I never would have anticipated how my life looks right now, nor would anyone who knew me in my 20s, and yet by letting God direct my path, I feel He has blessed me beyond measure.
My plan when I was younger was to become a bestselling novelist, going on book tours and traveling around the country and perhaps even the world. I was never particularly interested in dating or starting my own family; I was content to be the cool, unmarried aunt, spoiling my nieces and nephews and then handing them back to their parents for diaper changes, bedtimes or discipline. Even after I became Catholic in my mid-20s, I didn’t feel I was being called to either marriage and children or to religious life. But now
I’m in my late-30s, with an unfinished novel I’ve been working on for the last decade, married for three years, having just given birth to my first child this past winter, preparing to permanently promise myself as a third order Dominican, and I couldn’t be happier or more content.
Thankfully, I’ve always appreciated the saying about how we make our plans and God just laughs.
This shift from how I thought my life would be to how it turned out was not always easy and has required a great deal of self-surrender and adjustment to how I saw my own identity. At times, it was hard to let go of who I thought I was, who I wanted to be and how others viewed me. It was hard to give up the idea that I was responsible for what my life would look like.
The modern idea of “freedom” is one where we are in control, able to choose from an abundance of options for our own satisfaction, with no infringement on our desires. That understanding can lead us into believing we are in conflict with God, that His desires are impeding ours somehow. However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says,
“Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude” (1731). The true meaning of freedom is the ability to choose that which will lead us to sanctification and closeness with God, which will be the greatest joy and fulfillment we could ever experience.
Our God is a God of love; He is Love Itself.
The Lord loves us so much, not only did He give each one of us life and an eternal soul, He gave us Himself. He feeds us with His very Body and Blood and gave Himself over to death that we might be saved and join Him in eternity. He loves us with a Father’s love, of which earthly fathers are only a mere shadow.
As Jesus says, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish would give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:11). Not only does God love us, but He also knows what will lead to our greatest happiness. Our vocations are the paths He has laid for each one of us, as individual as we are.
Even the apostles argued about who was the greatest among them, so we will probably always have the debates about what is the “best” vocation. Married or religious life?
Working outside the home or working full-time raising your kids? Advancing in this career or choosing another?
We judge ourselves and those around us by our profession, number of children and other accomplishments, without ever acknowledging how much is out of our hands. Even though I would now love to have a big family with any number of kids, I didn’t meet and marry my husband until I was already in my mid-30s, and now my fertility window is limited. Even though I have dozens of ideas for novels and other books, I spent the last two decades primarily as a caregiver for family members and now will spend at least the next two decades as the same. Most of my life has been a response to circumstances rather than a conscious choice between one thing or another.
Sometimes the crosses we bear are the paths we thought we would walk and didn’t, but we must still trust that the path God set us is the one that will best lead us to Him.
Even our crosses are gifts of God’s love. As St. Francis de Sales wrote, “The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost heart. … He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.”
The best vocation is the one that God has chosen for you specifically, for you are a unique, unrepeatable soul and your path is not another’s.
Even if I go through the rest of life with a host of unfinished manuscripts, or even no manuscripts at all, when I look at my son I will know I contributed something great to this world. If I had never had children, I like to think the books I would have written would still have made a difference and impacted souls.
Not my will, but His. Always His.
Kathryn Heim is an author, wife and mother living outside Salisbury, where she gardens, raises chickens, experiments with cooking and reads too many books. Find her work at kathrynheim.com.