Called by God, Ordained by the Church

Last week I took United Methodist Polity and it was impossible not to face my lack of progress in the candidacy process. I am MORE than 2/3 done with my seminary education, I will graduate in June, and I cannot get certified. I didn't seek out certification until November of 2007, even though many of my friends started seminary as certified candidates. However, I never anticipated that, 21 months later, I still wouldn't be certified. 

The reasons for this are many--some of them are my fault and some of them are not. (Although, when I cried to my pastor at Trinity yesterday his first words to me were "This is unacceptable." Not the fact that I was crying, but the fact that I've had so much trouble getting people in my conference to pay any attention to me, respond to emails, phone calls, etc) 

I am feeling frustrated. I cry when I think about it. I feel anxious about graduating from seminary and having no job. The lack of progress makes me question my call; I can't help but think that maybe I'm not really called. The Church doesn't really want me. 

BUT, when I said these things to Greta, she told me, "Tiffany, there is a difference between being ordained by the Church and being called by God." And, after being in Israel/Palestine, I have to tell myself that she's right. Regardless of whether or not I can get ordained in my home conference, I know that I am called by God to serve in ministry, whether I am ordained by the Church or not. 

I also take comfort in Psalm 139, which was read in worship this past Sunday: 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down, 

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, 

O Lord, you know it completely. 

You hem me in, behind and before, 

and lay your hand upon me. 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; 

it is so high that I cannot attain it. 

Where can I go from your spirit? 

Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me, 

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,"

even the darkness is not dark to you; 

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; 

that I know very well. 

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret, 

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written 

all the days that were formed for me, 

when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, 

O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them--they are more than the sand;

I come to the end--I am still with you.