April’s vocation story

April’s vocation story: The Single Life??!!

I am called to the single life.

Often coined “the generous single life,” it’s a vocation I would never have chosen for myself in a million years. Yup – not in a million years. I thought it was weird. But since I’ve come to embrace my vocation, I can’t think of another way the Lord could give me more joy. I believe my heart has been formed to love the best in just this way.

Let me give you a little history. But it’s certainly longer than your average blogpost, so it may take a few minutes longer than usual.

I always remember having a relationship with Jesus. Looking back, I wouldn’t consider it a terribly deep one growing up, but I remember deeply trusting and praying to Him. He was my go-to, my safe haven. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be bereft of a relationship with Christ. Lonely and empty, I was sure.

And I always wanted to get married. Always. And I’d have to go way back to remember a time when I wasn’t thinking about boys, or wasn’t distracted by them. Boy-crazy. In short, my number one dream was to have a grand love story and have the best husband ever (I didn’t really consider what it meant to be a woman who could be a good wife; I just had a lot of qualifications for him.) I read a lot of love stories and watched a lot of romantic movies (bad idea), and this only made me want my own love story even more.

I didn’t think to consult Jesus as to whether or not that was His will for me; I just assumed He wanted marriage for me as much as I did. Doesn’t it say in Psalm 37:4, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”? I was just sure this was the reigning desire of my heart, so God had no other choice but to give it to me.

It came as quite a shock when, late in my teen years at a Steubenville youth conference, I had an encounter with Christ. It was deeply moving, something that shifted my soul; encounters with Jesus can’t be anything except moving. It was a monumental episode in my spiritual life that brought what had previously been black and white into color. Most importantly, I began to have a deep sense that God had something different for me. Intuitively, I knew that meant marriage was not in the mix.

And that freaked me out. Freaked me out and shook me to the core.

And it’s not like I could pretend it didn’t happen because I knew what I heard in my heart, and God doesn’t say things He doesn’t mean. I tried to enjoy the rest of the conference with abandon, but I remained distracted nonetheless. How do I even move forward. ? Perhaps I thought I could hide from it, but I know I didn’t breathe a word of it until I could handle actually considering the possibility of “not-marriage” years later. (Notice, any other vocation was simply “not-marriage.” In my mind, all things were measured by the marriage standard.)

Still shaken up, I put that experience into the cellar of my memory and unconsciously decided just to get back to life as a normal high schooler. I graduated that next year and then traveled with NET Ministries (out of St. Paul, MN). I can’t begin to articulate how grateful I am for what NET provided for me. They taught me how to establish a prayer life, how to better love Christ and His Church, how to better love and work with people, how to approach difficult social situations, and gave me the opportunity to establish relationships with other Catholics around the nation with whom I still remain in contact. Thank you, NET!

The following year, I went to college first at St. Mary’s in Winona, MN, and the next year transferred to Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. (Unlike popular opinion, it’s not like a youth conference all year, but it is a place very much alive with the Holy Spirit). To Franciscan, I also owe much; almost too much to name. I continue to reap the fruits of my time there. In 2006, I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts in Theology and was eager for my next life phase. I was ready for new experiences, and was sure that somewhere along the way I would meet the man of my dreams.

I dated some great guys right after high school, in college, and afterwards, but, as you can gather, it never worked out. I assumed it was because they weren’t “the one.” Every now and then I would go back to how God had spoken, but without embracing the idea of not getting married, I was just grasping to make it sensible. What exactly did it mean? I certainly didn’t want to acknowledge yet that it definitively meant I wouldn’t get married. That was just too much for me. Instead, I flirted with the idea of His plan being a facet of not getting married, like not getting married until I was older. I would get even better at coming up with similar options later on.

There finally came a time after college when I started thinking seriously about what God has said all those years ago and what it meant. That experience was still so alive to me, and I knew He meant what He had said in my heart. I fervently hoped to meet a wonderful man I could marry, but I had to deal with the reality that God doesn’t flippantly reveal things to our hearts. So, I just gave it to Him and waited for guidance.

One day, it came. It surprised me, because it was what seemed like a simple thought, but I knew better. I didn’t come up with this thought and it stuck with me, seeming to take on a life of its own: remaining single. What?!? And I’m pretty sure I said aloud, “Single??!!”

The initial shock of it slowly died down, and I was able to utter the idea of it to a friend of mine. Gradually, very gradually, the single life started to make sense to me, and I let it become a viable option. While it seemed strange in some ways, it made sense to me in others. I wanted to be married and have a husband, but I didn’t desire children and my own family (though I very much enjoy children). I’d seen a lot of great families, but I didn’t desire the role of primary caregiver and the domestic life. And I’d seen some great examples of faithful religious women, but I’d never desired to live as they did.

As I prayed over the next weeks and months, I was getting into the habit of relinquishing control over my vocation and letting the Lord show me the way He had created me to love. I was so used to the idea of my vocation to marriage that I had to relearn how to think about my future. If I didn’t get married (which was really sounding like more of a reality), what would I do with my life?

I’d never been close to anyone who discerned the single life as their vocation, so the only way I knew how to go about more deeply understanding and accepting this vocation was to grow in the spiritual life: prayer, sacraments, good fellowship, eventually finding a spiritual director.

