Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Reflection on Relationship

Sometimes I regret Facebook and being able to get in touch with some really old frienships like the ones you had in gradeschool. I don't regret it in such a way that I want to leave Facebook, but more along the lines of "Wish I didn't know that."

Even though I'm in discernment, I still have to adjust my way of thinking and acting. I suppose I can go around thinking that some guy is really cute or someone would make a really good marriage partner down the line, but it does me a disservice. I have to take the idea of marriage and lay it to rest, and let it be expunged from the options in my life. "People who have to choose between two good alternatives are frequently attracted to both of them. Once an alternative has been selected, the other alternative hthat has been rejected will have to be mourned" (Kiechle, 2005, p. 76). Now I'm not mourning, but I'm also forcing myself to realize that thinking about compatability will never get me very far in discernment. God has always made good-looking Catholics, and He will continue to do so. Like late last week I looked online at wedding rings and wedding gowns. I'm never going to wear one. I will never wear a wedding gown, I will never have a wedding ring with a diamond. I will never have "my day." I will never have a husband or children of my own.

But then on the other hand, I look online at who was my best friend in grade school, the one I had the hugest crush on for the longest time. I still like the memory I have of who he was. He's gay. All the guys I have liked down through the years have been unavailable to me by no fault of my own. I'm hedged in, so I can only turn to Him. I can only Love Him. I have come to love and to desire celibacy/chastity, and the vocation call, only because He Loves it into me. If it weren't for God inviting me into it, I wouldn't give discernment the time of day. I have learned that if I love Him, my will conforms to His; leading me all the way back to "thy will be done."