Holy Confusion

It has been way too long since I have blogged. Over a month. I suppose I haven't been feeling very creative lately. It's been a number of things-- transitioning, classes, working on my freelance ghostwriting Bible guide (which I finally finished!). A big reason, though, is my growing realization I have less than a year left of childhood. 
Really, I'm still a kid in so many ways. Yes, I'm old enough to drive and join the military and (gasp!) marry and be a mother. But I lost my room key on Sunday. I still like to watch junky TV and look at cute boys and eat ice cream right out of the container. And ten months from now, I'll probably be a pastor. 
Are pastors allowed to find certain guys attractive? (For the record: tall, dark, handsome, facial hair.) Isn't that just being a fisher of men?
Sigh. I have a lot to think about. 
If you asked me to tell you my "call story," I could give a number of defining events, important Bible verses, and nice things people have said to me. But no bush burnt before me. An angel did not touch my lips with hot coals. In short, I don't know if I'm supposed to go into the ministry. And I don't know how well it will work out. Jeremiah was called to ministry and nobody listened to him and he almost got killed. 
I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I would hazard a guess lots of other people don't know what the hell they're doing, either. (Pardon my French. Oh, I guess pastors aren't supposed to say "hell" either unless they're talking about the place. So if you're Methodist-- never.) 
There's that wonderful story about the walk to Emmaus at the end of Luke. Jesus joins two disciples walking to the village of Emmaus after Easter. They are thoroughly confused about Jesus, about the cross, about their place in it all. And Jesus comes to them, gently rebukes them for not believing, and shows them who he really is. But tellingly, "they were kept from recognizing him."
Why? Luke doesn't say. I wonder if that's the point.
One night, the summer before my freshman year of high school, I went for a run. (That was back when I exercised regularly!) I got back and, exhausted, sat before my open window, cool air rushing in, and began reading my Bible. I decided suddenly I wanted to read the entire Bible, one chapter per day, because surely everything about God I could learn from reading Bible if I tried hard enough. I don't regret that failed experiment, although it caused me a lot of heartache as I quickly discovered the vanity, the naiveté and hubris behind that plan. God brought me back, though. He always, always does. 
And he gave me the gift now, five years later, of reading the entire Bible and even writing a book about it without going crazy or losing my faith. 
I wonder if I am learning the same lesson again as I struggle to understand my calling. My calling is not really mine. It belongs first to God, and if God doesn't want to fully reveal that calling to me-- well, he's perfectly within his rights. Even if it annoys the living you-know-what out of me. My calling also belongs to the church universal, the body of Christ, to which I am giving my life by entering ordained ministry. I have had the church recognize in a number of beautiful but ultimately unremarkable ways a calling within me. Or, a better way of putting it: the church calls me to ministry by the power of the Holy Spirit. 
I sense "graces and gifts for ministry," to use the Wesleyan jargon, in me. But I don't know for sure. I really don't know. Maybe I, like those poor confused disciples, am walking the right path with Jesus beside me, my traveling companions at my side, and am simply kept from recognizing, in certainty, this call. 
Maybe God, who knows fully and yet loves en telois (John 13:2)-- to the end, to completion, as much as it possible to love, knows me well enough to do this to me. Certainty might become an idol for me, the way books and academics have been and are for me at certain points. Left in the dark, I have to trust my God and his church. I have to stop navel-gazing and get on my knees. 
I suspect-- like I said before-- everyone feels some uncertainty. Maybe God leaves us in uncertain spots in direct proportion to our hunger for certainty. Then, like the disciples on their walk to Emmaus, we can feast on his bread of life.