road trip

getting out of our comfort zones

This past weekend, Rocco and I made a pretty long road trip down to Tennessee. I listened to podcasts and audiobooks. He napped and occasionally popped his head up into the front seat so I would give him a french fry. I happily obliged.

We drove 9 hours (10 with the traffic we hit 4 miles away from our destination *sigh*) to visit a friend of mine from college. It was an incredibly relaxing weekend spent visiting coffee shops, reading, and writing together. Many naps were taken.

Being in a new place, though, Rocco found himself getting in quite a bit of trouble. He was understandably thirsty after our long car ride, which led to him drinking an entire bowl of water, which led to him relieving himself on the floor. My friend had a normal trash can, not a Rocco-proof stainless steel one like I have, which resulted in Rocco sticking his head in the trash can every 5 seconds.

It’s fine, I thought. I would just put him on the balcony. Except that I looked out the glass door at one point and Rocco had stuck HALF OF HIS BODY through the bars on the second floor balcony. Nope, not okay.

Rocco had a tough time adjusting to a new situation and honestly, at least in part it’s probably because he had no idea what was going on. I told him that we were headed to Tennessee, but he didn’t understand. He didn’t know who my friend was. He just knew that there were lots of new smells.

Heading into new situations can be scary. And yet, we know that God is constantly calling us to grow, which means that he is constantly stretching us. While we may not always be making life-changing decisions, we are always trying to adapt to the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives.

This week marks exactly 2 years since I left the convent, where I had been in formation to become a nun for 3.5 years. When I left, I was aware that I would be going through a transition. I was not prepared for the world to shut down three weeks later due to a global pandemic.

Someone that I respect once told me that life was about settling, about adjusting our expectations, but I don’t believe that’s true. Instead, our task in this life is to learn to replace our desires with those of God’s; at the very least, if we don’t agree on the specifics, we can make our primary desire to be to follow God’s will above all.

Part of this process involves a buzzword: discernment. Discernment is basically the process through which we discover God’s will for our lives.

Recently on social media, I saw someone break down the process of discernment in a way that I hadn’t seen before. Basically it goes:

1. Consider a decision you want to make

2. Change a variable (apply for a job, go on a date, etc.)

3. Evaluate what happened to determine if it’s God’s will to continue

At first, I thought this was absurd. We’re supposed to make a life change BEFORE we actually know whether or not it’s what God wants from us?

But then I thought back to my own experience of religious life. There were small variables that I changed before I packed up my life and traded in my wardrobe for sweater vests and blue skirts. I emailed the sisters, I visited them, I went through an application process. Each step along the way was an opportunity to re-open my heart to what God might be doing. In truth, I never really knew for sure.

I never really knew for sure. That’s something that might come as a surprise for people. In discernment, we rarely if ever know for sure what God is doing. It’s like when I put Rocco in the car without him knowing where we were headed.

Now, I am once again finding myself in a period of discernment. I’m 26 years old, realizing that the decisions that I make now will have a lasting impact on the rest of my life. So the question is: which variables am I going to change to help discern where God is moving me?

The only problem is that I don’t want to change any variables. I’m somewhat comfortable where I am right now, or at least comfortable enough to not want to risk venturing into the unknown.

And then I think of Rocco, who was placed into an unknown, extremely disorienting situation, and was fine. I think of the resiliency of the human race, how we are able to live in a world filled with sin and somehow, miraculously, we are somewhat okay.

If Rocco can trust me, we can trust God. Change the variable. Open your heart to receiving what God is doing. And know that you’ll be okay.

A few reminders:

1. If you enjoy this newsletter and want to keep receiving it, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month. This allows me to spend time working on the newsletter that I would normally spend on other, bigger projects.

2. The Book Club (where you don’t actually have to read the book) meets next week! If you decide that you would like to read the book, it’s Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins and is pretty short. You could probably read or listen to it within the next week. See you on Friday March 4th at 8pm EST!