VOICE OF TRUTH FOR TODAY
From Certainty to Faith
People might think we made one enormous leap of faith when we left successful academic careers for missions. We were two single women—doctors in our fields, financially independent, enjoying our universities, friendships, and lives. Walking away from that certainty for “something else” was certainly dramatic. But it wasn’t one giant leap.
It was more like moving one inch at a time from certainty toward faith.
For Jennie, those inches began beneath her evangelist parents’ ministry tent, where she watched her father lift a frail young girl from a chair and witnessed Jesus perform a miracle. One little girl walked away with new legs. Another—Jennie—walked away with a calling to bring healing and hope to a hurting world.
That calling eventually took her to refugee camps in Hong Kong, Mother Teresa’s work in Calcutta, Siberia, Russia, China, and ultimately into HIV/AIDS ministry.
For Marcia, the seed was planted as a toothless kindergartener listening to a missionary describe serving disabled children in Haiti. Years later, she expected to serve as a college professor until she stood in Botswana and saw a sign reading, “Youth Project, Coffins for Sale.”
Suddenly, her education, public-health training, and missionary heart collided into purpose. We don’t believe we left “the world” to enter “full-time Christian ministry.” Every profession and workplace can be ministry. Your home, education, profession, relationships, and life experiences can become platforms for demonstrating God’s love, pursuing justice, and bringing hope. Our lives prepared us for our assignments.
Yours has prepared you too.
Hebrews 11:1 calls faith “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV).
You don’t have to see the entire road. Take the next inch. Leave a little certainty behind. And step toward faith.
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Excerpt from Voice of Truth Magazine
“Courage in Action” by Drs. Jennie Cerullo and Marcia Ball