As it t’is the season to be in reflection, I have been finding my reflections coming back to my work life often this year.

I have what would be considered a good job, and I am very thankful and grateful to be gainfully employed.  However, I don’t believe that accounting work is where my true passions lie.

So I have been trying to figure out what brings me joy.  What fills me with excitement?  While I haven’t hit on the answer yet, it would seem that something a little more creative than balancing debits and credits is what I am looking for.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the forensic aspects of my accounting role and it can be very exciting when finding the proverbial needle in a haystack on the financial reports. There is also something right in the feeling of tying things out to find everything balances correctly.

But my poor brain keeps screaming at me, “There has got to be something more than this!”  Did I miss my calling completely, or can I still find that calling in my present and future?

This got me to thinking.  Does my calling and passion necessarily have to be fulfilled in the employment area of my life?  Or is it enough to go to work Monday through Friday and do work that I excel in and then spend my off hours following those hopes and dreams that open up more creative avenues for me?

Maybe in this modern-day and age we as a society have put so much emphasis on following our dreams that we have made ourselves discontent to put in an honest day’s work.  I think that I have tricked myself into being dissatisfied.

Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:23-24, NRSV).

God has blessed me with a keen mind for numbers and logic AND a brain that loves to learn and write and study.  I also enjoy crafting and knitting project.  God has blessed me and gifted me in many ways.

Is one gifting better than another?

So perhaps I should not be focusing on what I am not doing and spend a little more time in being grateful for all of the doors that God has opened up for me using my gifts of logic, accounting, and project management skills.  Perhaps work satisfaction doesn’t come from being in the perfect dream life I envision.  Maybe, just maybe, it come from adopting that attitude of gratitude.

So as often happens, when I started this post I was bent on expressing my woes over being “stuck”.  I really never know what directions my words will end up taking me.  That is a gift in itself!  Yahweh seems to have this way of giving me the guidance I need most through my own words!

Our God is a gracious, loving, and merciful God.  He has created each of us for a specific purpose.  His purpose.  Not our purposes.  We need to let go and listen to his voice as he leads us down our paths each day.

So maybe at one point in time I wanted to be a teacher, but life, and God, have taken me down a different road.  Who knows what lies ahead.  We never know when  there will be bumps, bends, twists, or forks in the road of life.  But God does.  He is navigating these road with us, walking with us every step of the way.

Hopefully I can grab hold of this new perspective and run with it.  Coming to work each day and handling each new challenge with focus and determination rather than with discontent.

At the same time, I am also going to grasp onto those creative aspects of my life that are filling me with great joy at this time.  Writing has opened new doors for me.  I have been blessed to write this blog for over a year now and have had one article published in The Mennonite.  New opportunities for using my gifts of teaching may be waiting just around the bend.

This advent the landscape of my life looks vastly different from what it looked like a year ago, and no doubt will look entirely different at this time next year.

God and his love are constant.  No matter where we are on the road of life, he is our constant navigator.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope (Jeremiah 29:11, NRSV).