Making All Things New...And Exciting Too
It has something to do with how I’m wired. Personality tests have revealed that this is an inherent trait. I am one of those “this is wonderful, but what’s happening next?” type of people.
People like me aren’t afraid to take risks. We jump in with both feet, and we’re not afraid to make a move when circumstances call for it (or when we get too bored). It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s caused me to make bold vocational moves at the right time...and to leave jobs when I (probably) should have stayed.
I was a happy child, but I was always anticipating the next exciting thing. I daydreamed a lot. The world inside my head was a little more interesting than the one I was living in.
None of that went away as an adult. I jumped into a community to discern my vocation straight out of high school. I mean, if God is calling, why wait? (Or so my eighteen-year-old impulsive self thought.) But I wasn’t content. I was always dreaming about another place or another time. As I told one of my superiors, something was missing.
I kept looking for that missing piece. I thought that if I prayed the right novena, read the right book, listened to the right talk, or went to confession to the right priest, that someday, somehow, the answer would come. Something would click.
The search for the missing piece—and the missing peace—eventually led me out of that community. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Did I fear stability and commitment too much? Did I just need to settle for a semi-boring life? Did I need to lay my desire on the altar and not look back?
I began dating but still had one foot in consecrated life. One year, after a rough breakup, I went on a retreat with a religious order. My intention was not to discern with that order—I had already visited them and didn’t feel called—but simply to take advantage of the spiritual exercises they were offering.
During the retreat I had the opportunity to speak with one of the priests of the order. After sharing my vocational journey with him, he encouraged me to join their order of sisters. “You left your community searching for something more,” he counseled me, “and now you’re here.”
I don’t think it was solid advice, but he was correct about one thing: I was searching for something more, something greater.
Aren’t we all?
A couple years later, the quest for “something greater” compelled me to leave my job at age 36 and spend a year serving as a missionary in the Peruvian jungle.
Not without struggle, I left my mission post at the end of that year to discern a relationship. I felt sadness and guilt about leaving something I was so passionate about, but I believed the greater thing was to work toward marriage.
Then the pandemic hit, I got stuck in a foreign country, and that relationship ended in spite of my efforts to make it work. I was crushed. Now what? I had intended to fix what was wrong in the relationship, but God took it away before I even had a chance. I couldn’t understand it at all.
During the last Easter season, as I wallowed in heartbreak, a verse from Romans stood out to me: Walk in newness of life.
I like new. I like novel. Tell me more about this, Lord!
During that season He did new things in my heart and in my life—things He could only do because I realized that I was not in control.
I was challenged to try new ways of dealing with old struggles. I saw my vocation, sexuality, and desires in a new and healthier light. And I took a new (virtual) path toward meeting someone who could be a future mate.
And the Lord surprised me beyond my imagining!
He used every single search for something greater to lead me straight to where I am now—a place of contentment and joy. He took my heart, weary and broken, and made it new. He spoke truth into lies I had come to believe. He used the nature he had given me and called me to take a risk once more—which I gladly did.
Newness doesn’t disappear just because we’ve found a place to settle. Neither does our desire for something greater. We have a thirst that can never be quenched, and a God who will never tire of filling our cup. Each day we thirst more. And each day he fills us anew.
There will always be times of longing for something new and wishing for something more—because we were indeed created for something quite beyond us. The resurrection of Christ gives us hope and a glimpse of what awaits us.
Even as we seek to enjoy the beautiful gifts of this life, may we never tire of longing, with hopeful expectation and excitement, for the greater things that await us on the other side.
I kept looking for that missing piece. I thought that if I prayed the right novena, read the right book, listened to the right talk, or went to confession to the right priest, that someday, somehow, the answer would come. Something would click.
The search for the missing piece—and the missing peace—eventually led me out of that community. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Did I fear stability and commitment too much? Did I just need to settle for a semi-boring life? Did I need to lay my desire on the altar and not look back?
I began dating but still had one foot in consecrated life. One year, after a rough breakup, I went on a retreat with a religious order. My intention was not to discern with that order—I had already visited them and didn’t feel called—but simply to take advantage of the spiritual exercises they were offering.
During the retreat I had the opportunity to speak with one of the priests of the order. After sharing my vocational journey with him, he encouraged me to join their order of sisters. “You left your community searching for something more,” he counseled me, “and now you’re here.”
I don’t think it was solid advice, but he was correct about one thing: I was searching for something more, something greater.
Aren’t we all?
A couple years later, the quest for “something greater” compelled me to leave my job at age 36 and spend a year serving as a missionary in the Peruvian jungle.
Not without struggle, I left my mission post at the end of that year to discern a relationship. I felt sadness and guilt about leaving something I was so passionate about, but I believed the greater thing was to work toward marriage.
Then the pandemic hit, I got stuck in a foreign country, and that relationship ended in spite of my efforts to make it work. I was crushed. Now what? I had intended to fix what was wrong in the relationship, but God took it away before I even had a chance. I couldn’t understand it at all.
During the last Easter season, as I wallowed in heartbreak, a verse from Romans stood out to me: Walk in newness of life.
I like new. I like novel. Tell me more about this, Lord!
During that season He did new things in my heart and in my life—things He could only do because I realized that I was not in control.
I was challenged to try new ways of dealing with old struggles. I saw my vocation, sexuality, and desires in a new and healthier light. And I took a new (virtual) path toward meeting someone who could be a future mate.
And the Lord surprised me beyond my imagining!
He used every single search for something greater to lead me straight to where I am now—a place of contentment and joy. He took my heart, weary and broken, and made it new. He spoke truth into lies I had come to believe. He used the nature he had given me and called me to take a risk once more—which I gladly did.
Newness doesn’t disappear just because we’ve found a place to settle. Neither does our desire for something greater. We have a thirst that can never be quenched, and a God who will never tire of filling our cup. Each day we thirst more. And each day he fills us anew.
There will always be times of longing for something new and wishing for something more—because we were indeed created for something quite beyond us. The resurrection of Christ gives us hope and a glimpse of what awaits us.
Even as we seek to enjoy the beautiful gifts of this life, may we never tire of longing, with hopeful expectation and excitement, for the greater things that await us on the other side.
Cover photo: A rainbow spotted in the Peruvian jungle
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This post is part of a blog hop by Spoken Women, an online community of Catholic women nurturing their creative callings. Click here to view the next post in this series "Something Greater."
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This post is part of a blog hop by Spoken Women, an online community of Catholic women nurturing their creative callings. Click here to view the next post in this series "Something Greater."
Thank you, Cate, for sharing your story about your search for something greater. May we, as you wrote, never stop searching for the something greater that is god Himself.
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