This was a terrifically challenging time for me. To release the grip my heart had around marriage, to let go of my dreams for a husband to share my life with, felt like an impossible task. I look back and see it as a kind of vocational rehabilitation. My way of thinking had to change completely because assuming marriage was a lifelong habit. I really had to uproot what had always been there, and it was a new pain that broke my heart. And yet, the same pain that broke it would give my heart new life as I came to understand my vocation.

It can take us a while to really let God have our hearts, and that was certainly the case for me during this difficult time. I halfway surrendered my idea of marriage, but I still attempted to find ways in which my life could be different, like He said, and still include marriage; a kind of pseudo vocation. And I no longer flirted with options; I was serious about one of them working out. Maybe a married traveling missionary? That’s different. Maybe marrying a man who is fatally ill, but with whom I can enjoy a few years of marriage? (How noble of me.) That’s different, right Lord?

I thought my options were fairly creative, and I really thought He would take me up on one of them. I was willing to live for Him, so I thought it wasn’t that much to ask.

The exact time is rather fuzzy, but it took me a couple of years for the dust to settle in my heart and I could allow the Lord to help me find peace in my vocation. I eventually let go of those “options” I presented to the Lord and just let His grace work as it needed to. To refocus my thinking was very difficult, and it took a great deal of time, prayer, and grace for it to happen. When I would try to focus on marriage again, I would feel a deep unrest and agitation. Setting my sights again on single-heartedly serving the Lord as a single woman, however He would ask me to, brought me once again to a place of peace. There were times when I didn’t want that peace to be there because I didn’t want the vocation, but those times began to occur less and less often. Joy in my vocation began to be tangible and I could see the wisdom in the Lord’s will.

As I grew to accept my vocation, I realized how much it really fit me. Being single leaves me very free to be able to serve God in ways that I couldn’t as a married woman or as a religious. I can be very available for whatever it is that God wants me to do, however He wants me to serve in His Church. Once I moved back home, I started by being available to my parents, siblings, and their growing families. I tried to offer my talents and time wherever they were needed, all while maintaining rooted in my Catholic life of prayer and sacraments. Now that I was more comfortable with the single vocation, I knew I only needed to make myself available to God in the day-to-day and He would let me know my next step.

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In the spring of 2012, I began to hear a call to start a women’s household with a friend of mine, Kristin Molitor. This wouldn’t be a half-way house for pregnant mothers, or for women who just needed a place to get back on their feet before going back out into the world. This would be a unique house, a place for women to discern God’s will for them in the freedom and unity of other Catholic women. We all need community, and this would be a very specific community to give women a place to allow God to speak to them as He willed. They would preferably be post-college, have some life experience under their belt, and long to offer their lives in union with God however He asked it of them.

After months of prayer and waiting for this house, the Lord brought it into fruition in the Fiat House. Although it only began in February 2013, it is an understatement to say that the Holy Spirit has worked some mighty deeds in the hearts of us who live there.

I realize that in writing my vocation story, I make myself very vulnerable. And there are certainly very lively discussions out there as to whether or not the single vocation is actually a vocation or just a state in life. That debate is better saved for another time and place. What I wanted my story to do is explain how I came to understand what the Lord is asking of me and to give courage to those who might believe He has something else for them, whatever that might be. I also wanted to show that, as a single woman living in the Fiat House, I am not anticipating the married state or eventually joining a religious community; I believe the Lord is asking me to remain as I am.

And here’s the amazing part…

I have been shocked by the joy!

I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy. I just couldn’t believe this outpouring of joy and peace in my heart. I mean, I knew Jesus would give me peace and stuff, but this explosion of joy entirely blindsided me. I figured I’d be content, quietly receiving consistent grace as I moved along. That has happened, but I feel like it doesn’t even skim the surface of the way He has given back. Although my sacrifice is HUGE to me, it’s not much in the grand scheme of things. And yet, He has understood what this sacrifice was to me and made sure I knew that He was for real when He said, “I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly.”

Why should I be shocked when we have such a generous God? And yet, I was and am.

“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” In giving to Him what I wanted most, I unexpectedly received back (and continue to receive) blessings I never imagined were possible. I received the desires of my heart! The desires of my heart (as are all our hearts) were to love, but now I know that my heart is meant to be deeply devoted to the Lord exclusively, without the comfort of a man in marriage. And from that exclusivity with God, I can love others in a more profound way. I have a freedom and availability to be generous with my time and talent that is unmatched in other vocations.

My heart hasn’t forgotten about the desire for marriage, but I know that my reigning desire is to serve God in the way He has asked me to. If I am in union with God and His will, my heart is fulfilled at its deepest level, and I can face the times when my vocation is challenged. Giving up marriage has been my greatest sacrifice, but each vocation has its own significant sacrifice. I know to be true what the Gospel proclaims: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit (John 12:24). In my own experience (and not surprisingly), I’ve seen just how right Jesus is, and how no one can enter into any vocation without sacrifice, without necessarily allowing something to die. But from that death comes a generous and abounding return of fruit.

Discovering, accepting, and letting my vocation unfold has been the most terrifying, exciting, challenging and life-giving experience yet. I would describe it as letting the Lord take you into an amusement park blindfolded. You never know what’s going to happen, but with Him, you know you’re safe and embarking on a fantastic adventure.

And the adventure has only begun.