Canadian pastor, speaker, and author of the recent You Want Me to. What? Risking Life Change to Answer God’s Call, Norm Grant, inspires us to step outside the “norm” and experience life change. The author offers us inspirational stories of change and transformation in life, chronicling the leap from the ordinary to the extraordinary, among them his own life’s story and one particularly motivational tale, that of Mary Clark, San Diego mother of seven, devoted wife, and upstanding member of the community. While her life was one of normal success, she felt empty. Upon her husband’s prompting, she began charity drives, collecting clothing, medicine, and shoes for Korean orphans. Finding a sense of fulfillment, she hungered for more, pursuing charitable works with zeal, becoming a recognized humanitarian in San Diego.
While many might consider her works over the first years of her quest for fulfillment extraordinary, she did the unthinkable, making the leap from extraordinary to phenomenal when she heard God call to her during her works in a Tijuana prison, prompting her to spend the rest of her life there, devoted to the inmates. Her quest for spiritual fulfillment led to divorce, then upon her request to become a nun, the Catholic Church rejected her. Not satisfied and refusing to accept defeat when the call of God was so strong in her life, she made her own outfit and became a self-appointed nun, appointed by God rather than the Church.
Mary Clarke would not be deterred by divorce, the Church, or practicality, shutting down her business, selling her house, and moving into a prison cell to continue her work where God needed her; “Her awareness of God’s call and willingness to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit even though it meant risking her own life and doing something that made no sense whatsoever is foundational to right here. right now moments.” Rather than live a life pervaded by the mundane and ordinary, she has changed lives and “impacted eternity.”
By refiguring herself from Mary Clarke into Mother Antonia and pursuing her higher calling, “she’s making the world a better place by answering the cry for someone to do something,” helping others to hear the call of God in their lives by starting a sisterhood for women over forty-five, which has now earned hard-won recognition from the Catholic Church. Mother Antonia has inspired other women to join her in her work, and prompted people all over the world to seize the right here. right now moments, as she has when she answered the call of God with her extraordinary life.
Rather than succumb to such insecurities as we might be too old, too poor, too rich, too small, or any number of excuses that prevent us from responding to the call of God, instead let us be inspired by Norm Grant’s story of Mother Antonia, who proves that the truly phenomenal comes from all backgrounds and in all packages. You Want Me to. What? Risking Life Change to Answer God’s Call, confirms for us that God has a calling and a mission for each of us, a way to lead extraordinary lives and become the change that we want to see in today’s society.
Grant’s evocative rhetoric prompts us to ask ourselves the real questions: “How is God trying to get your attention, what is He calling you to do, and how are you going to respond?”
Find out more about You Want Me to. What? Risking Life Change to Answer God’s Call by visiting http://www.normgrantministries.com