A tale of an almost graduate

I remember in my youth as a first semester freshman in college, a friend casually mentioned "we only get 7 more semesters of this!" We laughed as we faked a freak out, not knowing how fast our college careers would fly by. 

I'm a month away from the beginning of the end of my days as a college student. Only two semesters left of living with best friends, taking "study breaks" to get ice cream, going to college dances, falling in and out of love with subjects, dream chasing like its my job, and just everyday normal college student shenanigans. 

I know it's a little early to be writing this post, after all, I have a whole YEAR left before I say good bye to my little undergraduate career. But something in me tells me I'll forget where I was right in this  pre-senior year moment when I cross that stage at graduation... and I don't want to forget. 

The thought of having one more year left to squeeze in all the events, classes, and new friendships I can is really scary to me. I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING. Why didn't I take Rhetoric when I had the chance? Should I have added a theo minor? What about a math minor? MATH PEOPLE MAKE ALL THE MONEY. Should I even bother making new friends? I run out of time just to have coffee with the old ones most of the time! 

These are the worries that fill the mind of the silly little girl in me. And those don't even cover the worries of the future AFTER graduation. My heart is currently being pulled in about 5 different directions as to what I should do when I graduate. I've prayed and I've talked and I've thought and I've  given up.  And in the process...I'm learning a few things.

I'm going to sound like a hippy, please bear with me though.

1) Go with the flow. Or rather, go with the Holy Spirit guided flow. 

I know, I know, we get told "just trust" quite a bit. And it ends up with us frustrated, lying on our beds, staring at the ceiling, hoping that someone will bring us caffeine because otherwise we aren't getting out of that bed for anything. 

But that's not trust. Talking our worries into the ground is not trust. Going with the Holy Spirit guided flow involves planning what we need to take the next steps, and trusting that as long as we keep walking, the H.S. will open the doors for us to walk through. 

There's nothing wrong with planning, we need to plan a lot of things out. 

But for almost college grads? Pick an option, walk towards it, and open yourself up to walk through the doors that just seem to flow. This applies to the friendships that start your senior year AND any after graduation plans. The Lord doesn't work through unrest, he works through peace. 

2) Remember that the unknown is a beautiful thing. 

When you don't know which passion you'll be following next year, but you still say "use me God"... you're in the right spot. This time of unknown can be a beautiful place to grow. 

 

3) Give a "perfect effort" as that famous high school football coach once said. 

You don't have to be a perfect friend, a perfect student, and know perfectly what your future will entail. Because... ummm that's not going to happen. But you should strive to try in everything to do the best you can, with a humble acceptance of our limitations. 

It is such a blessing to be in the numbered few that have gotten a college education, I don't want to waste it in worry. 

Dear future Paula,  

I hope you lived a beautiful senior year, making decisions based on love and faith, and trusting that when you leave in May, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. *

The Handmaid's Example

“Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)  Imagine you are 14 years old. You are doing the same thing you are doing every day, perhaps you are outside taking a quiet walk. Suddenly, a huge angel appears to you. He tells you not to be afraid. He tells you that you are going to become pregnant with the Son of God. You have never been with a man though. But the angel tells you this is what God wants. You say yes, simply because it is what God wants. You do not need any other reason. You accept all that the yes means. This is what Mary, the Mother of God, did 2000 years ago. From that yes the course of history and the course of our lives were forever changed.

On this feast of the Annunciation, I want to meditate on Mary’s trust in God and how we can learn from her.

We walk through life with a pile of worries on our hearts. A range from the smallest to the largest of concerns is what consumes our minds. We hear “trust God” over and over again in Church, from our friends, and when we read any Christian literature these days. It has gotten pounded into our heads since we were little, at least the words have. It just seems so cheesy when we hear the words coming out of our mouths now.  But why does it feel so overused? Why does it feel so strange to tell our friends to trust? It is because we don’t have that trust. We’re frustrated when we hear it because we haven’t reached a point of trust yet. We feel awkward when we tell a friend to trust in God because we ourselves do not know what it means to trust.

