May 2019 – A Much Needed Update

Posted June 13, 2019 in Faith, Life / 0 Comments

It has been way too long since I have really posted on this blog and so this post is going to be an update.

I have been in Oregon for a year working as Faith Formation Director in a parish. It has been a fun challenge. I loved the work I was doing but it was not a good fit for me. Much as I wanted to love everything about where I was, I couldn’t. And so I’m moving back to Montana.

In May I finished the last of my graduate school classes. I just have to pass a comprehensive exam the end of this summer and I will officially be able to add MA after my name. That is, provided I pass the test…

In this past year I have had some ups and some downs. At times I was tempted to focus on those downs as they always seem more prevalent than the ups. This is human nature where we often tend to focus on what when wrong and ignore the fact that so many things went right.

These were some my thorns (downs) and roses (ups) this past year and a half:

I had to undergo an abdominal surgery that I was not looking forward to having. It was necessary for health reasons and so I did as my doctors recommended. The recovery was not the easiest but I am in a much better place health-wise than I was two years ago. My surgery scars still itch at times but I’ve been told that is pretty normal.

I moved a few states away from my family and my diocese of consecration. It was a challenge but I now know that I am capable of more than I thought. I got my very first apartment and discovered that I learned more watching my dad do simple repairs in the house than I ever knew. For example, I fixed a broken chair all by myself. I took the broken part to ACE, got a new piece, and put it all back together in under an hour. If you can’t tell, I was pretty proud of myself for that.

I learned that I am very bad at cooking for just myself. Leftovers have become my friends as I typically make enough food to feed a family of ten and yet here I am by myself trying to eat it all.

I’ve been put in a position where I had to develop an entire religious education and sacramental preparation program from scratch. It was definitely a challenge and one that I felt I was failing often. However, everything went so much better than I expected. God’s providence and care was definitely at work here.

I gained confidence that I actually know things. I learned things in my undergrad and graduate courses. I’ve read a lot of books. I know things and I can talk about them. And people want me to help them understand these things as well. My education is a good thing and is actually helping people. I have feared that my education would be a waste of time and God has shown me this past year that this is not the case.

I have also realized that God really does love me. Sometimes this is really hard to grasp, especially when life gets difficult. Some stuff came up and my father literally dropped everything and planned a road trip to come help me out. It made me see that my dad would do anything for me which helped me to realize that if my human father loves me this much, how much more must God love me? It has been a bit overwhelming to really pray with this lately.

In all, it has been a year full of ups and downs and also a year of learning. I feel like I can say with great gratitude that I am striving to always do God’s will. He takes such good care of me even when I find myself distracted. His love is more than I could ever have imaged. His love for me is crazy and ridiculous because there is nothing I could ever do to deserve it. He chose me and that is enough to make me worthy of His love.

So that’s the goal. I’m going to keep living my life to the best of my ability while praying, reading, and striving to become a saint.