Discernment

Discernment is a very interesting thing. It takes a lot of patience and sitting in quiet letting God speak to your heart. There is a lot of waiting involved in discernment and you have to take it slowly, one day at a time.
I have always had a plan of how my life is going to go. I have always had my heart set on some plan for what I will do. At one point it was to do Doctors without Boarders, at another point it was to join the Missionaries of Charity, at still another point it was to enter the Sisters of Life.
This past year a lot has changed for me. I've been learning a lot about living in the moment and not trying to discern for the future but to discern for today. This is a huge struggle for me because it scares me a lot to not have a plan. As of right now the plan is to finish college and then enter the SMME. But I have no idea if that is actually what is going to happen. This discerning the cloister is really reminding me of the lessons I've learned in the past year. I have no idea what is going to happen when I meet with Sister Mary Rose. The majority of me is super excited. I feel like a girl getting ready for her first date with a guy she's had a crush on for a long time. I have no clue how this is going to go but I'm really excited for it. At the same time there is a little bit of nervousness because of the fact that I have no clue what is going to happen.
I'm also really confused by this because I've seen in the past few months that God has given me a heart for the world. I see those in the world without Christ and my heart aches for them and I want to share with them the wonderful things that I have found in Christ. I also have begun to have a passion for the deaf community. I want to be able to make religious life accessible to those who are deaf. I want to be able to reach out to the deaf and be able to evangelize to them. How can I do this if I'm in the cloister? I know that I can do this through prayer and personal sacrifice if that is what He wants of me, and that is one big lesson I've learned since starting to discern with them, but I feel like if I'm in the cloister I won't be able to do it in the way I think He wants me to. But if that's the case then why am I discerning with them? If I'm not called to the cloister then why did He tell me so strongly that I need to discern with them?
I'm currently doing a media fast with one of my friends. For the next three weekends I'm not listening to the radio or going on youtube so today has been mostly really quiet. It's given me a good chance to think about all this and honestly my mind is still going round in circles. I'm really not sure what to feel about this at all. I think I'm going to head to Adoration soon.

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria! Let's see what the good God wills.