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

2011: The New Beginning (Watch Out, World)

Happy New Year! I wish you the best in this coming year, and much luck with your resolutions (if you made any). I keep telling people (only half-joking) that my New Year's resolution is to get a life. I suppose technically I mean, get a new life, but anyway, here's what I mean:

As a writer, I often look at things I've worked on for a long time and decide that they're not going where I want them to go. The ideas are right but the execution is off, or the technique is good but the point is unclear. The beauty is that I always have the power to change it: I either take my pen to a fresh page in the notebook, or I open a new Word document and add a 2 at the end of the work's title so I know it's the second draft. There are many new beginnings within the "Creative Writing" folder on my computer, but I never throw my old drafts away. I keep them for reference to remind myself why I changed certain elements and kept others the same. I confess, though, that certain mismatched documents exist solely for experimentation and exercise. The "bestseller" I began in high school is now pages of rambling nonsense that I come back to on occasion when I lack fresh ideas but need to write something. 2010 was one of those mismatched documents.

Last year was probably the most colorful year I can remember. Everything was different, and everything was more difficult than before. I experienced an incredible amount of healing, as well as significant amounts of failures and disappointments that seemed to clash with my accomplishments and joys. Though I am not proud of many things that I could have done differently, I regret nothing. Even my mistakes are there so that I don't have to make them again. And even though I didn't exactly get where I wanted to go, I won't disregard the whole year as worthless. It will just sit in my files as that crazy year when hardly anything fit together, and nothing ever seemed to make much sense.

To celebrate New Year's Eve and bid good riddance to 2010, I went to confession and noon Mass, to wipe my slate clean and find the grace necessary to begin again. At Mass, the reading was the beginning of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without Him, nothing was made that has been made....From his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:1-2, 16-17--full reading John 1:1-18)

I love that John's Gospel reflects back to the book of Genesis, to the beginning of all creation. He makes it clear that Christ was present in that first beginning, but that He comes now as part of the new beginning. The common thread that weaves the old draft with the new. We were created in Him, taught how to live according to the law. But now He has come to transform our stony hearts, to fill us with the fullness of life, and to make us a new creation.

I see my life as a book like the Bible. The last 23 years were my old testament, my growing up as a child of God. Now begins my new testament, the fulfilling of my vocation. I finished school and learned the "law" given by God and written on my heart. The next however many years, starting TODAY will be me actually living what I've learned (and learning more along the way of course!). I am filled with such a sense of hope and peace. I still have no idea where God wants me to go, but now I am MUCH more determined to get there! He has made me a new creation and given me a new year...WATCH OUT, WORLD.

Here's to 2011...may it be your best year yet.

The Next Chapter

As I begin a new chapter in my life, I thought it would only be fitting to give this page a new look. Also, I began this blog as an outlet while I made my journey to embrace my current vocation as a single woman of God. In these last few weeks, I could never think of anything to write here when I sat down to the computer. I realized the reason is that I no longer feel single. I just feel like me. My relationship status no longer defines me. Rather, I am defined by the love that God has written and the story He continues to write in my heart.

With only one more class to go in my college career, I can feel the mystery and almost taste the looming adventure before me. I had three glorious days off school this weekend, and I spent the time catching up on some reading. The books I read were about a girl who was about to graduate from college and did not know what God wanted her to do with her life. She continued to love God and trust in Him, then ended up setting off on what would perhaps be the greatest adventure of her life.

Of course, I have learned my lesson in not comparing my life to those of fictional characters, but there is always a certain amount of truth to be found in fiction (and more so in Christian/inspirational fiction!). The stories lifted my spirits in hope for what is to come. What God has planned for each of us is always much greater than what we have planned for ourselves. We just have to give Him the pen and open the book of our hearts so that He may fill the pages.

[The books I mentioned were part of the Katie Weldon series by Robin Jones Gunn. She also wrote the older Christy Miller series--a favorite of my teenage years! Check it out!]

In This 23rd Beautiful Year

I just had my 23rd birthday. College graduation is in two days. Whenever I imagined these days coming, I assumed there would be a man with me through it all. My mom had me when she was 23. My older sister got married when she was 23. It made sense to me that there would be someone in my life when I was 23, someone who held some small hope or promise for the future.

Thinking along those lines always made my future seem more secure. I lived a normal, straightforward life up until I left for college: stable home life, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, worked part time at the family business. I was heading off to the same Catholic college that my older siblings attended. It only seemed natural that I would find a nice Catholic boy and settle down. Wouldn't that be nice?

I think even then, in a small corner of my heart, I heard God chuckling at my plans.

I feared that chuckle, that other path He was planning for my life. I let satan's lies make me feel insecure about my relationship status, even with my family. I thought there must be something wrong with me since I had never brought a boy home to meet the fam. It wasn't until recently, when God reminded me that I am His, first and forever, I realized that as much as I admire them and wish to be like them, I am not my mom or my sister.

I am me.

