Discerning Your Vocation

From an early age, I wanted to be a lawyer. My inspiration came from watching a TV show about a brilliant attorney who represented wrongly accused clients.

I trained as a criminal lawyer with a law firm and later opened my own practice.

Eventually I found that I needed a part-time job too, so I started working in telemarketing. There I learned the importance of marketing and advocacy in any business endeavor.

When I could not practice law full time, I felt despondent. But as a Black man myself, I remembered Paul Robeson, who renounced his law career because of racism and went on to become a world-renowned bass-baritone singer and an activist. His story inspired me to persevere.

Today, at the age of seventy, I write in various publications and advocate for seniors and marginalized groups. Advocacy gives me purpose and joy, and writing about Christian themes helps me to know about and remain connected to God. Even when our careers don’t go as planned, with God’s help we can discover opportunities to use our skills to be of service in unexpected ways.