Why Me? Why Would God Pick Me?

Monday, August 8, 2011

Vocation at its deepest level is not 'Oh, boy, do I want to go to this strange place where I have to learn a new way to live and where no one, including me, understands what I'm doing.' Vocation at its deepest level is, 'This is something I can't not do, for reasons I'm unable to explain to anyone else and don't fully understand myself but that are nonetheless compelling. - Parker J. Palmer (Let Your Life Speak, 25)
Where is God taking you?
I didn't do all this - become a prepostulant - simply because I wanted to. I did it because I feel God calling me to do so...even though it is inexplicable to me why God would even call me to do this. If it were up to me alone, I probably wouldn't want to go through the "growing pains" that goes along with learning how to  live a new lifestyle with new people, learning how to teach a new school subject. But somehow I feel compelled to do push my own inhibitions and insecurities aside to follow His call. The best explanation I can give is that Jesus himself said "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16)

Sometimes, I think - okay, way more than sometimes - "Oh God, why did you pick me?"  I'm stubborn, way too reserved for my own good but at times way too loud and boisterous, sometimes socially awkward, a procrastinator, indecisive, immature at times. Part of me still can't wrap my mind around the fact that one day "Sister" will precede my name. The thing is, I don't know why God picked me, why He called me to this. And I know that I'll never know, I'll never understand.

I can't even explain to people why I want to be a Sister. I just know there's something - or Someone - pulling me towards it and won't let go; that I feel like my true self in this lifestyle; that it gives me a deep joy I have never experienced before. In high school, from freshman year onward, my friends joked that I was going to be a nun. I would get mad and repeat "No, stop it! I'll never be a nun!" It was not my plan at all. I had no idea what that plan was, but being a Sister sure wasn't it. But then senior year, I started feeling that tug, a tug I tried to brush off but never could. That strong but slow-working magnet won't leave me alone. It made restless, made me hungry for something else. And I have no idea why, why me? That Someone that is pulling me knows me better than anyone, yet continues to pull.

So I decide to go along with the pull instead of fighting it, not completely understanding the why or how, but somehow knowing that the pull is leading me to discover my true self and who I was born to be - and only in that, will I meet true joy. And that's why I'm here, here in formation to be a Daughter of Charity, here in this old convent in middle Georgia, here working with the poor in this school.

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