In Suspense and Incomplete

When I began this blog a little over a year ago, it was intended to be a blog for young single women. As one of those girls who had never been in a relationship, I was tired of people who weren't single telling me, "Someday it'll happen to you. When you least expect it, the perfect guy will find you." Easy for them to say, I thought. I was tired of constantly looking ahead and wishing my life away, waiting for Someday to get here. I wanted to start living in the present, to accept myself for who I was "in suspense and incomplete." I wanted to learn how to live with a "single purpose," of coming to know myself better as a woman of God, so that when Someday comes, I will be ready. I wanted to share that journey with other girls like me, who had maybe been looking for themselves in all the wrong places. I wanted to stop pining for Mr. Right, so I set off on a journey.

The journey I have described in these posts has been my own journey of self-discovery in my singleness. Single with purpose. It was here that I wrote of the spiritual, the quirky, the inspiring, the passionate, the whatever-happened-to-be-on-my-mind-at-the-time. Each post I wrote taught me a little something about myself. Most especially, I came to realize that when I had reached a fork in the road, I heard Jesus whisper to me in the night, "You are mine, first and forever." He asked me to trust Him, so I took His hand. But as I followed Him down the road, I felt my heart breaking in ways I hadn't known possible. I kept looking back at what could have been down the other road, at the dreams that I still held onto. Looking back caused me to stumble and fall into deep holes along the way, but He always came back and picked me up, brushed me off, wiped away my tears. Together, we slowly picked up the pieces of my broken heart and broken dreams. Now, as I described in my previous post, I have found my way back home. He has mended the pieces of my heart and given me new dreams. Now I stand stronger and wiser, a woman rooted deeply in the heart of Christ.

From the beginning, I knew that I wanted to continue writing here only as long as I was single (I didn't want to become a 'Someday it will happen to you!' pep-talker.), but now that I have come to a place of such peace in my vocation, a place where new dreams have come alive in my heart, I find that I cannot continue writing here. It has been a lovely journey, made lovelier by all the positive comments I have received from you lovely readers! But I believe this is where this particular journey ends...the next one is only just beginning.

Off I go...

His Grace is enough. ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

If You Would Come Back Home

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit my alma mater. Though I was only a student there about eight months ago, it feels like a lifetime ago. As I sat in mass over the weekend I looked around and realized that I recognized only a handful of faces. The other hundreds were new, yet very much the same as the ones I knew there. It was as if everything had changed, yet also as if nothing had changed at all. Or maybe it was just that I had changed.

In the reunions I had with friends, in the beauty of the mass, in the buildings I called 'home' for four years I found myself again this weekend. For months now I have felt so stuck and stifled, so lost at home. It has less to do with living at home and working at the same job I've had since I was fifteen and more to do with a sick feeling that I had left a part of myself back at school. In all of the experiences I had in my four years at college, I did a lot of growing up and self-discovering. I began to really become me. But then I grew comfortable, bored. I stopped stretching myself and challenging myself to do more. I found my comfort zone and I stayed there, collecting dust, branching out only when absolutely necessary. By the time I realized what I had done, I tried to break free and get on with my life, but I found that I had forgotten who I was, and who I was becoming. I had forgotten where I came from.

In the past few months, I've been able to see that my parents planted all kinds of seeds of faith in me, but it wasn't until I reached Franciscan and chose to let God nurture them that they really began to bloom. Then when there were so many distractions around me, I tried to ask Him to stop. I told Him that I had had enough growing, that I was content to just stick with what I had. It's like asking the surgeon to stop stitching you up when he's only partially finished: "I can take it from here," you might slur under the anesthesia. Then you'd get up from the table with a gushing, gaping wound in your side, stumble and fall to floor. That is basically what I did.

I think all I really wanted was more time. I wanted more time with my friends, one more round of bowling, one more late night study party at Tim Horton's, one more adventure in the city. This weekend, I didn't exactly get what I would consider my dying wish, but it was definitely my living wish. I wanted to reconnect with the 'home' where I made so many mistakes, where I did not do perhaps as much as I could or should have done to prepare for my future. The place where I realized that my parents are wonderful, but they are only human. The place where I realized that love is not as simple as it seems. The place where I glimpsed all I could be and I tried to hide from it.

