Former second lady Karen Pence is on a mission to inspire Americans to recognize God’s calling for their lives and fully trust the Lord. Pence, who authored a new book, “When It’s Your Turn to Serve: Experiencing God’s Grace in His Calling For Your Life,” said the book offers the behind-the-scenes story of some of the work she did while her husband, Mike Pence, was vice president and while he served as governor of Indiana.
However, the book also has a much deeper meaning. She told CBN Digital, “The whole point of the book is to encourage the reader to be willing to step out and step up and serve when they feel God calling them.” Pence said listening to the Lord’s calling has been a critical part of her family’s life and journey, as they depended on God’s guidance to embark on gubernatorial and presidential races, with her husband also following the Lord’s leading to take the vice presidential role.
She said, I want people to question, ‘Is God really calling me to this? Does He really want me to do this?'” Discerning and living out these promptings can be difficult, especially when people resist a particular calling. Pence said some of the choices she initially resisted in the past have ended up proving to be God’s calling for her and her family. For example, Pence recalled her husband being faced years ago with the decision to run for Congress. After losing two previous races, the thought of giving it a third attempt seemed daunting.
Pence said, “We had our family; Mike had his talk radio show, and I had a watercolor business. We were comfortable. We had just built a new home, and life was very good, but then the seat he had run for and lost became open.” She couldn’t imagine taking her three small children to Washington, D.C., at the time, but she and her husband started praying and reading the Bible. Around that time, the family took a trip to a dude ranch in Colorado to weigh the decision, and that’s when clarity set in.
She recalled, “Mike and I took a horseback ride up, and we got off of our horses, and we sat on the side of this bluff, and Mike said, ‘It’s time to make a decision.’ And right then, these two redtail hawks were rising on the wind, and they were just going up and up in the air — and they were not flapping their wings at all.” Mike Pence turned to his wife and remarked the hawks were just like them, and that’s when she decided.
She responded, “Well, you know what? If those two hawks are like us, then I say we do it. But this time, let’s not do it out of ambition; let’s not push our way into this — let’s enter the race.” The couple decided to trust God to “lift” them up, and they’ve since stuck with a “no flapping” mantra in every decision. Rather than scrambling to make things happen for themselves or for the wrong reasons, Pence said they fully trust the Lord.