Three adult sisters…living together. We realize we are an oddity. It doesn’t help that all of our first names start with the same letter. For better or for worse, we are grouped together in people’s minds. The Girls. The Sisters. Other women might be offended, but we have learned to embrace it.

If you had asked our 20-year-old selves where we saw ourselves in the future, none of us would have thought that all these years later we would still be single. We assumed we would have homes and families of our own. But though we each wonder at different times exactly how we got to this place in our lives, it is comforting to trust in the goodness and wisdom of our sovereign heavenly Father. While our situation is not what any of us had planned, it is His plan, and it is good.

How did we get here? Writing this article has been a good exercise in looking back and taking stock of God’s many providences that have led each of us to uncover God’s calling in our lives.

Steel-Toed Boots

Lisa spends her workdays in cargo pants and steel-toed boots, and her office is an ambulance. She has been in EMS for almost 24 years, with the last 19 spent working as a paramedic on an ambulance. She loves the work and knows it is her calling.

But she always assumed she would get married and be a stay-at-home mom. The picture she had in her head of how her life would look at age 40-something in no way resembles what that picture is today. Lisa is a career woman, and that is not something she aspired to be. But it has been God’s will for her.

In hindsight, Lisa’s calling as a paramedic was clear from an early age. Her career in emergency medicine began at age 5, after watching the TV show Emergency. She would use Mom’s sewing kit as a medical bag, and a collapsible luggage rack as a stretcher. Armed with her Fisher-Price stethoscope, she would triage her dolls based on the severity of their pretend injuries. She even recruited little sister Lori to manage crowd control of the imaginary spectators.

Being a Christian in EMS is a blessing. Where other medics put their trust in their training and their own lifesaving skills, Lisa is able to entrust her patients to the sovereign Giver and Sustainer of life. She is free to do her best and trust the outcome to the Lord. Where other medics are devastated when they fail to revive a patient who is beyond help, Lisa is able to rest in the fact that she did her best and that God was in control. The final outcome is not determined by human efforts.

In moments of chaos or grief, Psalm 46:10 is an important verse for Lisa. When dealing with gravely ill patients, behaviorally difficult patients, or a distraught family, the simple command to “be still and know that I am God” brings peace and perspective to her situation. She is quick to pray with and for her patients, doing what she can to pass on that peace to the scared or grieving.

The Accidental Designer From a human perspective, Lori seemed to stumble into her career as a graphic designer. Graphic design wasn’t a field she was even aware of when she enrolled in college. Lori simply wanted to take a few art classes while she tried to determine what she wanted to be when she grew up. She didn’t find out until later that non-art students weren’t usually allowed to enroll in those classes. Now it is clear that it was God’s leading, opening doors to the design program and a long career in graphic and web design.

Lori is currently working with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics as the manager of digital and creative marketing. Working for a nonprofit is a refreshing change. Compared to her past corporate jobs, where the pursuit of wealth and advancement were the focus, the NAIA is a better fit. She finds it rewarding to help student-athletes connect with small colleges.

Over the years, in between full-time corporate jobs, Lori has worked as a freelance designer. Most of her clients have been small start-up companies that needed help creating their identity. While it is fun to help people launch their dreams, freelancing is somewhat unstable work. Not knowing where the next project (and the next paycheck) would come from could take its toll.

There were some very lean years, where praying for our daily bread took on a new meaning. Those experiences brought home the fact that every provision comes from God. Just when things looked financially dire, God would provide a way through or a way out, bringing to life Paul’s promise that “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).

Lori still uses her design skills in her off hours to help others, working on projects for local churches, global missions, sanctity-of-life organizations, and other nonprofits.

Fighting Cancer By Day

Liana’s current job is perhaps the furthest departure from her college degree. Shortly after earning her bachelor’s in exercise science, she landed her dream job as an assistant athletic trainer for the Kansas City Wizards professional soccer team. She spent half her days with the Wizards and the other half coaching high school soccer. She was in soccer heaven. (Anyone who knows Liana knows of her love for soccer!)

Today, Liana works as a data coordinator for the clinical trials office at the University of Kansas Cancer Center. She originally started working at the cancer center because it offered the flexibility for her to continue coaching. But when she was asked to move into the clinical trials group, we knew it would be a good fit. Liana is blessed with a thoroughness and an attention to detail that serves her well in data management. (These gifts also help when keeping tabs on the neighbors. Whose car hasn’t been seen in days, whose trash output has increased, who’s not picking up after their dog?…We all agree that her next job should be with the FBI.)

Working in a cancer center—especially in clinical trials where patients are desperate to try one more treatment that might help conquer their disease—can be sad and emotionally exhausting. There are bright spots to Liana’s job, especially when the patient is a believer and can rest in the hope and security of eternal life. She also enjoys her coworkers, who are her fellow warriors in the fight against cancer. Unfortunately, many of those coworkers have no firm spiritual foundation to see them through the difficult losses.

Liana clings to Psalm 139: 7–10 to see her through the hard times: “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.”

The soccer pitch is still Liana’s mission field. She volunteers her weeknights and Saturdays to coaching with one of the local youth soccer clubs. She invests her time and energy in the lives of young people who quickly grow to love her. Some of the kids she meets through soccer are from single-parent homes and are blessed by having another adult take an interest in their lives.

Finding Balance

For some, their calling is a lifelong pursuit. For others, it is confirmed by looking at the here and now and seeing God’s leading along the way. That’s where we fall, in the look-and-see category. And, when looking back, we all see God’s provision in the work He has given us to do. We know that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Although our work situations are different, some things hold true for all three of us. Now more than ever, we feel the lack of spiritual support at work. In that respect, it is a blessing to share a home with others who hold similar values and goals. Home can be a refuge from the temptations and the spiritual battles of the world.

Being career women can become all-consuming if you let it. With so much of one’s waking hours devoted to a job, it would be easy to let work define oneself. We are very thankful for friends at church who love us and pray for us and let us be a part of their family lives.

One of the blessings of being unattached and relatively free is the ability to travel. All three of us love to explore new places. Every year we take a sister trip that involves hiking. We usually go west so we can end our trip with our other favorite pastime—spending time with our nephews and nieces in Seattle. Being an auntie is wonderful, and we are grateful for the freedom to dote on our littlest family members.

Still Trusting

What is next? We don’t know. But like our 20-year-old selves, we are trusting our futures to the safekeeping of our heavenly Father. We will continue to make plans but entrust them to God to direct or correct as He sees fit.

Lisa, Lori, and Liana Hemphill are life-long members of the Shawnee, Kan., RPC.