I went back to that place. Jesus came into my heart in the Eucharist, Mary held my hand as I walked down memory lane, the Holy Spirit moved in me to forgive and let go of the lingering hurts and regrets. When I drove away from campus yesterday, I was suddenly whole again. I felt complete. Even in the polluted air along the Ohio River, I breathed easier than I had in years. Suddenly, I was back where I left off in my becoming process, almost as if nothing had ever happened to disrupt it. Except that now there was a mysterious, incredible strength inside me that I had not known I could possess. I know that strength comes from God alone. I am certain that even when I was that stubborn patient lying weakly on the floor, oblivious to everything except my own pain, He was mending the pieces with such a gentle hand that I could not feel it.

But I felt it yesterday. I felt it like a warmth all the way through me, a light that I had not seen before, a strength and determination that I had never known. When I pulled into my parents' driveway yesterday, I think I truly came home for the first time. It's good to be back.

"This was my heaven."

Happy feast of Our Lady of Lourdes!

When I spent my semester in Austria, I had the opportunity to serve in the baths at Lourdes for a week long mission trip. It was a huge leap of faith for me, and a pretty last minute decision--a seat with my name on it flew to Greece with most of my friends, so at least I can say 97 euros of me went to Greece, but my heart and soul were in Lourdes, France. And my heart and soul were purchased at a much higher price than 97 euros!

When I first walked across the bridge into the center of Lourdes, I felt that I was walking into heaven. A mass of people was moving toward the grotto with candles held high as they sang "Ave Maria." The statue of Our Lady in the grotto was lit with a soft white-gold light and a tower of candles flickered at her feet. It was breathtakingly beautiful, holy, sacred. I understood what Bernadette had meant when she said of the grotto, "This was my heaven."

Every night there is this candlelit rosary procession which ends with Mass in the grotto. Every hour of the day, the bells in the basilica chime the tune of "Ave Maria." I admit that I had decided to go on that trip due to a simple prompting in my heart. I had never had much of a devotion to Our Lady. But in that week, I realized that she had called me there to serve as her handmaid, to be a light for the sick and the weary pilgrims who sought her help. I learned so much about Our Lady through the prayers, the service, the people. As she told Bernadette, she is the Immaculate Conception, so she never quite struggled with sin the way we do, but she wants to help bring us closer to her Son. I believe that she took my hand that week and she hasn't let go since.

So whether or not you are tight with Our Lady, give her a little shout-out today. She'll work within your heart and make it a heaven for her Son to dwell in. Which is pretty awesome if you ask me.

Prayer to Our Lady of Lourdes

O ever-Immaculate Virgin, Mother of Mercy,

health of the sick, refuge of sinners,

comforter of the afflicted,

you know my wants, my troubles, my sufferings;

look with mercy on me.

By appearing in the Grotto of Lourdes,

you were pleased to make it a privileged sanctuary,

whence you dispense your favors;

and already many sufferers have obtained

the cure of their infirmities, both spiritual and corporal.

I come, therefore, with complete confidence

to implore your maternal intercession.

Obtain, O loving Mother, the grant of my requests.

Through gratitude for your favors,

I will endeavor to imitate your virtues,

that I may one day share your glory. Amen.

Becoming

If you had told me a year ago that I would still be at home seven months after I graduated from college, I would have cried. Well, here I am. And a few days ago when I received the reality check, I admit that the tears came.

I feel as if I am still no closer to figuring out what to do with my life than I was seven months ago, but I know--deep down somewhere--that I am. Though the process is slow and at times painful, I am becoming someone. I am trying to hold onto the good and weed out the bad and the ugly. But the bad and the ugly are not going without putting up a fight. With the grace of God I conquer one obstacle, then find myself faced with another even uglier. A constant battle.

It reminds me of a quote (I think it's a collection of quotes, but they read as one) that a dear friend of mine slipped to me a few years ago when my heart was in turmoil. I think about this quote often when I realize that I have been getting ahead of myself, when I find myself drowning in my weaknesses and failures.

"We are impatient of being on the way to something

And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made

by passing through some stages of instability--

and that may take a very long time...

Ideas mature gradually. Don't try to force them on, as though you could be today what time will make you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing that HIS HAND IS LEADING you surely through the obscurity and the...BECOMING and accept yourself in suspense and incomplete...

Since your activity has to be far-reaching, it must emanate from a heart that has suffered....

We must offer our existence to God, who neither wastes nor spoils, but rather makes use--BETTER than we can ever anticipate--of the struggle in which we are enveloped."

~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin