That Person

I struggle in my prayer to give myself, as I truly am, to God.

I'm fairly certain .... well...as certain as one who tries to remain completely open to God's will can be (i.e. not certain at all) that God does not intend for me to approach Him alone for the rest of my life. In other words, I was made for union with man. (The reasons why I have the amount of timid, uncommitted belief I do is a story for some other time.)

So, being made for such union, I frequently find myself asking God how much time I must spend longing for it. I try to gently remind Him ;-) of that for which I was made.

However, God, in His infinite wisdom and perfect love, has me single now.  He is calling me to a life of something else for the time being. I find it hard to embrace big dreams in Him while waiting.

Around the time of graduation, I was preparing to say many, many goodbyes. I was comforted by great peace in a vision of a life in which faithful servants of God continuously come into my path and leave.  They leave because God calls them.  They leave because of their openness to His will in their lives.  They leave because the Father beckons.

As the Kingdom of God is built up around the world through the "yes" of all these people I envisioned walking in and out of each others' lives, there would be joy.  I saw myself going wherever He called as well.

Right now though, I wait.

I love that vision. But I struggle to give myself fully to it.

It is a joyful life, yes, but the good Christian knows that the joy comes only as the fruit of suffering.

I've found myself waiting, unaccountably it seems, for that one person who would always be at my side - the one person who would walk in and not out, whose call was the same as mine.

As I confessed this in prayer to our loving and gently compassionate God, He whispered His response to the silence and stillness of my heart:

That person you are waiting for...it's me. I am the One who will never leave as others journey away.  That person is me.

Gasping for ... Air?

With so many new things happening in my life right now, it is difficult to blog. Not because I don't have time, but because there are so many "blogable" topics that it is hard for me to sit down and focus on just one.

All of the new things have kept me very busy, so when I something profound hits me, it comes unexpectedly and intensely. That is true of this post as well.

It is hard to be out of college.  It is hard to have my life look so different. This is not because I am unhappy, on the contrary, I'm experiencing deep conviction that this is what God wants for my life right now, though I see it as a temporary "now".  This is a time of transition.  I mistakenly believed that the time of transition began in the weeks leading up to graduation and would end when I started teaching.  False.  So when will it end?  When I finally buy a new car? Probably not.  When I've been teaching for a couple months and have settled into a routine? Probably not. No, I'm coming to realize that this transition is likely much bigger than those things.  It is likely to continue for some time.

As I have moved back home and started working, my closest friends have also moved to new things and started new jobs (or grad school).  I have felt very alone.  I'm longing for deep friendship.  I'm longing for a person in whom I can invest time, energy, emotion, and prayer.  I'm looking for someone with whom I can experience deep friendship.  It is a blessing to have someone who can follow all your stories, challenge all your shortcomings, and know that they can make you laugh.  That is a blessing that I had in great abundance in College. It is a blessing I want desperately again. 

This is the perfect time to talk about relying heavily on God, learning to trust and love Him in a way that results in my clear understanding that I need only Him.

The timing is perfect, but the discussion is not going to happen. Not now.  Now there is something that seems to be a bit more pressing.  We were created for communion with God through persons.  We were created to love God in the people around us.  To be a reflection of the relationships that is God, the Trinity. 

God calls us to respond to this reality in different ways.  The priest encounters the communitive nature of God in the people to whom he ministers. The religious sister or monk encounters that community in the other members of the Order.  The husband and wife encounter it in each other and in their children.

The question for me, who believes I am called to the married life, is: how am I to encounter that community now?  What does God want for that part of me that was created for community?

Yesterday, I read an old post Elizabeth had linked. In it, she described the many different phases in her life during which she made a familiar drive to a certain College Campus. Reading it, I was struck be the beauty of the movement of time, the grace which sprinkled every new phase with God. I found myself running, literally out of my seat, looking for some place where I could catch my breath.  I needed a place where I could pause and breathe in God's will for my life.  What I could read in her descriptions was the many different ways she was able to encounter God. 

It leaves me wondering what this time of longing for personal communion, for an encounter with God in a new person, this time of gasping, literally -not for air, but for my breath, for my life, for God - will one day look like. 

Where is this time of transition taking me?

Oh My...

I think it is fair to say that I'm having a minor, internal freak-out.

I've come to recognize that many times when I just seem annoyed, angry, or generally uncomfortable in my own self, there is usually something fairly big going on inside of me that interferes with my ability to control and interpret my emotions.

As I lay in bed last night, I was agitated.  This same thing had occurred for several preceding nights. I kept thinking about how wonderful it would be to go fishing, to be out on the river, in a boat, where my worries and thoughts seem to float peacefully along with the boat, where the gentle rocking back and forth seems to soothe the tension from my soul.

It was at this point that I noticed the recurring symptoms, the familiar inability to find internal peace. Then it hit me.  I'm not going back to Benedictine. I start teaching, actually teaching, very soon.  I have to buy a car. I have to start "the rest of my life." Now. Today. Yesterday. Even the days before that. All of those things I've always dreamed, hoped, and to which I have sensed a calling are bearing down on me suddenly.  Well, not really "suddenly." It has been 23 years in the making.  However, I am feeling it suddenly.

So I will continue into the days, weeks, and months ahead with this understanding in mind.  The understanding that I am afraid and I need not be.  How do I know? For the Bible tells me so. ;-)

A New Perspective

Remember this?

God reminds me time and time again that there is such value and goodness in my current state of life.  He has big plans for me now, not just in the future.  The purpose of my life is not limited to my future vocation - a lesson I am very slow to learn

"Suffering is not sanctified by those who suffer in this life because of wounded pride, envy, jealousy etc. How much suffering we create for ourselves! This cross is not Christ's but comes precisely from being far away from Him. This cross is one's own and it is heavy and fruitless." - In Conversation With God: Advent and Christmas, page 256.

As demonstrated by the link above, there are times when I am burdened by what I do not have.  But how much of this is Christ's cross and how much of it is self-imposed?  I'm not exactly sure.

All I really know is that, far too often, I take this time in my life for granted.  And I shouldn't.  Doing so keeps me far from Him.

What the Future Holds

Sometimes, when I look to the future with great hope in what is to come, it hurts. Some days, firmly believing that I am called to be a wife and a mother while remaining (seemingly) so far from a relationship is painful. It hurts to know that I have to keep waiting.

My life is better when I'm around kids.  I see more meaning and purpose in my life when I'm able to give myself to children. I love being in the home. Being around mothers gives me energy.  I breathe more easily. I love more freely.

For whatever reason, for better or for worse, my life just makes more sense when I'm holding a child.  I understand more of who I am and who I want to be. In those moments, it seems that I am finally able to see in myself some of the good that God sees.

It just fits me. I don't know whether that is good or bad. Some may say it is an emotional response upon which I am placing too much emphasis. Perhaps there is some truth to that. I don't know. What I do know is that one of the hardest realities in my life right now is that I have to graduate soon. And with that, comes the beginning of the rest of my life. Only God knows what is in store. But the sadness, fear, and absolute devastation that accompanies the moment when I look ahead and see just how long I might have to continue waiting is more than I can bear. It makes offering up my sufferings harder. It makes surrender more difficult.

You may have noticed that I changed the name of my blog. I'm certain that this new name will constantly be applicable to my life. Right now, in this situation, the waiting part is a given. The patience part is probably never coming.