Discerment

 I went on a half day discernment retreat this past Saturday.  Though the discernment was about whether I want to continue in the Franciscan path, I was able to think about my vocation.  I am single, been so for most of my life, but I do want to get married and have children.  I was telling my sponsor that weddings don’t make me jealous, what does cause a tingle of envy in me are baby showers.  When I attend baby showers I feel like there’s a joy that I might never experience and sometimes I feel this sadness inside my heart.

My sponsor said that maybe I am called to motherhood and that unsettling feeling is just a push from the Holy Spirit.  I told her my child bearing years are coming-to-a-close and that I might never fulfil that desire.  Then she told me that she didn’t get pregnant until ten years after she was married at the age of forty-three. Having her son was one of the happiest moments of her life especially after waiting for him for so long.  Not wanting to have an only child she and her husband adopted a daughter.  I needed her testimony because when I put limitations on God, He is full of surprises and the stories of others help me see that the world is full of His miracles.

Lately, I have been so focused on my job because it tends to pull all of me towards it.  I mean I work with students that need me and I can get so consumed by that need that I forget there are other areas of my life.  Then with the drastic effects of Covid I feel so utterly guzzled up that I have little energy for anything else.  After a day of hectic hybrid teaching I just want to vegetate in front of my TV to drown my thoughts with doggy smooches - no longer be on call to anyone. Even then, my phone will beep with a message from one or two students who need help.  I didn’t think it would take only two years for me to feel so burned out!

Yet, feeling so utterly consumed by my job, I realize that while I love my job (most days) I would give it up in a minute if I was given the opportunity to be a wife and a mother.  After God granting me what I asked him for, with this job I realized that there might be a another calling for me because deep in me I desire a family of my own.  I am not sure how this will come to fruition, me being such an introvert, but I know that God laughs in the face of impossibility.