I hate to get all churchy on y'all again, but of my roomies shared this prayer with me during retreat in Yosemite, and I thought it was just about perfect for where I am right now. I think somewhere deep down, part of me expected EUIP to be some sort of "lightening bolt"/ Road to Damascus experience in which God would reveal exactly what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life.
Yeah, no such luck.
The year is already drawing to a close, and it seems like my anxiety and uncertainty about the future have only increased. I'm finally starting to come to terms with the fact that the lightening bolt will probably never come, and I'll never know for certain where I'm going or what God has in store for me next. I could spend a million years in "discernment" (whatever the hell that actually even means), and still some level of anxiety and doubt about whether I'm on the "right" track will always be there. Really, all I will ever be able to do is just keep trying. From my last offline conversations with y'all, it seems like a couple of you might be feeling similarly in some ways, so I figured I'd pass this along:
"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe, dear Father, that the desire to please You does in fact please You, and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And so I believe that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust You always; though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for You are with me and You will never leave me to face my peril alone."
-Thomas Merton
(okay, so technically the picture's from our last retreat at Mount Calvary in Santa Barbara, not Yosemite, but it's close enough, right?)
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