Restless spirit

I'm missing a dear friend.  He's closer than a brother, he's hundreds of miles away, and I don't know when I'll next see him.  In fact, given his current vocational discernment, it's likely that he'll join a religious order in the next few years and move out of the country, postponing our next meeting until we get to heaven.

That's a terribly sad truth that I'm trying to grapple with as I simultaneously attempt to figure out my foggy future.  I believe this next year will be my last as a FOCUS missionary.  I love the apostolate and greatly appreciate all it has done for me, and hats off to all those "lifers" who intend to continue this as their permanent vocation.  It is not mine.  I am made for relationship, firstly with my Lord but also within the context of a family.  I can feel God preparing my heart for marriage and having children.  It is nearly impossible for me to be patient in this moment, when all I want to do is dive into that messy and beautiful life.

I struggle with trusting Him, but isn't our God wise?  He gives me no other option but to sink or swim.  I can either melt into a pit of anxiety, trying to control everything in my grasp, or I can allow Him to be the Master Architect of my future.

For the past few weeks, I've chosen the former, and I've been slowly but steadily sinking.  O Lord, give me the strength to choose to trust You.  Because I need to.  Because You have asked me to.

Jesus, I trust in YOU!!!

Back in Champaign

And it feels so good!

I've been experiencing a bout of desolation during these first few days of summer training (read: doubting EVERYTHING about my mission work, competency, and calling; feeling NO joy for this ministry).  I kept asking God why?  Why was He making me *suffer* through these months of service?  Why was I alone?  Why was I distressed and so far from everything I loved when everyone else seemed only too happy at the thought of beginning a second year on campus?

In an epic 2.5 hour stretch of prayer, I poured it all out to God, and He accepted it all without a word.  He was quiet, patient with me, letting me complain and cry and feel sorry for myself.  And then He explained why...

I am not a missionary for my own joy or personal gain, at least not in a literal sense.  I've had high points, low points, and everything in between.  But I'm not here for the job description as written.  Rather, it's what He writes between the lines that matters.

My time on the mission field is a spiritual journey of healing and growth.  As a flawed human, there are many virtues I fail to live out and wounds from my past that still haunt me.  He is God, of course, and could bring me to a state of perfection in a moment.  But He chooses instead to walk beside me, to allow me to grow slowly and painfully at times, to share in every joy and carry me through every trial.

In just one year of mission work, I have been healed in profound ways and have found my identity in Christ.  This is no small matter.  He has made ALL things work together for my good.

As with the paralytic, Jesus is more concerned with matters of the soul than with my physical, external self.  He healed the paralyzed man but only after forgiving his sins.  Our Lord wants to make me whole  in spirit, that I might know Him more fully, love Him and serve Him.  He is leading me on the path to sainthood, and any sufferings I may encounter along the way I now count as joys, for they are nothing compared to the goodness of heaven that is to come.

And so He asks me, "Are you willing to continue on this journey, to pick up your cross once again and follow Me?"  Yes, Lord, I will follow You.  Always.

Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

Divine appointments

I am certain He does this on purpose.  You can't convince me otherwise.  You can't tell me it was just coincidental that a secular Carmelite who prays for religious and young people's vocations just happened to be passing through Nashville, to attend morning Mass at St. Joseph's (at the advice of hotel staff), to see me after Mass and feel that she had to come over and ask how she could pray for me.

Or that the same morning, I would be falling more in love with Jesus, noting the Dominican sisters attending Mass with their students, and having anxiety about my discernment to pursue marriage rather than religious life.

The best part is, this is #2 in a series.  Two years ago, when I was more deeply enmeshed in vocational anxiety (and believed that the only way to pursue holiness and have a truly profound relationship with Jesus was to be a religious sister), I had my first encounter with a secular Carmelite.  Doors began opening before me.  I had no idea you could be married with a family and still be so radically alive in your Faith.

He has filled me with joy in every possible way.  I am in awe of His presence and His plan as it unfolds before me.  I am incomparably and undeservedly blessed.

