What would you be willing to give up to follow God’s will for your life?  Your career, your pride, your prestige, your reputation?  We talk so much about vocation and calling, yet how many of us would actually be willing to give everything up in the face of opposition to follow God’s calling?

Last year about this time, I was starting graduate school.  My first class had a graduate student TA, and she was a wonderful TA.  I appreciated her enthusiasm for even the most dull topics, her ability to stay positive when the rest of the students were very negative.  It became clear over the course of the semester that she was a Catholic, and she wasn’t afraid to hide it.  I appreciated that as well, perhaps more so than her abilities as a TA.  After the semester ended, we lost touch over the break, but we happened to be students in the same class the next semester.  Both of us were fairly busy, but we made time to chat on the way back from class, or before class started.  The semester came to a close and we lost touch again, until we happened to meet on the elevator in the Chemistry building one day.  She was nearing the beginning of her third year, and I assumed she was preparing for her comps, and so I asked her when she was taking them.  “I’m actually defending my master’s thesis in August.  I’m leaving and I’m going to join the convent.”  We immediately set up a time to have lunch.

I was proud of my friend for following her calling even when everything around her screamed, “What are you doing?”  Over the next few weeks we talked and had lunch and freaked out together about upcoming defenses and meetings.  But all the while, there was something that drew us together that was bigger than science, bigger than classes – God was so present in all of our conversations, in our freakouts, but most especially in His plans for her life (and mine).

God bulldozed the way for her, from beginning the  application process, to telling her adviser, to explaining to her labmates why she was leaving, to keeping her respect as a scientist, to leaving behind everything she has worked for at MSU.  She was afraid of what people would think when she told them – yet God opened people’s hearts and minds to be receptive to what she said.  Even her colleagues, whom she never expected to be receptive, are planning on coming to the ceremony next week.  She stepped out in faith, and walked off a ledge, telling people why she was leaving, even though she didn’t fully understand it herself.

And so I ask you again – what would you give up to follow God’s calling?  She is giving up her career, her life, her reputation as a scientist, her security – to follow His will.  She has faith, as small as mustard seed, yet God is moving mountains through her.

I am so blessed to have known her here at MSU and I look forward to continuing our friendship while we are in different places.  My biggest regret is that we didn’t connect sooner, but there is a time for everything, a purpose for everything under the sun.

I am so thankful to have known you, and I am so proud of you for following your calling in spite of the huge leap of faith.  Thank you for being an example to so many of us, and for continuing to live out your faith in the time that you have been here.  Blessings to you.