Leaning In

Happy Feast! Today is Pentecost and that means that the Holy Spirit was the person of the Trinity on the stage during Mass today. Fr. C's homily got me thinking about my own plan. He was talking about how the Apostles received the Holy Spirit just like we have, but the manifestation of the spirit looks completely different in our lives than in theirs. I'm not speaking in tongues, moving the world, etc... He proposed a reason and asked us to think about all of the prayers we've ever prayed. Then take all of the prayers that sound like this "Lord I need help with X," "Please give me Y," and "Remove Z suffering from my life" and place them on one side of the scale. Then on the other side of the scale put every time you've whole-heartedly said "Lord do with me what you will."

This got me thinking about my life and my plan for it. More and more I think that the plan I see for my life is not what the Lord has in store for me. I have had an idea that I am going to be married with children since I was just a small child myself. I've played with baby-dolls, my own little household as pretend play. I started praying for my future husband when I was a teenager - always keeping a look-out for a nice young catholic boy who might be the one who wants to marry me. This thought process has not changed much now that I've entered my thirties. Whenever I'm at Church, I notice if there's a man who's attending and he looks like he's under the age of 40 and over 25. First thing - look to see if he has a ring. If not - maybe that's where the Lord is leading me. This is quite an unhealthy perspective - but good for not thinking that married men could be potential husbands!

Then today Fr. C made a comment about when we pray the  prayer "Lord do with me what you will." He was sure to note that this is quite a scary prayer for us to make. It could take us to a completely different place than we see our plans taking us. He said that for some, our lives might look the very close to what they look like now. For others, things could be completely different.

I don't believe the Lord is calling me to religious life - but more and more I think that marriage is more a missed vocation for me than a fulfilled one. Maybe this is the Devil trying to remove my hope and my joy. Making me feel like I'm not good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, meek enough to be a good wife. Maybe those things are true.

Maybe I won't ever get married, won't ever be a mom to my own kids. The thought combined with looking at my friends who are all married and having lots of cute little kiddos makes me sad. I'm not bitter that they are experiencing all of the things in life that I want to experience. I'm not upset that they aren't also in the middle of the misery that I have. I know they say that "misery loves company" but I don't want everyone to be single. I don't want that to be the focus of our friendships. However, I don't want to be left behind or deemed "unrelatable" because we don't share the same focuses in life or have similar lifestyles.

My biggest fear is not being single my entire life. My biggest fear is loosing my friends because our lives begin to have nothing in common or because they don't know what to say to me when the topic of relationships comes up and that my family will grow further and further apart so that even blood won't keep us together. That is what keeps me up at night and brings tears to my eyes during the most intimate moments with our Lord at Mass. My biggest fear is being single and also being alone for my entire life. This is where I need the Lord to come in and provide his healing bringing me closer to him.

Lord provide me the courage to give over to your will with my whole heart that I may always find my heart resting in your presence.