The Thread
What you can't stop caring about is trying
to tell you something
For a long time, I imagined my calling sitting somewhere just beyond my reach… waiting for me to finally hear clearly enough, pray deeply enough, or pay close enough attention.
I listened to people talk about finding their calling as though it were a destination on a map. Once you “arrived”, everything would make sense.
I think we’ve made it far more complicated than it needs to be.
As I’ve reflected on the way my own life unfolded, I’ve noticed something. My work has changed many times, but the things that stir my heart have remained remarkably consistent.
Years ago, I owned a gym. Today, I coach writers, host podcasts, write books, and help people bring their messages into the world. Those roles look very different on paper… and yet the thread has always been there.
I have always cared about helping people notice where they are stuck. I have always been drawn to conversations about growth, purpose, courage, and possibility. I have always wanted people to see themselves the way God sees them. Fitness, faith, writing, health, and life transitions reveal a message beneath the surface that remains surprisingly similar.
Which makes me wonder…
What if calling is not primarily about what you do?
What if it is about what you cannot stop caring about?
What if God places certain burdens, passions, questions, and convictions inside us… and then invites us to spend a lifetime expressing them in creative ways?
A woman whose heart burns for beauty may become a painter. She may become a florist. She may become a photographer. She may design homes, teach art, or simply create spaces where people feel welcomed and seen. The expression looks different from one person to the next… but the message remains.
The same is true for the woman who wants others to feel valued, the man who longs to bring hope, or the friend who cannot stop helping people find their way through hard seasons.
Maybe the calling is not the career… but the message, and the choice lies in the job title we choose to deliver it.
Recently, that thought has given me a surprising amount of freedom: If God called me to be an author, what happens if I stop writing books one day? If He called me to be a coach, what happens when that season ends? Life changes, opportunities change, and seasons change, but the message has followed me everywhere. I’m sure it will continue, in some way, throughout all of my days.
As I work with other women, I’m beginning to notice that calling looks less like finding the perfect role and more like paying attention to the places where compassion rises up, where righteous frustration shows itself, where your heart comes alive, and where you find yourself saying, “Someone needs to say something about this.”
Those moments leave clues… they tell us something about what we were made to carry. The beautiful part is that there are countless ways to carry it.
God, in His creativity, seems perfectly comfortable allowing us to express that message through businesses, books, conversations, ministries, paintings, classrooms, podcasts, gardens, and kitchen tables.
The form changes… but the message remains.
And maybe that is why some people spend years waiting to hear exactly what they are supposed to do… while all along they have known exactly what they are supposed to say.
What message keeps finding its way back to you… no matter how many seasons of life have come and gone?
Be happy 🧡