"The Calling to Vocational Ministry"

The past few weeks, I've been seriously considering my "station in life," as a co-worker puts it. By saying that, I mean the current situation in which I find myself in life. Despite the many things I am fortunate enough to have, I find myself dissatisfied. Thinking about when this discontentment began, I can confidently say that it began 9 years, 7 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 18 hours ago, give or take a year and some change. It was then that I resolved to stop going down the path I was going and change tracks. To fill in some detail, I was in college and had been a Christian for around 3 years. I had been awe-struck with the Bible and found myself reading it for hours at a time. Convinced that God had called me out to be a leader in His church, I changed my major to Religion and began pursuing some form of ministry. Biblical Philosophy and Protestant Theology quickly became my favorite areas of study. Missionary work also facinated me, and I took small steps that direction to "test the waters." Two week-long spring break mission trips to Charleston, West Virginia; one summer in Greenville, South Carolina; one summer in Managua, Nicaragua; and one semester in Martinsville, West Virgina later, I still found myself facinated with missions. I loved where I was, what I was doing and the life I was living, so I figured I was on the right track. I loved it so much, that I made a promise to God that I would never work in the secular world again. Even so, I was very careful not to say that I was "called into the ministry." With my love for theology and my desire to live in a foreign culture, I had no desire for the traditional ministry role of pastor, so "calling to vocational ministry" was not an issue. After my semester in West Virgina, I had close to two months before the semester started at college. I was invited by a pastor friend of mine to temporarily serve alongside him as a temporary associate pastor. Excited about the possibilities, I jumped on the opportunity. The experience was a nightmare. Shaken, I resolved to stop doing the things I was doing. With 3 semesters left before I graduated, I figured that I needed to begin looking for a "real" job that would actually pay enough to begin repaying the enormous debt I had accrued in student loans. I tried hard to forget my promise to God and the fulfillment I had experienced in those 3 years. My discontentment began. Now, close to 10 years later, I am looking back to see what happened. My conclusion is this: I stopped pursuing my dreams of being a missionary (ministry) and started living a life of self-proclaimed mediocrity and discontentment. It has been a long 10 years, but I am grateful that God is finally making me come to terms with myself and face my guilty conscience. Yet a big question remains, "Was I ever called to the ministry?" or more appropriately, "Was I called to be a missionary?"