Photo by bark

By Eun Joo Angela Ryo

I was only a sophomore in high school, and preaching was one of the activities we had to do during a twelve-week discipleship class at church. I took the assignment quite seriously.  Sure, the sermon wasn’t even mine since the requirement was to take one of my youth pastor’s sermons and preach from it, but I was the one up on the “pulpit”–a holy place where only the ordained ministers and laity could go up.  So, you could imagine how my jaw dropped when he said my name.  I felt it, but he felt it too?  To this day, I do not know what had prompted my overtly sexist pastor to single me out as the one with the gift of preaching, but that became my confirmation from God that I could indeed get excited about a preaching ministry in the future.  Since that first moment in high school when I was convicted of my call as a preacher/pastor, I have come a long way.  Sure, I had to constantly battle with my sense of inadequacy in following my call which had extended itself far beyond just the preaching ministry, but there was much joy, too, in being welcomed into the celebrations, pains and sufferings of people I nurtured and genuinely loved.

Now, as I am about to graduate from seminary this Saturday after three long years in the MDiv program, I am back to thinking about my vocation.  For me, discovering my vocation has been much like scaling the Himalayas of paradox:  It’s choosing and being chosen, individual but also communal, convicted yet full of self-doubt, affirmed of gifts but also weaknesses, and called out of the world into the world.  It’s the epiphany you experience when you suddenly realize the irony that your greatest joy has taken you to the deepest pain and suffering of God’s people.

It scares me that I am still not too sure what my future ministry holds for me.  However, whatever it is, I remind myself that I am called to be faithful.  Just recently, I heard from a friend from my youth group days.  I had lost touch with her, but she had somehow found me on that wonderful social network called Facebook and messaged me. We messaged back and forth about the by-gone days, and then realizing that I was pursuing my ordination, she wrote, “God wants to use you in mighty ways to expand [God’s] kingdom. Now that you are going to get ordained, I wonder what great task [God] is preparing you for.”  Frankly, I used to think so, too.  But something bothered me about what she wrote, and after much thought, I wrote her back this message:  “Honestly, I don’t know where I’ll end up but I guess the where I “end up” part isn’t as important as the journey I’ll take to get there.  I think I’ve stopped praying for God to use me in a ‘mighty way’; I’ll be grateful if I can be used in humble ways.  You know, like the coffee mug I use everyday–all stained brown and icky but it has my fingerprints all over it.  Ah, to be that beat-up coffee cup with God’s fingerprints all over me…! Haha, I can dream a little, can’t I?”  I hope my calling is to become God’s coffee mug (granted God loves coffee as much as I do!)

Eun Joo Angela Ryo immigrated to America from Korea when she was 9. She is a full-time third year MDiv student at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago and a part-time interim coordinator of the Center for Asian American Ministries (CAAM).  Angela is also undergoing the process of pastoral ordination in the Presbyterian Church (USA).