Photo by Lauren Nelson

By Angela Ryo

When I was a high school English teacher, I envied those teachers who were able to retire after teaching at the same school for 20 or 30 years. They were celebrated and thanked for their many years of service. How were they so satisfied to stay in one place? Why couldn’t I be like them? I taught at four different schools during my short six-year career as a high school English teacher. Not only that, I’d served at five different churches as a part-time director of children or youth or English ministry in a span of fifteen years or so. Although I had not gotten fired from any of those places, I felt like I needed a certain mental and spiritual framework to understand my restlessness when it came to work. With constant shift in my work, I felt fragmented at times because of our society’s promotion of loyalty to one career or place of employment.

When I decided to go to seminary, I prayed, “God, this is it! After I graduate from here, please let me find a church I can retire from!” After all, I was well into my late thirties by the time I finished seminary, so I figured it was time for me to “settle down.”

My first call was to Resident Ministry at a wonderful teaching church in Michigan. It was a validated ministry modeled after the medical residency program where I would have to seek another call after two years. Great — Just what I was looking for, I thought to myself. But as my two years came to a close, the church decided to do what they had never done in their fourteen years of Resident Ministry program: They offered me a position! Here was my chance to settle down and continue to build on the work I had done for the last two years! I started to get excited until…another offer came in—a contract position that had the possibility to become permanent. It was an agonizing choice to make, but at the end, I decided to go with the second offer.

Fast forward a year, and here I am getting ready for my installation in a few months. I look back on the countless jobs I have had throughout my lifetime, and I see the hand of God in every single one of them.  Even though the world might describe my work history as “spotty” at best, I cannot help but to be grateful for each and every one of those jobs that taught me important skills and brought special relationships into my life. I may not have mastered the art of staying in one place for too long, but I have certainly learned the art of flexibility, how to hit the ground running, how to work with difficult co-workers, and how to gracefully exit a workplace when it is time to do so. I’ve learned to listen to my heart with greater intensity and find the voice within me that do not always agree with the “settled” ways of the world. When I see my work not as merely a job but a vocation that longs for a journey rather than a destination, my resume of endless pages is transformed into a passport with many stamps from exotic lands.

Palmer J. Parker in his book, Let Your Life Speak writes, “Today I understand vocation quite differently—not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice “out there” calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.”

That is the true work that lies ahead of me. It’ll take many different places, people, and landscapes to get me there. And I’m okay with that.

Angela Ryo currently serves as the Assistant Pastor for Christian Formation at Kirk in the Hills in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She enjoys taking long walks, reading, listening to NPR, and drinking good coffee with friends and strangers alike.