Living Single...for God

A Christian group I'm part of on my campus is having a women's retreat soon called Women's Single for the Lord Discernment Day.  The long and short of it is that it is a whole day for college age women to learn what "being single for the Lord" means and how to figure out if its for you.

So what is this "being single" thing you ask? Basically it means being deliberately single for a period of time (or indefinitely for some) and living your life for God in every way possible.  You dedicate your entire life to God and continue doing this until you feel He is ready for you to get married and start a family.

To answer the question that is in your mind, Yes this means no dating.  At all.  You dedicate your life to living a Godly life: praying, bible study, being part of a Christian community, and volunteering for charities.  You continue to do this until you feel God is calling you to another vocation for your life.

"Now what is a vocation?" is the question that pops in your head next.  The simple answer is that it is the life path God calls you to.  You can be called to live a religious life (nun, priest, monk, deacon, and so on and so forth), to be single for the Lord, or to be married.  There is also a fourth vocation, which I am currently in: being a student.  My main task, as given to me by God, is to be a student and prepare myself for the rest of my life.  

I am personally very near to the end of my education (and therefore my current vocation).  I'm currently a junior in college, so I only have about one more year of schooling before I have to be a "real person."  So while God's job for me is to learn, He also wants me to prepare for the next phase of my life.  Part of this preparing involves praying for God to give me the wisdom to figure out what He wants for me and my life.

I can't go to this awesome retreat because of some training for my job, but even if I could I would probably pass it up so a different girl could go and determine her vocation.  The Lord has shed a lot of love, grace, and light on me these past few months and I'm feeling as though I can see His path for me.

It has become clear to me that my path involves getting married and being a mother to however many babies God decides to send my way.  It may be a long while before I can actually start on that path, but I know that's where He wants me.  It was not exactly what I had in mind for my life the last few years, but it feels so right to me that I know it must be what God wants.  In the meantime, I will just do my best to life my life for Him and try to do well in school.

Have you ever thought about your vocation and God's plan for you?  If you are already well on your way down your life's path or already are in the middle of your vocation, can you see how God guided you to where you are?  I'd love to hear your stories, concerns/worries, or anything else that might be on your mind.

Lent

So here we are, the first week of Lent.  A time of penance, fasting, and alms giving.  A time to reflect on the fact that Jesus Christ willingly died to save all of our souls.

I still have a hard time grasping that idea.  I've spent so many years thinking that Christianity was all myths and symbols, but now I've seen the light of truth.  Jesus was a real man, who was put on a cross by real people and died a real  death for all of us and our sins.

This is my first Lent as a true believer in Christ.  At the end of this season, I get to be confirmed and join the Catholic Church as a full member.  I am just so in awe of what the Lenten season is leading up to: Easter…the death and resurrection of our Savior.

I've always known that people give something up for Lent. The people I knew would often give up sweets or coffee, but they would often just replace it with something else (more fruit to get the same sugar rush, replacing coffee with tea, and the like) which to me didn't make much sense.  I barely understood why people gave things up for Lent in the first place, but it seemed really off to me that you could "give X up" yet replace it with Y.

My RCIA class has taught me that for Lent you are suppose to do penance, fast, and give alms.  I'm doing my best to follow the Church's teachings, especially in this season.  The fasting was hard for me, since I'm typically the kind of person who needs to eat something every few hours (I have blood sugar issues) but I managed to do it.  It feels right to do a proper penance in honor of my Lord, who has done so much for me. 

That's the same reason that for my penance for Lent, I plan to go to mass every single day.  I feel it's right to do something that is not easy for me (like giving up chocolate or sweets might be).  You see, with my class and work schedule, I will have to attend the 7am mass at my church because none of the other masses work for me.  Having to get up that early and walk out in the cold to get to church will be a challenge for me (I am so not a morning person) but I will gladly do it in honor of Jesus's death on my behalf.

I look forward to using this season to prepare my soul for my confirmation, the fulfillment of my joining the body of the Lord's Church.  I plan to reflect on my past sins and look forward to my new future in the light of God's eternal love.

What are you doing for Lent?  Do you plan on fasting?  Or will you do some sort of penance?  I would love to hear how you all are preparing for the coming celebration of Christ's death and resurrection.

Renovating the Temple

As I've said previously, I really don't believe in overnight change.  I see a lot of people that use the New Year as an excuse to do a major "life overhaul" and for the first few weeks they drastically change their lives.  I'm not saying you should never try and change yourself or grow for the better, but day and night differences in behavior typically fail in my experience.  What has worked better for me is to create a larger "end goal" and then develop a plan of steps to get there.  This way, I keep moving towards my goal and can keep getting better at things without feeling like a failure because I screwed up once.

I'll give you an example by telling you about one of my goals for this year: making my mornings more productive so I have more time to spend with God and get ready for my day.  I am by no means a morning person (it was not uncommon for me to wake up 15 minutes before class and stumble out the door my freshmen year of college) but this year I want to get a better start to my day so I can be more productive and be happier with how it turned out.  Inspired by the blogs Inspired to Action and Simple Mom (no, I am not a mom, I just like the life advice) to make better use of my mornings, my end goals are to be able to get up decently early in the hopes of spending some time worshiping and getting a head start on my day.  But I know for me this will not be a quick change as I typically do not like getting out of bed in the morning (why climb out of my loft when my blankets are so warm and comfy?). So for now I'm starting small, getting up a little bit earlier every week, building up to the goal that I have planned. Soon I will be up nice and early and can accomplish the things I want to do in the morning (like get dressed, read my bible and pray, and maybe even exercise a little at some point) so that I can start my day off right.

I'm trying to change many parts of my life that I've realized were making me unhappy and holding me back.  Rediscovering my faith in God has given me a new page in the book of my life.  I intend to use this chance to improve myself and wash away the things that were keeping me from moving forward in life.  I've worked really hard to stop swearing and cursing as much as I used to.  I've decided to end relationships and friendships that were unhealthy for me; to move on from the memories from those relationships that were staying around just to keep hurting me emotionally.  I've started trying to take better care of myself, drinking more water and trying to cut out some of the unhealthy junk food I used to live off of.  I'm working to create a life for myself that if Jesus were to show up at my door tomorrow, I wouldn't feel an insane desire to try and sweep everything under a rug because my life is an embarrassment or source of unhappiness to me.  A running theme this week for many church related events I attended was the idea of your body as a temple to the Lord, for that is where the Holy Spirit resides.  I'm taking that as a personal message to work on creating a healthier and more peaceful temple for the Spirit by eating well to feel physically well and by working on past hurts and memories to create a calmer mind so I can hear the Lord when He decides to tell me something.

You don't need a new year to start to turn to a new page in your life.  Figure out what you want to change to make your life easier/happier/more peaceful/more faith based and craft a plan to get there with some easy to do baby steps.  Rome wasn't built in a day, it was built brick by brick. So gather your "bricks" and start building yourself the tomorrow you want.