Discernment

I’m not sure why I decided to start a new blog. For some reason I simply felt I should. Maybe because my journey will be taking me in a different direction? I can only guess at the answer to that question but for some reason I feel it’s another "new beginning". What better time for a new beginning than waiting during this Advent season for the birth of Christ and possibly... hopefully... a new birth within myself?

There’s a new reality show on Lifetime at 10:00 p.m. on Tuesdays called, The Sisterhood: Becoming Nuns. It’s about five young women who are trying to discern whether a vocation in religious life is God’s will for them. What I find most interesting is not necessarily what they’re trying to discern....though that’s interesting....but their struggles in the discernment process.

Whenever I try to determine God’s will for me it’s a struggle. The reason it’s such a struggle, I think, is because I look so hard for the answers...as if they should appear just because I’m looking for them. It’s a bit like searching for something I can’t find. You know how that works. We rack our brain trying to figure out where it might be, moving things, looking under and behind, in every conceivable place until we finally give up the search. It’s only then, when I stop concentrating on the search, "give up" and leave it in God’s hands, the answers come to me. Discernment is a lot like that.

I went through one of these struggles fairly recently, having been challenged in regard to both my painting and my writing...and in my being challenged, questioned whether I was doing all God wanted me to do. Those questions led to a great deal of doubt and frustration. Was I doing all I could do? My pain in searching for answers was real. When I shared that pain with a friend, I was reminded I was trying too hard...which I often do... and that this was a time of waiting. God would make His will known when He’s ready. I’d asked the questions. Now I had to wait for, and be open to, the answers. Sometimes the answers come and they’re clear as a bell. Other times, the discernment process is necessary.

The fact is, discernment is always necessary...in every aspect of our lives.... if we wish to know, not what we wish for ourselves, but what God wants for us. Sometimes it’s the same thing... sometimes not... but discernment will only come through prayer and contemplation....by way of asking and listening...by communicating with God.