Your Voice or Mine?

Recently I have been in a huge point of discernment in my life. I had two very good options sitting in front of me, two things that would help me to live a very full life, and two things that I felt could be the will of God. After spending several months in discernment I realized that the voice I had been listening to that left me so certain of what I should do was my own voice and was not the voice of the Lord. See, I had such a strong desire in my heart for all that I thought this one option would be that I failed to listen to everything around me that was coming from the Lord. After I made the decision of what I wanted to do I did all that I could to convince myself that I had found peace in that decision. The reality was that there was no peace in that decision for me at all, and it would take months for me to understand that. After I made my choice I went back and forth and back and forth, until finally I just knew something wasn’t right. I knew I needed to take some more time to pray about my choice, to listen to the priests in my life, some of my family members, and the discontent I felt. As I brought this decision to prayer one last time I finally found great peace in knowing that I had in fact made the wrong choice. I learned quite quickly that the voice of God had become so faint and my own desire had become so strong that I couldn’t even distinguish between the two. In the moment where I became certain of my decision I knew what I had to do. I had to humble myself, go to the pastor at my parish and ask for my job back, I had to tell the teens that I wasn’t leaving them after all, I had to call the place of my first decision and tell them I would no longer be coming, and I had to share that news with everyone who knew. Some of the people were joyful that I had come to this conclusion and others thought I wasn’t listening to the voice of God in my life. None of what anyone else thought really mattered though, because for the first time in months I was absolutely certain that this is what I was called to do. See, I have no doubt that if I would have stuck with my original choice I would have been happy and I would have led teens closer to Christ, and I think that is part of what made my decision such a difficult one. I will say that now, two weeks after I made the final decision I continue to live in the peace that the Lord has given to me.

What I have learned from all of this is that we can find a million things in the world that make us happy, but there will ultimately be one thing that will always make us happiest and this happiness comes from the Lord. Like St. Augustine said “For you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”.