Recalibrate Your Life: Navigating Transitions with Purpose and Hope by Kenneth Boa & Jenny Abel

Author:Kenneth Boa & Jenny Abel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Aging well;retirement;midlife crisis;transition;seasons of life;change;leaving a legacy;purpose in life;meaning of life;third act;career change;retiree;Christian retirement;elderly years;golden years;purpose after retiring
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2022-11-04T09:14:37+00:00

Keli had homeschooled their three children. When her youngest was in college, she explains, a counselor made it her mission to help Keli become “strong enough to leave” her marriage. Strengthened through a revitalized prayer life (thanks to the counselor), Keli finally stood up to her husband and said enough is enough. She followed God’s leading and applied to a nursing program at age fifty. “It took two painful, confusing years to finalize the divorce and two years of nursing school,” she says. Upon graduating she was still wrestling with feeling like a failure. But she knew she had to do something to support herself. She began attending job workshops and investigating how she might use her nursing degree.

One day she reached out to the ministry Mercy Ships to inquire if they needed any nursing help. They did—immediately. “As soon as I had my vaccinations and visa in hand,” she says, “I was on a plane across the ocean to where no one knew my past, my family, or my ex-husband. I could walk in the joys and demands of each day serving.”

“Living in lies and deception for decades,” Keli says, she was still in shock, but on that ship docked in Togo, “a lot of healing happened”—in her heart and in the physical bodies of those she was serving. She was recalibrating, perhaps without knowing it.

But her journey was far from over. On returning to the United States, Keli moved to be with her aging parents and had difficulty finding a job. The nursing market in her region was flooded, and new graduates were being hired to replace older nurses. She didn’t stand a chance, so she fell back on teaching. A labyrinthine career path ensued. At one point she was putting in over sixty hours of work a week for an annual salary of $30,000.

Then Covid-19 hit. At the time Keli was working with senior citizens, but now no senior groups were meeting. So she applied for—and started—a new job all over again. Now working as director of resident care at an assisted-living facility, she was getting closer to finding her niche, but she still wasn’t there.

“It took seven years of changes to find ‘my place,’ all while in my sixth decade of life and watching peers retire,” Keli says.

She is now a hospice nurse—a job that beautifully illustrates the merging of a God-given calling and a career.

“I have experienced great pain and confusion,” she says, explaining how she knew she’d found her place.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.