Your Spiritual Calling Is Lifelong Part 3: Midlife
Renewing and Redefining Your Spiritual Calling Midlife
We often describe midlife as a time of crisis. Stereotypes of the midlife crisis are common in our culture. The husband abandoning his family for a younger partner, or the mother who is angry over giving up her own goals for her family are two common themes. Despite the stereotypes, midlife is a great opportunity for both renewing and redefining your spiritual calling.
As midlife occurs before your final stage of life, it becomes a period of reflection regarding your past accomplishments, regrets, and future death. Self-reflection results in greater dedication to care, nurture, and the desire to mentor those around you. The negative side of this deep reflection is a withdraw from the world and your spiritual calling. This withdrawal results in increased self-centeredness. You put your needs and concerns above those around you. This deep selfishness leads to losses in personal productivity, poor relationships with others, and increased isolation.
The spiritual crisis of midlife does not just occur in the soul's context. The crisis encompasses every part of your life. Midlife is a time where every part of your existence is in flux. Your children are launching into independence, while your parents are aging need more help. At the office, you may feel undervalued and unappreciated, regretting your career choice. The physical changes of midlife also take their toll with individuals reporting serious health problems for the first time, as well as a loss in energy and vitality.
The constant state of change forces increased self-reflection and analysis, which precipitates the spiritual crisis. For some, it renews a deep care and desire to leave the world better than they found it. For others, midlife is a time to redefine their spiritual calling and pursue a new path towards fulfillment.
Title: Snow Forest, Author: Duncan_Idaho_2007, Source: Flickr, is licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0
The Crisis of Renewed Spiritual Calling:
Your process of self-reflection may provide an excellent opportunity for you to return to the spiritual calling of your youth. The spiritual crisis experienced in midlife provides an opportunity to clarify what is important to you and redirect your life energies in pursuit of your original calling.
You renew your spiritual call by returning to the values and beliefs you held before life became complicated. What is important to you is clearer. There is also a greater sense of personal responsibility for your spiritual calling. This responsibility provides a sense of control, mastery, and personal empowerment to answer your calling in new ways.
A renewed calling restores passion and vigor to your work and family life. This passion increases productivity. It infuses a sense of meaning and purpose back into your work and family life. Your daily duties at work and home are no longer just necessary, menial tasks, but provide an opportunity for connecting to those around you and God. The key to a renewed spiritual calling is returning to the meaning and purpose you found in your original call to service.
The Crisis of Redefining Your Spiritual Calling:
Your midlife phase of life is also an opportunity to redefine your calling. The constant flux of change in your midlife may be an opportunity to manifest your calling in a new way you never imagined before. Change is always an opportunity for personal growth, and personal growth often requires a redefinition of our life's work.
A redefined spiritual calling may build upon your current skills, talents, and abilities, or it may require reequipping via training, new learning, and continuing education. A redefined calling will emerge much like your initial calling. First, you will experience a gentle nudge in your thoughts and emotions that simply won’t go away. Second, you will see a need and have a desire to meet it. Finally, you prayerfully step out and find opportunities to meet that need.
You may feel directed to pursue a new path, but still approach it with some reservation. After all, God called and equipped you for your original calling. Why would God change it now? The answer is because overtime you, your circumstances, and your life changed!
Remember, your spiritual calling is evolving. Your decisions, lifestyles, opportunities for work, family life, and many other factors redefine your opportunities with passaging time. It is okay for you to redefine the manifestation of your calling as your life and the world changes.
You should be flexible and experiment with new things when redefining your spiritual calling. Unlike a renewed calling, a redefined calling may take longer to emerge. It is likely your new spiritual calling will use prior skills, talents, abilities in an entirely new way. A redefined calling is your opportunity to learn and do something new. It is also an opportunity to discover new sources of motivation and creativity.
A Caution in Renewing and Redefining Your Spiritual Calling in Midlife:
The process of self-reflection and self-analysis in midlife creates the challenge of over, self-analysis. You may become stuck in overthinking and never move to action. Midlife changes in your spiritual calling can be hard to understand, and it can produce a sense of loss and grief. This sense of loss comes from your old self experiencing death as a new part of you emerges. Fear of further loss and attempts at mitigating those losses often accompany this grief.
For a new part of your life to be reborn, and old part of you must die. You rarely view life transitions as a time of grief and loss. Instead, transitions are often approached with anticipation and hope of the future. Even with the hope of new changes, you must also remember that there is loss and grief regarding lost roles, positions, relationships, and status…and that is okay.
Grief and loss have a part in your midlife transition just as much as the renewed vigor, interest, and motivation. Once you understand grief and loss are a part of the midlife spiritual calling; you release the old roles and life that no longer serve you. When you willingly give up what no longer works for you; you are free to serve and care for others.
Spiritual Calling in Mid-Life Example: Kim:
Kim was a 55-year-old happily married mother of three. Kim had spent the last 25 years of her life as a middle school teacher, a job she loved. She treasured inspiring young minds and genuinely enjoyed the vibrant energy of her students. Kim was very successful in her career and enjoyed favor with both her colleagues and the school district administration. The school district officials asked her to apply to be the principal of the school.
Kim initially was excited about the new opportunity. She had a lot of ideals on how to support the students and teachers. Kim also desired to increase family involvement in the education system. Everything pointed to this opportunity as a great career option. Yet Kim didn't feel quite right about the promotion.
The next Sunday, Kim was sitting in church and the pastor made an announcement. The board of directors was looking for a new part-time youth director. Kim’s heartbeat quickened; she loved her church and the youth. However, outside of attending church, she had very little theological training. As both positions required extensive evenings and weekends; Kim knew she couldn’t do both. She felt torn!
Kim went home from church with the opportunity to be youth director, continually popping up in her mind. She couldn't let it go. Kim finally scheduled a meeting with her pastor to discuss the position later that week. Kim expressed her desire to work with the youth, but also share her reservation on her lack of theological training. Her pastor shared that their denomination had a Christian Workers’ Certificate Program through a graduate online program. This program would assist Kim with additional theological training if she remained interested in the position. The prospect of serving and new learning increased Kim’s enthusiasm.
Kim returned home excited about this new opportunity; but she also simultaneously experienced fear of missing out on serving as principal. She experienced a sense of grief and loss as she felt drawn to apply for the youth director’s position.
Kim allowed herself a few days to explore her grief regarding principal’s job and the positive changes she desired to make. Despite her loss, Kim applied for and became the youth director at her church, while continuing her role as a middle school teacher. Kim enrolled in new classes with her church’s seminary. She went on to live a fulfilled life exploring her own spiritual path while serving students and their families in both her school and congregation.
Activity: Reflection Questions on Your Midlife Spiritual Calling:
By: Heath B. Walters, Ph.D.
Copyright © November 3rd, 2022, Heath B. Walters DBA Spiritual Life Resources, All Rights Reserved
Reference
Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood & Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
Zastrow, C.H. & Kirst-Ashman, K. (2010). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole-Cengage Learning.
Case Study Disclaimer
The case studies are purely fictional and do not reflect the experiences of any known person to the author. Any similarities between the case studies and your own life experiences are purely coincidental.