In the church, I have to admit that I have been jaded in the past about callings. There have been times in my life where the Bishop barely knows us and has given us callings that I felt were too time intensive, and too much of a sacrifice for our family. But, with that being said, I do have a testimony that everything comes from the Lord for a reason, and I would never turn down a calling.
When my husband was in graduate school, there was a time where I wanted to say no. But, my faith in the church and in my Heavenly Father kept me from doing so. My husband was working (without pay) long hours with a surgeon and traveling an hour one way to that job. And, on top of that, we were expecting our first child any day. We were in a busy inner city ward, that needed a lot of help from those members of the church who had experience. Even though we were young at the time, we had more experience than most of the converts in our ward. During this difficult time, my husband was called to be the Elder’s Quorum president.
This was no ordinary ward either. There were baptisms every week, and multiple confirmations every Sunday. One Sunday, there were so many confirmations, that we did not have a speaker because there was no time left! As I mentioned before, there were a lot of converts and most of them were struggling financially and spiritually. I was already in the Relief Society Presidency. I remember doubting many times and thinking, “Why now?” or “This is too much to ask of us!” I hardly saw my husband as it was, and we were limited to one car at the time. Often, he had to travel to very dangerous neighborhoods to help members out with blessings, food orders, or other problems.
Yet, during this time, we were extremely blessed. I’m so glad that I ignored that feeling to say no to what was being asked of us. I was able to stay home with our child when she was born despite neither of us working. We were able to make ends meet, and never truly struggled. Not to mention, we grew to love that inner city ward that seemed so overwhelming to us at first. We still speak fondly of that time in our lives all the time. The love we had for those members we served was an experience that made both of us grow tremendously. I felt the spirit every Sunday from those dear members sharing their simple testimonies.
Fast forward to today and life is still busy. We now have two small children, a “real” job, and lots of things to keep us busy. Callings are still hard, and time consuming. This past Sunday, our Bishop called us into his office and did something that no other Bishop has ever done. We both already have callings in our current ward. Neither are too time consuming, but the Bishop said that since we are in a small ward, many members have multiple callings. However, he wanted to find out what our home lives and schedules were like before asking us to do another calling. I really appreciated that! It showed that he knew we were faithful members, and doing what was asked of us, yet he still wanted to make sure that what he was feeling was right for us and not going to take away from what is most important: our time with each other.
While I learned from that inner city ward that true blessings can come from never saying no to a calling, I still appreciated his candor and willingness to talk with us about what kind of time commitment we were willing to give before giving us any more to do.
The Lord is all-knowing, and does truly know what is right for us at each time in our lives, and I’m grateful for that.