“Which one is Peter?” I wound my way through the cardboard stand-ups depicting the twelve disciples. “I want to get a picture with him. He’s the disciple I relate to the most.”
Peter: emotional, impulsive, easily angered Peter. Yup, that’s the way I’m wired.
At that moment, I was walking-on-water Peter. We were at the Oshkosh Pathfinder Camporee for what was essentially my public debut as the new editor of Guide magazine. God had taken this middle-aged disabled woman in Tennessee and appointed me to be in charge of the magazine that has had more influence on my life than any other periodical. I was overflowing with gratitude for way God had worked in my life. And there at Oshkosh I would experience so many little miracles and divine appointments, that had you put your ear to the door of my hotel room, you might have heard me speaking out loud to my guardian angel as I just could not keep the joy within me contained to thoughts alone.
This was what the rest of my life was going to look like. I was sure of it. Why would I do anything else now that I was working my dream job?
Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly Idaho felt as though it were on the opposite side of the world from those I had loved and cared about my entire life. Loneliness gripped me and sent me into a depression so severe I cried every day for three months straight.
Would I be happier working back east, even if it wasn’t exactly my dream job? I made a short list of three jobs I would be willing to leave Guide for. Then one day a friend emailed to let me know one of those jobs was open. My friend knew nothing of my list, but I had mentioned my homesickness to her. The job was in Maryland, where I had met and married my husband. We had family and friends there. I wouldn’t be as lonely. But I also wouldn’t be the editor of Guide. I read the job description and decided not to apply.
By now I had reached a level of contentedness in my present situation. My daily tears had stopped, and though I was past the elation phase of my Guide editor experience, I was mostly satisfied with the work I was doing. Making a change would be risky. I wouldn’t want to leave what I loved for something unknown. Staying made sense.
But every once in a while I would have a bad day or I might start feeling lonely, and I would check the job board where the job description resided. For five months this went on.
A New Job
Meanwhile my son was about to start his senior year of college. As we video chatted one afternoon, he mentioned what his financial plan looked like for the coming year.
“Whaaaat?” in a Peter-like outburst I let the entire household know of my shock at the numbers. His tuition, which had been fully covered his freshman year, before I voluntarily gave up subsidy benefits for the job with Guide, was now going to be $1,000 per month more than we had paid the previous year. And that was after student loans.
“I could take that job in Maryland,” I offered as we discussed solutions. “It offers tuition subsidy.”
“No, Mom, don’t give up your dream job for me.”
We decided the best solution was to take the extraordinary amount of vacation time I had saved up and use it to work a seasonal retail job. Soon I was burning the candle at both ends. I would get up at 4 a.m., go to my regular job at 6 a.m. and put in nearly a half day before leaving for a 10 a.m. shift at Kohl’s. Or I would start at Kohl’s and then finish my day working at the office until almost bedtime. Once in a while I would take a full day off from the office, but as much as possible, I tried to fit both jobs in. After all, the less vacation time I used, the longer I’d be able to keep this up—at least theoretically. And besides, the weekly magazine still had to be produced on the same schedule. I didn’t have less work, just less time to do it in. I was constantly stressed, and my Peter-like short fuse grew even shorter. All this, and we still didn’t have a plan for how to pay for second semester.
With tears streaming down my face as I sat in the Kohl’s parking lot before going in, I texted my counselor, whom I hadn’t seen since graduating from my pandemic-induced tearful phase. “I’m back to really, really wanting to quit my job,” I told him. “Do you have any appointments tomorrow before I do something rash?”
At my appointment he confirmed that my idea of applying for the job I had been watching for five months was far from rash. I decided to apply. I could always turn an offer down if it didn’t feel like a good fit.
Before being interviewed, I was asked to write a sample piece. It was a different style of writing than I had ever attempted. I was to retell a Bible story for tweens, but without incorporating any fictional elements. The story was to be fresh and bring out spiritual insights that kids would be able to relate to.
Prayerfully I studied the story in the Bible and in Ellen White’s writings. Then, as I kicked off my shoes and settled down on the couch to type, something amazing happened. The story I had heard a million times before became new and exciting. I was overwhelmed with insights that had never occurred to me before. God’s spirit seemed to draw near as I typed.
