Your Path To Follow - Katharine Drexel - The One Year Women in Christian History Devotional

1858–1955

In May 1889, a Philadephia newspaper ran this headline: Miss Drexel Enters a Catholic Convent—Gives Up Seven Million. In truth, Katharine Drexel, a well-to-do Philadelphia native, didn’t give up her family fortune; she used it for ministry.

Katharine was raised to believe that her family’s wealth should be employed to benefit others. When she was a child, she learned charity from her father and stepmother when they would help people who came to their house. They gave food, clothing, and even money to those who needed it.

Their wealth gave the Drexels the luxury to travel, and when Katharine toured the country, she became aware of the problems of Native Americans. She saw that many of them were uneducated and impoverished. She also had a place in her heart for African Americans and their hardships.

Katharine felt God wanted her to help these specific people. A Catholic, she chose to become a nun. She founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and dedicated her life to serving the populations of the United States that she felt called to serve.

She understood that her calling was not necessarily the calling that God has for everyone, though. “It is a lesson we all need—to let alone the things that do not concern us,” she said. “He has other ways for others to follow Him; all do not go by the same path. It is for each of us to learn the path by which He requires us to follow Him, and to follow Him in that path.”

That’s a very freeing lesson to learn, isn’t it? God does not expect all Christians to take the same path. Some Christians are called to do full-time ministry. Some are called to jobs outside ministry. Some are called to take time away from work to raise a family.

Don’t look at the path that God has set for someone else and assume that path is somehow more godly than yours. Follow the path of service he has set for you.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

Romans 12:6