Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Awaiting My Vocation (Being Single Series)

I liked reading Emily's post because I think us single ladies often get caught up in the idea of, "Well, once I meet my Prince Charming and we fall in love, we'll get married right away and have super cute babies!!!!" which means we forget the whole dating and engagement time are still part of the single vocation! Emily's experiences are a good reminder to live on God's timing. Even if we know our vocation, sometimes we still have to be patient.

~*~

I've been engaged for exactly 367 days. Yep, you heard that right. It's been an entire year of this engagement process. I can’t exactly say my patience has been cooperating with me (it hasn’t), and I can’t say that this journey was easy (it wasn’t), but I can say that it has taught me to appreciate my time of being single before I say I do.

Being single is that time to really think about your vocation. Married life? Single life? Religious life? At my high school we had a class dedicated solely to vocations. Discernment is a tough process, especially at high school age! For some reason, I always knew I wanted to be married and be a mother. I prayed about it a lot when I was younger. When I finally met the man I knew I wanted to marry, I wanted to start living my vocation RIGHT NOW.

Clearly that didn’t happen. We still had 21 months left of being single people. We had 21 months left of not being “One” with God. We had 21 months left of being apart, not seeing each other, and talking little during the day. But we also had 21 months left of being single people and living out that vocation for that part of our lives.

Waiting to be married meant that I can learn to appreciate the little things I may not have when I’m married. As excited as I am to be married to my love, many things will change for me. I’m learning to enjoy what I have now and to still be excited for the future at the same time.

Even if you know what you are called to do, having patience on getting there and praying to God for guidance is the best thing you can do. Waiting to live out your vocation is tough (believe me, I know!), but God is really trying to teach you something! God is teaching me patience as I am waiting (8 more months!) for our wedding. He’s teaching me to appreciate the time I do have with my fiancé because even when we are married we both will have busy schedules. He’s teaching me to be a more compassionate person.

While waiting that strenuous wait to truly live out your vocation, think of the things that you are learning from God in the process. The single life isn’t the easiest thing, but there’s a reason why we wait 20-something years to really start living out what we’re called to do. Even if the single life is for you, it still takes a lot of prayer and contemplating. Believe me; God knows what He’s doing!

~*~

Emily is a 20-something almost-Catholic who is from Ohio. She blogs about her wedding planning, conversion, and weight-loss over at Day in the Life. She cannot wait to be married to her love on May 4 next year!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Dealing with Rejection: Catholic Style! (Being Single Series)

It's basically my job to reject people.

Dream killing, it's what I do.

But getting rejected myself? Now that is not so fun.

Unfortunately, it's one of those annoying crosses of the single life to have to deal with rejection (after rejection after rejection etc. et al. la dee da). I don't have a lot of "official" dating experience, but I have been "officially" rejected more times than I would like to try counting.

Oreally?!
(P.S. I couldn't find a version of a guy saying this...
probably because this has been said by no guy ever.)
The good news is, I can always learn something new from these times of being rejected. God always wants us to get good out of suffering, right?

This post can be for the ladies who are dealing with break-ups, but it really is for those who have just been led on and/or rejected before it even got to the break-up stage. According to my spiritual director, ladies do more rejecting than men (which I've heard of never), so lads, go ahead and read these pointers if you're drowning your rejection in a tub of ice cream too.

For your benefit, I've compiled a succinct list of things that should help you if you ever get rejected, because I am pretty much an expert at it.

You're so welcome. My pain is your gain, ya?*

~*~

~ Don't write on your blog/Facebook about your rejection until you can laugh about it... it's always better to write with humor and a dash of sarcasm anyway.

Walk around muttering under your breath that men of this world should be more like Jesus, and Jesus would never reject you, obviously.

~ Read the Book of Job. His life was way worse. Then be thankful that your skin isn't covered in boils, because that is so unattractive.

"Oh, hey, I read Numbers all the time too!"
~ Learn to smile when he says, "You're a really great friend." And by smile, I mean think to yourself, "I hate that word."

