I think Jackie and I both have been struggling to find time to be creative. Songwriting and crafting blogs all too easily take a backseat to binge sessions on Netflix, especially when we are tired after a day of chasing a toddler and keeping her fingers out of the electric sockets.
I’ve been wanting to write more particularly about discernment and finish my intended 5-part blog series, but thankfully there’s plenty of other talented writers expounding on this topic. Mentor, teacher, and friend of mine, Bill Donaghy of the Theology of the Body Institute, recently posted this gem on Discerning Your Vocation. I highly recommend it.
Here are some gems from his post:
“It strikes me that vocation for the Christian is never a completely blind surrender, a kind of self-annihilating submission that happens almost without us having a word in it at all. The truth of vocation is that it’s a dialogue, not a monologue. A dance more than a cold directive. Wasn’t this true in all of the vocations that changed the world? God initiated then waited on the yes of Noah, of Abraham and of Moses. Heaven spoke then waited on the courageous response of a Samuel, then a David, an Isaiah, and a Daniel. Most especially, when a call was given to a little one named Mary, Heaven waited with bated breath on the most fruitful fiat of the now Mother of All the Living?”
“…The Christian anthropology revealed in the Theology of the Body, is about a marriage of all these things – the fusing of wills, the melding of hearts. When it comes to discerning your vocation, your heart, your passion, and your personality matter. Again, vocation isn’t always some divine directive that God has preordained without your input that drops down from the cloud into your lap when you’re good enough or ready enough to receive it. Vocation, your calling, is your gift. It is the personal gift of God to crown your heart, and your response to his gift by your self-donation to the world of what’s in you.”
“…So back into the question of “What will I be when I grow up?” comes an adjustment. Maybe the better question to ask is “How will I love in a way that corresponds to my deepest love? What am I passionate about and when I give it to the Lord, where might that passion flow?”
“Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.”
– Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