I think that was the moment I realized I have no idea who I am. I always focused so much on what I wanted and what I didn't have that I didn't take the opportunity to enjoy what I do have. God has made me uniquely beautiful and He has a specific purpose for me, for my life, for my heart. He has much greater plans than I had for myself. Not to say that they are greater plans than those He has for my mom and my sister--they're just different.

Now I am about to graduate, single, unattached, free as a little bird. I can fly wherever the wind takes me and wherever God wants me.

Ah! what joy and peace!

...and world peace!

Last night, I had the beautiful opportunity to hear a living saint tell her story.

Immaculee Ilibagiza is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide that killed one million people in 1994. Her bestselling book, Left To Tell, tells the story of how she survived, hiding in a bathroom with seven other women for 91 days. At one point during that time, the home she hid in was thoroughly searched. As they searched, she prayed to God for a sign, that if He were really there, the men would not find them. The last room the men went to check was the bathroom. They touched the doorknob, but instead of opening the door, they said to the man of the house, "We trust you," and they left. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is!

Immaculee prayed the rosary for 12 to 13 hours every day. She began to truly pray the prayers from her heart. What was most difficult for her to say was the Our Father. She did not see the Father as the Father of the enemy. But as she continued to pray, she heard God say to her repeatedly, "They are my children too." Slowly, she accepted that, but still, she could not pray with her heart the words, "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Sitting in that bathroom, hungry, weak, and afraid, she thought it impossible to forgive. She tried to leave out those words of the prayer, but soon heard God saying to her, "My Son gave you those words, not man." So she prayed to God that if it were possible to forgive the enemy, to forgive the men who were out there killing her family and her people, who might show up at any time to kill her, He would have to show her how. Finally one day, while meditating on the fifth Sorrowful Mystery, she spoke of how she imagined herself with Jesus, embracing Him on the cross, weeping for Him, letting His blood wash her clean, and she heard, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Naturally, she found herself saying, "How can you? How can you forgive these people as they kill you?" And the answer is there in His final breath, "They know not what they do." Immaculee spoke of her desire to hold on to hate and anger. But God touched her heart, and she allowed His Mercy to wash her clean, to pour through her, so that she could forgive the men who killed her family.

Seriously? Amazing. She now travels around the world, speaking on peace, love, and forgiveness. As Christians, it is our vocation to love! It is often so difficult in this modern world to actually live that love, but she is living, breathing proof that it is possible. With God, anything is possible! It was truly inspiring to see the peace and the freedom she found in forgiveness emanating from her very presence. How much we can learn from her example, by forgiving those who have hurt us in the past, be it family members, ex boyfriends, old friends. Her story shares with us the key to world peace: love and forgiveness! Wouldn't it be beautiful if we, as a nation, could forgive the terrorist attacks of 9/11? If we could forgive the Holocaust? If we could forgive abortionists? If we could forgive murderers and rapists? It is important for us to remember that it is all about love! Immaculee spoke of planting seeds, that we never know what beautiful fruit God will grow from our tiny little seeds of faith. Already she has touched millions of lives with her story! Let us be little sowers of seeds of love!

Oh, there is so much I could say about her! You can be sure I'll mention her in the future, but for now, you can find more information on Immaculee and her story by visiting her website http://www.immaculee.com/, reading her book (which I plan to do over Easter break), and becoming a fan on Facebook! Of course, the best way to learn about her is to follow her example in love and forgiveness!

The Single Purpose

True love. We look for it in all the wrong places. We grow up hearing fairytales, desiring to be the girl who gets the prince. We dream and wait, praying to God to send him now, to end our loneliness and dry our tears, so that we may begin happily ever after. We even let ourselves settle for less than the best because we just get so tired of waiting, and the ache of loneliness becomes unbearable. We ask God, “Well, where is he? I am happy for my friends who have found love, but where is my Prince Charming?” All you ladies who have ever wondered where he is, this blog’s for you. For some of us, it is our vocation right now to be single women of God. Be single with purpose. Stop settling for less than God’s will for you.

I am one of you, and have been my whole life—22 (almost 23) years. Ever since I was a little girl who first believed in fairytales, my greatest desire has been to fall in love, get married, and have a family. So set was I on this desire, that I found myself constantly blurring the line between my dreams and reality. I lived in my own world, where the boy—a friend that I cared deeply about—just needed to grow up and mature a little bit before we could begin our happily ever after. I knew this couldn’t be right, but I held onto the dream, afraid that if I let him go, there’d be no one else. Eventually, I had fallen so far that I was drowning in my dreams. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I said goodbye to my friend. It hurt more than anything I have ever experienced, and I am afraid I hurt him, but I just wasn’t strong enough to be his friend anymore.

After four of the most painful months of my life, God graced me with clarity and understanding. He showed me that the reason I wasn't strong enough was because I was clinging to my own will and relying on my own strength. In the quiet of the night, He—True Love Himself!— whispered to me, “You are Mine.” Suddenly, I saw myself as a five-year-old again, coming home from summer Bible school and telling my mom, “I stood on a rock and I gave my life to Jesus!” I realized in that moment that that is at the center of my very being: I am His, first and forever.

We are His, First and Forever.