I Hear a Call

Check out this song.  It is one of my most favorite songs.  Emmylou Harris is incredible.  The Calling is a thought-provoking, sweet, funny, little story and I heard this song throughout.  I had my own call when I was in junior high.  It has changed over the years and now isn't the place to talk about it, but let me just say that my own person experiences added to my enjoyment of this book.  I guess that's true for every book and every person!  Ha!  Yeah, I guess it is!   But in this case, I felt it more so, since my call back in junior high was similar to Esta Lee's call here in The Calling.  Esta Lee's calling is something that I never got, though, she is given the gift of healing.  At first I didn't know how to wrap my mind around that.  I never knew anyone with the gift of healing.  I don't know of anyone out there who has the gift of healing.  I mean, we've all seen guys like Benny Hinn claim to be healers and then seen them get exposed as frauds. I thought maybe The Calling was going to be a rip on those folks.  But it turns out that Esta Lee's calling is real.  She is given the power to heal.  When she heals her grandmother's deafness her wayward uncle Peter Earl claims that he has been converted.  He suggests that Esta Lee and her older sister, who is a singer, go on a healing crusade with him.  Together the three of them go off to small churches and hold healing revivals.  Through it all, Esta Lee has her eye on Peter Earl.  She isn't quite so convinced that he has changed his ways.
There are times when Esta Lee believes she isn't qualified to do the Lord's work.  That part I definitely understood.  I always held on to these words, that have been attributed to Mother Teresa, but I am not sure if she is the one who said them, "God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called."  In The Calling, Esta Lee spies a child's Sunday School paper that tells of the story of Balaam's Donkey.  God says to her, "If I can speak through a donkey, I can speak through you."  and that gives her the courage to do what she has to do.
I think I always want to remember that, because most of the time, I do feel like a donkey.  But God can work through donkeys like me, too.