, which led into research into labor trafficking and child trafficking as well.

Friends, this world still has a slavery problem, and it’s much larger than a racial divide.

For years, I have followed a bunch of organizations that fight trafficking in various forms. The main ones I follow are right here, in my own state, because why not start in my own backyard, right? Organizations like End Slavery Tennessee, Thistle Farms, Rest Stop Ministries, and while it’s not in my state, it’s a very important one: Polaris Project, which does the bulk of research and legislative work on trafficking in North America.

Today, while engaging in an online conversation about trafficking, I began looking up jobs in organizations that fight trafficking, because I feel like, yeah, writing novels is great, but shouldn’t I be DOING something?

This is where I find my main struggle. As a stay-at-home-mom who has been out of the outside-the-home workforce for over a decade now, I think I’m feeling restless. Like maybe I need to get out from behind the computer and do actual good in the world. What if what I do every day isn’t making a difference? Like, sure, I know that I’m trying to raise my kids to be good human beings who care for others and learn to recognize their own attitudes and thoughts in relation to the world around them, how to not be racist, how to not be inconsiderate, how to love others unconditionally. I know that I am already “in ministry” in my daily life, in interactions with friends and acquaintances, in our conversations and prayers through social media. I know that I have 5 books drafted (though not finished yet) and a poetry book published. But I think—I feel—that there has to be more to me, more to what my writing is supposed to be used for.

So I’m in a period of discernment. As my kids start school this year in a completely different way (our district is going all virtual at least through Labor Day, at which point they will re-assess CDC recommendations), I am also preparing to take another class. One which I hope will help prod me along the path of further discernment. And I understand that discernment isn’t just a one-time thing; rather, it’s a constant. I know that I will and must constantly ask myself, “Am I walking in the path God is preparing before me? Am I making sure I stay in step with the Savior?” But I do feel like there are particular times when discernment holds a greater weight, where the process feels so much larger. That is where I am right now—in a period of restless wonder, pondering next steps and deeper meaning and purpose.

Thoughts for the Journey

Restless Wonder