Following a Call
By Sr. Alice Gerdeman, CDP
“Have confidence in God; abandon yourself to Divine Providence; let it not be in vain that you are called Sisters of Providence. Cast your cares upon the Lord, and God will support you.” Blessed John Martin Moye, the founder of the Sisters of Divine Providence said these words over two hundred years ago. I’m sure our first sisters found in them, what I find in them today–comfort and challenge. There are times when it feels good to be called “Sister of Providence” and there have been times when that title leads into the great unknown and to adventures I quite probably would never choose for myself.
The first years of life in community were a challenge but they also were a comfort. True, this meant that I had to change my relationship with family and friends but I received a new set of friends, a community of women who held a vision of life and service with which I could identify and which drew me not only to them but to the loving God they serve. I felt with certainty that God needed me. My gifts as teacher were welcomed. There was a spiritual excitement about a new life style and ministry. I couldn’t say “no” to God who seemed to appreciate me and who I knew loved me greatly. In many ways I was secure.
My days in the elementary school classroom were rich and rewarding. It is wonderful to see a child’s face light up as the mystery of reading unravels. It is so good to be the comforting presence of God to a little one, or not so little one, who is in pain. I liked being depended on, being the “wise” one and being able to help others discover their own giftedness and goodness. I was surrounded by women who shared my interest and were ever so willing to mentor me through the hard spots. I thought I pretty well had God’s will for me figured out. I appreciated the gifts of creativity and enthusiasm God gave me in my work and assumed God would want me to be an educator for most of my life. Then a phone call came. Would I consider becoming principal of a school? I was a bit reluctant but it didn’t seem too far fetched. I prayed about it. I loved kids and schools. God would help me figure it all out. God did–again mostly through the guidance of other sisters who were successful school administrators and friends who were figuring out how to deal with the same situations. This was God’s will. God walked with me. Life wasn’t easy but it was rewarding and challenging. I was needed and began to feel secure again.
Another phone call. Would I consider taking a year to study social justice? This wasn’t a completely new idea. I had been doing some work around peace and justice issues more or less as a hobby. Could this be God’s will? It meant leaving a work I loved. I said “yes” and a whole new world opened for me. I found my ideals being challenged and my ideas being stretched. The God I had grown comfortable with was gone. I knew no one and nothing. And beneath all the prodding and pulling God was doing within me there was peace. “Have confidence in God and walk as if you know where you are going,” became my mantra as I found my ways through the streets of New York and the halls of the United Nations, as I climbed the steps of the Capitol to lobby a Senator, or stepped off the plane in Nicaragua. Everything that had been my security was gone. I no longer knew for sure how to do what I was doing. Even my God was no longer familiar. I began to appreciate and to love and be loved by the God of insecurity.
As Providence has led me into the unknown, I have found amazing goodness–even greatness–in people very diverse from myself. I have been privileged to see God in the face of little Regina, a five year old Salvadoran child asking to be tickled. My eyes fill with tears of appreciation as I remember Stephen Aboagye demonstrating his skill as a weaver on a loom hung from a tree near his home in Ghana. I have felt the pride of a young father sharing from his prison cell a beautiful drawing his daughter sent. Walking in a demonstration for justice for welfare moms with women who know the agony of hunger and homelessness and still have faith has been humbling. I have worked with thousands of people who care about truth and justice and with them I know God cares about each of us.
I have also been led through darkness and places of evil. In the concentration camp in Dachau, at Elmina Castle where African people were held before being loaded onto slave ships, and next to the electric chair in Eddyville Penitentiary I sensed an evil that had been present. These are the dramatic times. The stacks of reports that cross my desk are filled with stories of suffering, pain and the inhumanity we are capable of perpetrating against each other. People aren’t always happy to receive the message. But in all of this I have known God. I have been graced to understand, at least most of the time, that God is great and good. God will prevail against evil. We who are called to be Providence for others have only to be faithful, use our skills and talents to the best of our ability. God does the rest and in God’s good time justice and peace will reign.
Sr. Alice Gerdeman is coordinator of the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center in Cincinnati, OH. It is supported by and aids seventeen religious communities in their social justice efforts.
