Questioning Where To Go In Life

Lately I've been contemplating my career path. When I graduated high school, I could think of nothing else to do with my life than become a pastor. The amount of support and advice I've received, especially from my home congregation, was almost overwhelming. Once you announce your intent of becoming a man of the cloth, you become a sort of celebrity in their eyes. People I didn't know, never even spoke to, all of a sudden knew my name and wanted to speak with me on friendly terms. Had I pursued any other path, I'm certain I would've remained nothing more than a blip on their radars.

I was confident of my ability and determination then. When I decided that God was calling me into the ministry, I had no clue how long I'd have to study for it, what all I would have to go through for it, and what trials lay before me during the process. Once I discovered the length of time I would be required to study and part of what I would have to go through in those years, I remained determined. High school hadn't prepared me for this path, and neither did my community college the few months I spent there. How could they? Both were secular schools, and in the four years I spent at my high school I had no idea I would feel that moved to go into the ministry. I hadn't the time to prepare myself for it, not when I was expected to immediately thrust myself into college once I had that high school diploma in hand.

Truth is, I never had any idea what I wanted to do with my life until a month before I graduated from Shawnee Mission North. Before that, I was enrolled at UNL to major in advertising, which I am more than certain now that I would have dropped that major after a semester. My parents had it put into my mind from the moment I could comprehend the communication process that I was going to college and there was no two ways about it. They never guided me in any direction as to what I should do, though. The only guidance they gave me was what they didn't want me to do. My mother always told me that her and my father suffered their government jobs just so I could have a career different from theirs. If either one didn't respect a certain career path, they would shoot the idea down the moment I suggested it. I had to go to college, but they'd be damned if I didn't do something practical.

I felt inspired by God to become a pastor a little over a month before I was to graduate high school. I couldn't bring myself to actually speak to my parents about it because they would lose part of the deposit they had already paid to UNL and it wasn't a practical career path financially. I wrote my mother a note, and while she was actually very pleased about it, I told her that she should tell my father. Days later he told me to keep my mind open to other career paths, that I shouldn't be set in this one quite yet. To this day he has never shown any support of my path into the ministry. I think he's just glad that I'm in college.

I haven't questioned my path into ministry until this semester...not seriously, at least. I've just forged blindly ahead, determined to show that a guy like me was just as worthy of the job as any other guy in the pre-seminary program. My first two years in college, I kept a very respectable GPA and suffered few blows to my determination. Once my junior year began this last Fall, all that changed. In the first month, an uncle, a neighbor, and my one surviving grandfather all died. Depression set in, and my grades reflected it. However, I was determined that I would use the winter break to rejuvinate myself and that I would come back with a positive outlook and the determination to push on. I did, but it lasted only a short while. My productivity outside the classroom is practically non-existent, unless it involves theater. Since this will obviously lead to low grades, my stress level and frustration with myself is at an all time high. I've lost sight of my career goal and all I can see are the classes and the five more years I have to fight through to reach that goal.

I still believe that I God had called me into the ministry three years ago, but what I do question now is my ability to survive the rest of the process. Hell, I'm barely afloat now. I'm sick of the education process. I'm sick of the stress that I can't handle and therefore ignore so I don't become a nervous wreck. After the trainwreck that was my last Hebrew test, I began seriously contemplating leaving Concordia so I could have time to explore what I should do with my life. I'm 21....nearly 22....and I have less of an idea what I want to do in life than what I did at 18.

What's keeping me here is how close I am to my bachelor's degree in communications [with the emphasis in performance arts, no less]. I am one class away from securing that degree. I've come too far to come away with nothing. What's questionable now is whether or not I stick with the pre-seminary program. I am doing well in Greek, or well enough, anyways. Hebrew will be the deciding factor whether my path in pre-sem ends soon or continues on. If I pass this semester, I will continue on. If I fail, I'll drop the program. Unless I want to spend a whole extra year as a part-time student just for Hebrew, failing it now will be the nail in the coffin. I still wouldn't rule out the seminary. It would definitely be an option later on in life. I just wouldn't be on the fast track there anymore.

There are only two things that frighten me about the idea of dropping the pre-sem program. For starters, I have no idea what I would do with a degree in communications that wouldn't feel like slow death. Secondly, I don't know how to tell my parents that I'm even thinking about it. All they see is the financial investment they've put in and how impractical it would be for me to change paths now. Their philosophy [or at least my mother's...my father has never made his philosophy clear to me] is to just suck it up and push on. She has found a way to ignore stress, frustration, and any other emotions that slow a typical person down...she can, and will, forge ahead. I managed to do that before I came to college, but I can't handle it any longer. As alike as my parents and I are on the exterior, on the interior we couldn't be much more different. That's caused much of my stress and frustration in the last few years, which is a whole new story to tell some other time.

I'm tired. Confused. Stressed. Frustrated. Sick of all the shit I've had to drag myself through. I just want to live life again. I want to just worry about getting to work each day, doing my job to deserve the paycheck at the end of the week to pay the bills, and enjoy people. I miss enjoying people. There's too much solidarity in college and I want out.

-Josh