It's been over 2 months since I took my pledge to not date for 6 months. Time goes by so quickly! It's been up and down the last two months. Sometimes I am content and peaceful about being single and living my life and other times I'm disappointed and sad that I am still alone.
Yesterday was one of those rougher days. I was feeling the pinch of being single and looking around my world and seeing everyone coupled up but me. I know it's not true but when things aren't going like we want them to we often tend to see what others have that we don't have.
I went to a friends ordination to the priesthood a week or so ago and it was BEAUITFUL! You know when you go to a friend's wedding and they are marrying the person you know they should marry and you are over the top excited for them - yeah that's how I felt about this too. It's beautiful to watch someone take vows to live the vocation you know they are called to live. I went to his first mass too - again, so lovely and fulfilling in exactly the way it should be. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him!
Then this weekend I went to a wedding. I watched the couple marry and I too long for marriage. I saw everyone coupled up around me and it made my heart cry. The next day I went to a baptism. I wached my friends walk in with their children and again I longed to have what they have. I instead was sitting alone in my pew waiting for the mass to start. I was also watching another friend of mine who will be ordained a deacon this summer and a priest next summer prepare to serve at mass. Again, I know he is doing exactly what God has called him to do. The sadness in my heart was questioning why oh why isn't God letting me live my vocation too?? Why do I still have to sit and wait before I can live out what I truly believe I am called to live - marriage and family???
Some people will argue that I am living my vocation and in this moment it is to live a single life. I do know I am called to live a good and holy single life but please don't tell me it's a vocation. Okay, okay, the only true vocation is to love I know that but... .... .... but... maybe there is nothing else to say... maybe I do just need to love as much as I can as a single person. I don't want to negate my calling to marriage. I don't want to say that longing for the vocation of marriage is wrong but I do need to remember I am called to love not only my neighbour but most imporantly God.
I suppose that's the stuggle. The stuggle is to know deep down I am called to be married but in this process of waiting I still need to find fulfilment in Christ and His love. I need to allow Him to love through me. Man, why do I keep failing at that? Ok, something to work on.
I told a friend the other day how I don't feel like I fit in my world any longer. I've handle single live pretty well. I am 31, single, own a condo, traveled a lot and have a lot of wonderful firends and family. I haven't been alone in a house the last 15 years wondering why no one has knocked on my door, but yesterday as I wachted my friends with their family and my friend who's preparing to be ordained I realized I am uncomfortable in my single role because it no longer fits my life. I am not meant to be in this state of life anymore. My calling is marriage and it is time I make extra effort to make that happen.... but that's a whole other blog entry.
Jocelyn
