God's plan was bigger than mine

When choosing whether to do something good or something wrong, there is no argument regarding what the right thing is to do.  The struggle comes when we must choose between two good things. For example, in my case as a young adult, I had to make a choice between marriage and the religious life.  Before the question was asked, “Did you ever think about becoming a sister?” I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life.  My plan, and it was my plan, was to go to college, graduate, do mission work for two years, get married and have twelve children.  However, that one question sent me into a tailspin of thoughts, inner arguments, questions, and interior searching.

The questions that surfaced were:  Why me?  Couldn’t I love Jesus and be of service to God’s people and the Church like some of the lay women I knew in my parish?  Couldn’t I become holy in the married life?   Frankly, I never thought of religious life.  My best friend and I often talked about getting married and raising our children together.  We teased the girls who wanted to become nuns. 

My teacher asked that question when I was a senior in high school.  I returned to my teacher and asked why he felt I should be a sister.  He told me that it was because I enjoyed his theology class; I was the first to volunteer for service; and I attended Mass every day. I argued that I didn’t have to be a sister to do these things.  He agreed but encouraged me to be open to other possibilities and so invited me to a religious vocations retreat. During that retreat, I observed the joy of the sisters and enjoyed the quiet time of prayer and reflection.  My the discernment process began.

Discernment is a journey of discovering God’s plans for our life.  I needed someone I trusted to share my soul with and that was my teacher.  He walked the discernment road with me by listening to me, questioning me, challenging me and helping me to sort things out.  As much as I wanted to get married and have many children, I had an inner knowledge that this call to religious life was from God.  Sharing my thoughts, my experiences of consolations and desolations, my dreams and my prayer with my teacher helped me to see God’s desire for me and to trust that God knew the path that was best for me and for others. 

In my prayer, I realized my desire was to serve, to help others and to love.  I loved everyone and enjoyed meeting all kinds of people of different ages, walks of life, and cultures.  Going to Mass and adoration were the highlights of my life.  Whatever path God wanted would be good enough for me.  Weighing the pros and cons came out almost the same.  I could imagine myself happy in both life choices. The true test came with a visit to the sisters who taught me in grammar school.  I went for a weekend Come and See.  When I prayed before the Blessed Sacrament that Saturday, I burst into tears and practically cried the whole weekend.  One of the sisters asked why I was crying.  I told her that God wanted me to be a nun and I wanted to get married.  In the rest of my prayer that weekend and onward, I felt great peace in my decision to be a sister.  Some of my family and friends were encouraging and said that I would make a great sister. That affirmation helped me to make the best decision of my life.  I took the risk and entered the convent.  I never regretted my decision. 

I found that the journey of true discernment involves sharing with a trusted person and or spiritual advisor, praying from the heart, asking God what He desires, listening to one’s inner self manifested in dreams, conversations, and daily choices and being open to God’s plan.