Called Out by Paula Faris

Author:Paula Faris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Memoir;REL012170;BIO026000
ISBN: 9781493425242
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

An Impostor in New York

Walking from the studio after the interview with Robin, I’m famished and looking for a healthy snack, something like a beef stick and bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. (That’s my version of healthy.) I walk toward a little bodega in Times Square, just down the street from where Good Morning America broadcasts live Monday through Friday. As I do, I consider Robin, how she was all up in her comfort zone before she made the step to GMA. I guess I had been the same in Chicago, though motherhood seemed to be drawing me out of my comfort zone more and more. And as the doors to achieving work–life balance closed in Chicago, doubts set in, and with them the fear.

What if I’m really not good enough to anchor the news desk?

What if I’ve screwed up my marriage and my family beyond repair and I can’t figure out how to fix it?

Am I even worthy of this work, this family?

Robin’s comment—Fear just needs the eye of a needle to get through and it just consumes your very being—how true that had been in my own life. And it had almost disrupted my vocational calling.

I make my way into the bodega, head for the potato chip aisle, and remember how I’d pushed through the fear to get to New York in the first place. Or more accurately, I’d been pushed through the fear by Jan Jeffcoat, my agent’s wife. When I was on the edge of giving up in Chicago, Jan called, said she’d heard I’d considered quitting. She wasn’t having it. As tenacious as she is convincing, she laid into me.

“You can’t quit,” she said. “Remember Jesus’ words from the book of Matthew? ‘You are the light of the world. A city on a hill can’t be hidden.’” Then she added her own spin on the Scriptures: “You don’t light a candle and put it under a bowl. Paula, you can’t hide your God-given talent.”

It was a simple word of encouragement, one I’ll never forget, and it restored some shred of self-confidence, enough to help me push back the voices of fear and take a step out of my comfortable Midwestern life and into something new. So months later, when New York came calling a second time, I was ready.

Ready to step out of my comfort zone and past the fear?

Yes.

Ready to step into a new job, even if I didn’t know whether I could hack it?

Maybe.

Ready to move ahead, even if the path to what I so wanted—a comfortable work-life balance in Chicago—wasn’t readily apparent? I wasn’t thrilled about the possibility of that, but if God opened the doors, I knew I had to listen.

I step to the counter to pay for my snacks and I smile, thinking about the way Jan’s little encouragement pushed me forward, how it had been just what I needed in the moment. And as I turn back toward the studio, I think about all the sacrifices I’ve made to get here—time, presence, and even my own identity.

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