Pastor Matthew Woodley writes:

Two years ago I nearly ditched the pastorate. I started focusing on the negatives of my job: the Saturday-night sermon-anxiety attacks, a pitiful raise, the disintegrating basement tiles in the parsonage. After eight years of frantically meeting needs, pleasing people, and tracking down plant stands for weddings, I could identify only trace elements of spiritual growth in my congregation. A dangerous ice slowly spread throughout my heart—the ice of cynicism, the ice of pastoral sloth, an attitude that didn't care if people changed because, of course, they didn't want to anyway.

God didn't answer my prayer for escape. Instead, God resurrected the call to ministry during our family vacation to Libby, Montana.

While I was reading and praying at an elementary school park, three children with bag lunches, dirty clothes, and dirt-streaked faces plopped themselves on the grass beside me. Before I could object or move, the oldest child launched into a complicated story of family dysfunction: "Hi, my name is Deanna, and I'm 12; my sister is Kristy, and she's 10; and Mikey, my brother—doesn't he look fat in his Lion King T-shirt?—is 6. Actually, though, we all have different dads. My dad is dead; Kristy's dad disappeared; and Mikey's dad beats him up, so our mom is divorcing the creep. My mom and her fiancé, Larry, are at the casino because they need time alone, so she bought us all a barbecue burrito at the Town Pump and told us to stay in the park for two hours. Can we sit by you?"

In order to be polite, I said yes, then asked if they lived in town.

"No," Deanna, the family spokesperson, answered again. "We used to live in town, but my mom lost her job. I don't like living in a tent. By the way, what's your job?"

"Well, I'm a pastor."

After a long silence, she asked, "Mister Pastor, can you tell me something? I've heard stories about Jesus walking around healing people, loving people. Why doesn't he do that anymore?"

I launched into a lecture on the Incarnation. Three children simply stared at me with big, love-hungry eyes. I looked at Deanna and Kristy, with their limp burritos, and fat, little, abused Mikey, with barbecue sauce smeared on his Lion King T-shirt.

I stopped lecturing. With tears welling in my eyes, I said, "Deanna, Kristy, Mikey, let me start over. Do you have any idea how much Jesus loves you right now?"

How did God rebuild my call to ministry? He broke my heart again— with his love for these three children.