Fears, Tears, and Discerning His Will

How you ever found yourself desperately wanting to do God's will but have absolutely no clue as to how to do that? If so, welcome your newest club member. Hello, my name is Emmy... and I have no idea what I'm going to do in 2016.

I find myself wanting to use the cliché "fork in the road" metaphor. I feel a peace about pursuing my plans of working with Catholic youth but I'm questioning whether I need a Master's degree for that. Those who I've talked to have opened up my eyes to a reality my idealism wasn't expecting. I've already talked a bit about that in the previous blog post. Deep down I know I don't want to teach, at least not in the traditional sense. Even though I'm an academic geek and I will never tire of learning, I'm also questioning whether I'm done with my own academic career.

For the record, I seem to have passed both of my grad school courses well enough to continue at JP Catholic. I thought I would be relieved when I found out that I would be able to continue -- elated, even -- but I wasn't. That caught me off guard. I found out when I came from the hospital yesterday (side note and long story short: I had an odd, almost allergic reaction to wheat bread I ate yesterday but we didn't know that the bread was cause until later that night when I had a snack and had a similar reaction. I'm going to cut wheat out of my diet until I see my doctor on Thursday.) Anyway, when I got home, I saw the grades and was briefly happy that I had passed... but I was also kind of disappointed that I no longer had an excuse to not continue. It doesn't make sense. I loved my classes and the professors were a dream come true for this Pope Benedict XVI fangirl and former CINO college grad. I loved every second of my courses, finding joy even in the most stressful times. However, as much as I loved them, I'm finding myself unsure of whether I want to return or not. No, that's not entirely true. I find myself not wanting to return but I don't know why.

Does anyone remember a blog post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about having peaceful doubts? Like I mentioned in the post, there was a "big risk" option that I didn't need the MA for but that would be prepare me for it. Lately, I've felt pulled more and more in that direction. One of the last things my former SD said to me in our last meeting has kept popping up in my head over the past couple of days. He said "you know what you want to do and you have the tools to do it. All you have to do is put it into action." This came after a conversation about how I need to conquer my problem with fear, which is easily the biggest thing that keeps me from moving forward.

As I wrote that last paragraph, I started getting a lump in my throat and an overwhelming desire to cry. Am I going to "live blog" this? Okay... I'm going to do this... right now I feel both relief and an intense fear at the same time. I also feel like I'm getting this "bingo, this is what you need to do" moment. And here are the tears. Okay, I will not break down while writing this... no, Emmy... no...

Did I just figure things out while writing this blog post? I don't know. I just know that I'm confused. I so desperately want to do God's will but I don't know if this is what I must do and it's fear that's stopping me or if I'm just overwhelmed with everything that's happened in the past couple of months and that's why I'm feeling this way. However, I will say that the seeds of what I'm going through now were planted long ago. Way before I graduated from my undergrad program. That big risk -- the one I'm not ready to share details of yet -- has always made the most sense to me, like it's what I'm meant to do, but I've never figured out how to go about it. I still don't, which is where the fear may be coming from. I'm currently feeling both peace and restlessness about this.

Every time the thought "this is what you have to do; don't be afraid of doing it" comes to mind, the lump in my throat gets bigger and there's more moisture in my eyes. I talk about trusting God but would I have the courage to leave comfort behind and trust Him with this? Do I have the courage to follow Him into the unknown, if this is truly what He wants from me? I guess there's only one way to find out.

Please pray for me as I discern what to do next. I don't want to make any big decision based on emotion which isn't easy for me since I feel deeply and I'm a bit sensitive. Y'all know that. I'm going to pray about it (it's been something that I've been taking to prayer daily for a while now) and see where I go from here. Man, I wish I wasn't so terrible at making big decisions. Holy Spirit, it's up to you to help me at this point.

Anyway, I'm just rambling on at this point. Sorry.

I hope everyone is having a great week thus far. I'll be posting my annual patron saint poll tomorrow... and there's a new twist to it this year.

As always, thanks for reading and God bless. :)