Count it all as joy

It's hard to believe it was just over a year ago that I graduated from college and set off to Champaign to begin training as a new missionary.  I was scared.  Excited.  Tentative.  Eager to learn all that I could, to soak up knowledge and wisdom from the older, experienced missionaries.  I recall at my interview weekend being told that your first year will transform you.  No, all FOCUS missionaries are not saints, apologists, or evangelists from the cradle.  It's during that year of hardship, trials, and suffering that you learn trust and dependence on Jesus.  "Praise the Lord" isn't necessarily a catchphrase for all of us, at least not from the moment we step onto campus.  But in time you realize that all praise truly is due to Him and that nothing in this life would be possible without Him.

It's glorious to think about returning to Champaign this summer.  Everything about me has changed.  It will be so, so good to see friends again and to share stories of this past year -- how God has worked in our lives; how we have grown in His image.

The funny thing is how quickly the time goes.  Many potential missionaries worry about the two-year commitment.  My advice for them is simple: don't even consider it.  Yes, there were days that seemed to drag on forever, weeks when I felt like it was all I could do to keep pushing forward.  But all of a sudden, it is over, and I wouldn't take it back.  Not for a six-digit salary.  Not for a year of romance.  Not for anything.

"I am His and His only.  The rest has no hold on me.  I can do without all the rest if I have Him." ~Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Thirty pieces

Holy Week, the most anticipated week of the Church year, never disappoints.

I was cast out of my typical mediocre attitude by an understanding of our calling to the cross.  Jesus is asking us to join Him, to lift just a splinter of the wood that He carries for us.  In accepting this suffering, we are truly children of the Father, for God allowed His very Son to bear the suffering of us all.  I cannot conform myself to this age but rather must be transformed by the renewal of my mind.  As Fr. Andrew reminded us in his Holy Thursday homily, our society is about nonconformity, yet we are called to conform ourselves to Christ.  It is then that we become most truly ourselves.  And as St. Irenaeus declared, "The glory of God is man fully alive."

One small blessing from this week: As of Thursday, I had yet to make my Lenten almsgiving.  I knew I could write out a check for any sum of money and give it to a charity or to the parish, but somehow it wasn't meaningful to me. I realized that a greater personal sacrifice would be to give all the loose change I had been collecting over the past year, of which I was very proud.  I dumped it all out and counted it...thirty dollars and some cents.  Judas' thirty pieces of silver!  I am he.  I have betrayed and denied Jesus.  I have failed to trust in His infinite mercy and love.  O Lord, forgive me, your servant.  Bring me back to you!

Settling in

It's taken me seven months to reach the point where it would seem strange to leave.  Prior to this I dreamt of going home, jumping ship, returning to my life of ease and familiarity.  But this weekend I finally felt that, when I am called away from here (as will probably happen in a year's time), it will be difficult to say goodbye.  I understand that this is premature, but I think it is important to note that I am at last putting down roots (or, as any respectable South Dakotan would say, ruts) in a land that I once found foreign and distasteful.

Oh, prairie people.  I love you even if you are three years behind the times.  I love your vast knowledge of farming equipment, livestock handling, and crop maintenance.  I love that you are patient with my ignorance in these areas.  I love your innocence and the fact that you have no real concept of rush hour traffic, pickpockets, airport security, or the ocean.  I love that you are comfortable in your own skin and that you don't think twice when jamming out to country twang or riding your four-wheeler down the street.  Mostly, though, I love that you are fiercely loyal to your family and that, once you have found the pearl of great price, you desire more than anything to share it with those you love the most.

With the end nearly in sight

It’s been a heck of a year.

I’ve learned a heck of a lot.

Life experiences aren’t easily explained through written words.  There’s just no substitute for actually being present in moments of grace, of awareness, of growth.

I never knew how little I trust God, how often I fail to recognize His love, how weak and yet how prideful I am.

I didn’t realize how much I depend on certain comforts – food, home, attention from others – to carry me through difficult times.

I had no idea how attached I was to my ideals and desires for romantic love and partnership, or how much it would hurt to have those attachments stripped away.

I knew that I despised failure, but I didn’t expect to encounter it so frequently or to learn so much from facing it head-on.

In my mind, it doesn’t really matter what else was accomplished this year – I’ll leave that up to God.  But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this short time has changed me.  I have grown so much closer to becoming the person I want to be.  And that alone makes it all worthwhile.