“We bought a farm!”
That was supposed to be the phrase that started in 2022. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the farm, but we got COVID-19 in the house instead. Pridefully I pointed out that while the family all had mild symptoms, I was doing fine. Then I got sick. Where everyone else bounced back in a couple of days, I was more than a week into it and still struggling. Last Saturday, the tears flowed and flowed. The year was not supposed to go this way, and just weeks into the new year, I felt defeated.
I believed so deeply in the direction we were going. I have prayed about this type of opportunity for years. Not only would it have been a shift for our family to simpler living, but it also provided the foundation for my ultimate dream, to provide vocational training and meaningful employment to individuals with intellectual disabilities. All good stuff, right?
The pain of disappointment and the grief at the lost dream was eclipsed only by the deep self-doubt. Did God not trust me enough? Had I completely misunderstood the nudging I felt in my heart to cultivate a better life? The desire in my heart for years to create a better way? My increasing abandon to worldly desire to accumulate but give more freely?
Bloom where you are planted.
One of the gifts from this season of COVID was my little Catholic women’s group on Saturday mornings. All strangers, we were brought together early as an online study group. Slowly lives changed, and it ended up being two of us that faithfully met every Saturday. We have shared dreams and challenges and laughed over our shared addiction to planners. A dear friend rejoined us this last weekend for the first time in a long time. As I shared my sorrow, she was there to speak the words God needed me to hear, “…God is calling you to something beautiful, but you still have young children at home, this is just not the right time…“
My feelings are real, and my disappointment hurts. I can’t simply turn that off. But I needed to be reminded of seasons. We all want to bloom in life, but before that comes the seasons of preparing the soil, the season of darkness, and the slow growth before breaking out into the sun, and eventually blooming. The nudging in my heart to focus on the right priorities, cultivating a purposeful life is not defined by where. My life is defined by my big and small actions every day.
So here I am, not where I thought I would be almost three weeks into the new year. Tired and bit bruised and battered, reminded that our Father is a loving God who wants what is best for us. Reminded that when I pray for His will, I am opening myself us to be aligned to Him. Prayer and relationship with Him are not pridefully twisting His will to my own.
Who knows where 2022 will take us? The last several years have taught us that we can’t predict the future. However, we can choose to respond to His call to love and serve those around us right where we are in life.
I wish you a beautiful, safe, and healthy new year.
xoxo
Catherine