Before the afternoon was over, my first draft was done. But I didn’t want to leave my spot on the couch or the lesson I had just written behind. I wanted to linger in the presence that seemed to surround me. Putting my shoes back on didn’t feel right, for certainly I was on holy ground. I had never experienced anything like that before. I knew I wanted to experience it again. I wanted the job.
But once the job was mine, I struggled to recreate the experience. My first lessons took weeks, instead of hours, to write. And they still needed heavy revisions. I rewrote them over and over. My mind felt locked. I prayed and prayed, but I just wasn’t hitting the mark.
Slowly I started to feel like I was starting to grasp this new writing and editing style I was being asked to master. But then new directions would be given, and expectations would change. I would find myself floundering again. I loved studying the Bible stories for fresh insights. I loved those moments of inspiration when life lessons seemed to jump out from the text. But I knew I was missing the mark more often than I should.
Lost
“I suspect that after tomorrow I won’t have a job,” I texted my husband the day before my 90-day review. I was right.
We hadn’t moved to Maryland yet, since we had been waiting for school to let out. Now suddenly we were thrown into a season of uncertainty. I had two months of severance. After that we would be living on my husband’s income, which was less than half of what I had been earning. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a financial cliff.
Two months passed. No job offers. Even those who knew me well seemed nervous to hire someone who had held on to her last job for only three months. And besides, many of the jobs I was finding wanted someone with strong social media skills. My professional social media experience was literally as outdated as dial-up Internet.
I cleared out our savings to pay the mortgage, found a food bank, and started cooking creative meals with ingredients we had on hand.
I also spent hours in my closet crying and asking God about His plans. Wouldn’t I have been better off to just stay in Tennessee where housing was cheaper if this was what was going to happen? I had prayed earnestly about leaving Guide, why had He opened that door so wide, just to slam it shut on my face? But even as I asked these questions, I was comforted in knowing that my path had been prayerfully considered. Somehow, as much as this season of uncertainty hurt, it must be part of God’s plan. I held on to promises that our greatest disappointments will become our greatest blessings and that nothing happens to us that doesn’t first pass through the hands of God.
Four months passed. School was about to start. We needed to settle down for the school year. I knew I was barely within the three-year window where I could reactivate my disability benefits without reapplying. This wasn’t what I wanted to do, but maybe living off disability for a couple more years would allow me to go back to school and fulfill my dream of completing a master’s degree. I made the call to Social Security.
Though full-time jobs were eluding me, freelance opportunities seemed to be chasing me down. I was asked to be part of a select group of people to audition for writing some Bible study guides. An agency whose work I have admired and supported my entire adult life asked me to consider writing press releases. And the new Guide editor (who is also the old Guide editor and my mentor), asked me to use my new-found love of writing true-to-life Bible stories to retell some of Jesus’ miracles.
And that’s the assignment I was doing today when I ran into an old friend: Peter the disciple. It was a familiar story: the one where Jesus invites him to be “fisher of men” and right away he leaves his nets behind and follows Jesus.
“He must have known something about Jesus,” I remember mentioning in a Bible discussion group years ago. “I mean, to leave his career behind, certainly Jesus was more than just a stranger on the beach.”
I had been right, but it hadn’t been until today that I learned the rest of the story. And as I reread this account in the Desire of Ages, it felt as if I were reading about myself.
Peter’s Story
The scene opens up with Peter feeling discouraged. It didn’t take long to make a personal connection there. Discouragement has been my primary emotion for four months now. I knew Peter was discouraged due to not catching any fish the night before. But what I didn’t realize is that was only the tip of the iceberg. Here’s the back story. Peter had initially been one of John the Baptist’s disciples. It wasn’t long after John had introduced Jesus as the Messiah and baptized him that John had been arrested by Herod. And it wasn’t long after that when Jesus found Peter fishing and first invited him to be His disciple. Peter had accepted the invitation—but only on a part time basis. He was part-time fisherman and part-time disciple.
Quitting his job as a fisherman probably didn’t make any sense to Peter at the time. After all, we know he was a family man. He had a wife and was probably taking care of his mother-in-law. He may have even had kids (we don’t know). His family relied on him to put food on the table.
Now that he was following Jesus, he had less time for his wage-earning job of catching fish. I imagine he felt much like I did when I tried working at both Guide and Kohl’s, trying to do the same amount of work in less time. Having just returned from what felt like an unsuccessful trip with Jesus, where he witnessed his master get rejected by the people and challenged by the religious leaders, Peter must have felt that he really needed to have an extra-big catch of fish to make up for the nights of fishing he had missed. Instead, he caught nothing.