~ Use all the free time you have now to practice those stellar Catholic pick-up lines. Always want to be prepared in case you catch the eye of a cutie two pews over at Mass.

~ Tell yourself that he's probably going to become a priest anyway... it will help you get over it faster, and Mary would be a better girlfriend for him. She has way more patience.

~ Realize that Taylor Swift songs can only be so cathartic. It doesn't matter if she was clearly thinking about your life when she wrote The Story of Us, you should probably only listen to her 10 times per day, no más.


I'm tracking how many times your watch this!

~ Pray to St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi that you can one day rebuild your friendship with him... and while you're storming heaven with your pleas, throw in one to St. Jude to help you out with this seemingly impossible cause.

~ Embrace the awkward. There's nothing you can do about it, but at least you can enjoy watching him do the awkward turtle squirm.

~ Yes, maybe your prayer led you to think that you were going to get married and have adorable babies, but no, God did not lead you on like the boy did. There's a point to all of this... probably.

No use crying over spilt... onions?
~ Get thee to a nunnery kitchen... because nothing helps you vent hurt and frustration with the male species quite like large kitchen knives and pounding on some cookie dough. I personally recommend chopping lots of onions. Lots 'n lots o' onions.

~ Go for a run in the rain. It makes your run a more dramatic interpretation of your present state of life... and it helps you sweat off the package of Oreos you ate last night.

~ Just say no to drugs hugs. That's probably part of what got you both into this mess in the first place. Don't even think about holding hands during the Our Father either.

~ Give thanks to God for destroying the illusion that Catholic men are perfect... before you had to find out the really hard way, whatever that is.

~ Realize that someone saying "No" to you now is so that you'll be available for the one who was made to say "Yes!" to you later on.

Do you have some fun tips? Add to the list!


*Disclaimer: This post was not written about or for any one particular person. Just a humorous interpretation of my experiences and observations.

P.S. I should also probably be clear that this post is written to be completely humorous, I do not hold any hurt or anger about any past rejections! Although, doing many of these things in a more serious fashion really did help me get over being rejected... especially cutting onions and running in the rain... and praying to the saints... and Taylor Swift... and so on. You get the idea.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Busy (Being Single Series)

I was having one of my usual way-too-early-in-the-morning-chats-while-making-our-tea with my co-worker recently, and I somehow ended up bringing up that I am a Girl Scout leader. We have had many conversations about what we do in our not-at-work time, and his response was:

"Wait, so you are a Girl Scout leader and you also work with your church and play softball?! You're so busy!"

I was slightly surprised by his reaction because I've always been involved in a lot of things, and most of my friends have too, so to me, it really doesn't seem like a lot. It did get me thinking though.

My response to him that morning was: "Well, yea, I am involved in all those things, but it really isn't that much..."

... which, for the most part, is true. Most of my activities are maybe a 1-2 hour time commitment on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, so it really doesn't seem too busy to me, most of the time.

After thinking about it though, I realized that a more truthful response would have been more of something like this:

"I try to keep busy 3 or 4 nights a week after work because I have less time to think about how lonely I am. Seeing people at these different things helps me forget for even a couple of hours that I go home and have to be alone. I don't want people to think though that this is my life and I'm too busy for new things, because I would gladly give up any of my busy-ness if a handsome lad wanted to take me out on a date!"

OK, so maybe I wouldn't have actually said all of that, but that is the more accurate answer. I do keep busy because it makes me feel less lonely. At the same time, I'm always afraid that I give off the wrong impression to the lads that I am too busy to have time for them, when really the opposite is true.

So, as this busy gal gets ready to head to bed after an already exhausting week, I turn this over to you.

How do you keep a balance between keeping busy as a single woman (to find companionship, serve others, and keep the loneliness away, among other reasons) and yet still showing men that you are available and open to other kinds of busy-ness (dating and, well, yea, just dating)?

I'd love to hear from the single single ladies, the taken single ladies, the engaged single ladies, the taken by God alone ladies, the married ladies, and even the men! Please chime in!

P.S. I really really really want to respond to your comments via email so we can keep up the discussion, so please make sure an email address is tied to your comment profile! Here's how...
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