Let today be a renewal of trust though. Let Mary be an example. She had free will and she chose God’s will. I firmly believe that our lives will be totally peaceful if we learn to let go of the tight grasp we try to have on our lives. We do not realize how much more difficult our lives are when we hold tightly to our own will and worries. Let us again think of the words “let it be done to me” that are said in the gospel. Mary does not say “I will do this, this, and this. Then I will know I am doing God’s will because I am powering through it with all of MY might.” No. She is simply receiving. She is simply allowing God to work through her, to mold her, and to use her. She has opened her hands to receive all that God wants to do with her. With her trusting hands open to receive God’s blessings, there is no room left to cling tightly to her own will.  This is the model for trusting we should follow.  Stand with your hands open today. Tell God you are letting go. Ask Momma Mary to wrap you in her arms and push you towards her Son. And watch the peace that will come from following our beautiful Mother’s example.

“Am I not here, I, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry you, disturb you.” ~Our Lady of Guadalupe

Broken and beautiful

Thoughts crashing. Pain rising. Hearts breaking. Minds screaming.

Broken. Broken. Broken.

Does it ever end? We ask ourselves this every time we get out of bed. We struggle to have any thoughts at all in the morning, let alone a joyous one, as we make our way to our coffee makers.

We look at our phones. We see the smiling faces.

Smiles. Happiness. Cheesy quotes. Christian thankfulness. Laughter. Perfect. Perfection.

Our minds fight to understand this dissonance caused by the influx of information that shouts at us: YOUR LIFE SUCKS and everyone else's is perfect. YOU ARE A MESS and everyone else has their life together. YOU ARE BROKEN AND WEAK and everyone else is stronger than Hercules.  YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WITH DOUBTS and everyone else would think you're insane if you admitted it.  You are B R O K E N...and everyone else is whole.

This is what we hear; this is what we tell ourselves. It is good to share our joys but that is not what people do. People mask their sorrows by sharing false perfections. "MY LIFE IS PERFECT" we scream from our facebooks. The practice of sharing our joys to uplift others has turned into a mantra of: "don't you dare mention brokenness, I wouldn't know".

What a sad thing that we no longer know how to really see the other people in our lives. It's a paradox. We know the brokenness in ourselves, but we don't share it. We forget that others are human, and therefore we forget that they are silent about their brokenness too. Facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, snapchat...they consume our life and they are what is filling our souls. They show us the beauty of all our friends, the special moments in a life, and laughter of a night. But what they can never show us is a whole person. Because a whole person is not a constant stream of happys.

A whole person is messy. A whole person is broken. A whole person is weak. A whole person cries out because he cannot do it anymore. We know this. We know this deep in our soul because we have to fight daily to not give up. There are both ups and downs to life of course, but every day we see our  brokenness manifest itself in one way or another. But as soon as we feel we are the only one that has this brokenness, we feel alone. And the more we see the false perfections projected everywhere, the more alone we feel. The more alone we feel, the more we share our own false perfections. And then the more others around us feel alone. It is is a vicious, vicious circle.


But breaking the circle is not something that is out of reach for us. Know that you are not alone on this journey. Know that your weakness is something beautiful. Know that you can share in others brokenness because you are broken too.  The communion of persons is something deeply rooted in ourselves. Rejoice with others in their joys and mourn with others in their sadness. But do not forget the beauty of a real live soul: The beauty of brokenness, not the beauty of a screen.

Do not forget the most beautiful brokenness of all: the cross.

"[Christ's] power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Cor. 12:9
"Love endures ALL things."  1 Cor. 13:7
"In my deepest wound, I saw Your glory, and it dazzled me." ~ St. Augustine


***Inspired by life and also by articles written on theyoungcatholicwoman.com