Now fishing is one of those jobs that allows one’s mind to wander. And it appears that’s exactly what Peter’s mind did that night. He starts putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. John is in jail, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to go well. Jesus isn’t being treated so nicely. Peter has devoted a lot of his time to following these men. Had it all been a waste? And now how is he going to take care of his family?
Morning comes, and Jesus is taking a stroll on the beach. But He isn’t alone. There are crowds of people stalking him. They want to hear His words of wisdom, or perhaps they’re hoping to experience a miracle. They’re pressing in so close that they’re practically pushing Jesus into the water.
And there sits Peter in his boat. If he’s anything like me (and at this point, I think I’ve established that he probably is), he doesn’t want to be around people right now. He just wants to be alone with his thoughts. But here comes this big group of people, and what do you know, Jesus wants to use his boat as a podium.
So now, Peter, who wears his emotions on his sleeve and probably doesn’t want to be around anyone, is suddenly sitting like an elder on the platform with Jesus, while this Man whom Peter is confused about preaches on, get this, peace. Here’s how Ellen White describes it in the Desire of Ages. “Beside the throng on the shores of Gennesaret [another name for the Sea of Galilee], Jesus in His sermon by the sea had other audiences before His mind. Looking down the ages, He saw His faithful ones in prison and judgment hall, in temptation and loneliness and affliction. Every scene of joy and conflict and perplexity was open before Him. In the words spoken to those gathered about Him, He was speaking also to these other souls the very words which would come to them as a message of hope in trial, of comfort in sorrow, and heavenly light in darkness. Through the Holy Spirit, that voice which was speaking from the fisherman’s boat on the Sea of Galilee would be heard speaking peace to human hearts to the close of time.”
Calling
I don’t think it was any accident that Jesus preached this sermon of peace from Peter’s boat on the very morning Peter was so discouraged. In fact, I can’t help but wonder how many times Peter bent his head down to check his net or turned to look out into the sea to hide from the crowd the emotions covering his face.
When Jesus is done speaking to the crowd, He turns to Peter. Then He does what every professional hates: He tells Peter how to do his job! Go back out, now that it’s broad daylight, and just put your net on the other side of the boat.
I can imagine Peter thinking, That’s not how it works! In fact, he doesn’t just think it, he starts to argue. But then the part of him that is inexplicably drawn to this Man takes over. He’s already given up so much to follow Him around. What could it hurt to throw his net on the other side?
I can imagine him thinking, If this doesn’t work, I’m just going to go home and go to bed and forget this whole thing happened.
But it does work! It works better than he could imagine. With two boats nearly sinking because they are so full of fish, Peter runs and falls at Jesus’ feet, grabbing on to him as he cries, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man!”
His words and his body language aren’t matching, but they both make perfect sense. He feels overwhelmed with guilt for the doubt he had been allowing to take over his mind. But even as he feels unworthy to be around Jesus, he fears losing Him and clings to Him so He will stay.
That’s when Jesus repeats his invitation from earlier: “From now on you will fish for people” (NIV).
Suddenly it clicks. Jesus has just demonstrated He can more-than-adequately take care of Peter’s needs. But he wants Peter to fully follow Him. And that’s what Peter does. He turns His back on his career and starts a new chapter in his life as a full-time disciple of Christ.
As I read this story today, it hit me that Jesus did not invite Peter to take on a more financially secure position. He invited Him to take on a risky, scary position, but not without first giving him evidence that he would be taken care of.
And God has given me that same evidence. He hasn’t given me two large boats full of fish (which is fine, I hate the smell of fish), but He has given me a trickle of blessings that have helped us stay afloat even when my income disappeared: the unexpected tax rebate that arrived just as my paycheck stopped, the family who was happy to pay for a place to stay in our home just as we were running dangerously low on food and gas, the surprisingly large Social Security back-pay check that arrived in time to make a downpayment on another year of Christian school.
I don’t know exactly where He’s calling me to, but I can see His footsteps in front of me. So like Peter, I will cling to Him. I’ll let Him take care of my needs. And I’ll follow Him wherever He goes.
Unknown Adventure 