When I answered God’s call on my life, I was called to stop pursuing the extraordinary and called to the ordinary. At the time that I received God’s call, I was in the process of applying to PhD programs in psychology. I was in the waiting period – applications had been submitted, and I was waiting to hear if I would be invited for an interview. During this waiting, my mom had answered a call to return to our home church as the music director. My family is a musical family. My husband and I met playing in a praise band together at church with my parents. Because my mom got the call to return, we started talking about leading worship together. There was so much excitement, and then one of my parents said to me, “Why are you so excited? You’re going to a PhD program in less than a year.” In my heart, I heard “You aren’t a part of this.” And that felt completely wrong.

After prayer and further reflection, the feeling didn’t go away. Soon after, I received phone calls for interviews, and I turned them down. That was the spring of 2013. In the fall of 2015, over two years later, I answered the call to go to seminary graduating in 2021. Now, in 2022, I am at the final step before ordination. When I took the first step to answer the call God put on my life, I had no idea what God had planned. I had no idea that I would be called to go to seminary or into ministry. I just knew that I was called to that church in that moment. I wasn’t called to preach. I wasn’t called to a job. I was called to play music and lead worship with my family.

In comparison, a PhD in psychology is so much more extraordinary, at least in the secular world; playing music with my family was ordinary. By answering my call, I had to give up my extraordinary plans to embrace what I considered ordinary gifts, so that God could do something even more extraordinary in my life for the Lord’s glory.

Ali Toms is a licensed minister at the Chambersburg Church of the Brethren and a psychology professor at Wilson College.