Spring Break? --> Spiritual Break

Ok, so I've totally fallen off the wagon as I am apt to do. Work has caused somewhat of a minor meltdown in the last few weeks, and I've gipped God on hours of prayer for the retreat. As a result, I've been skipping out on Ignatius classes on Tuesday. The first week I was doing mid-terms; the second I was doing paper work that was given to me that day to be done before we let out for the week. I'm really tempted not to go back because I'm totally a slacker Catholic (maybe that should be the name of this blog! HA!) and I'm so far behind.

On the other hand, this is probably exactly what the enemy wants - an Ignatius Retreat Dropout. Or maybe I'm just hard headed cause my parents raised me not to be a quitter. Or maybe I feel like I just can't quit Jesus cause he would never quit on me. But here's my plan:

Turn Spring Break --> into --> Spiritual Break

I'm not that far behind, but I am behind a good amount of hours thanks to all the unexpected work I had to do in the last two weeks. I figure I can marathon it up this week (like a traditional retreat) and catch myself up. I still may not show up for tomorrow night's class, however, cause I still feel rather sheepish. I wouldn't want to present the image that I'm all caught up when I'm not.

Needless to say, I feel like I'm going to be running a spiritual marathon. I'm probably going to do three hours a day - morning, lunch, and evening. And I'm kicking the week off with confession in Hanceville at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery and mass.

I feel like this entire thing is steering me towards my vocation. The few times I have been able to participate in an hour, it always seems to come back to my vocation. During one hour, I had the sudden realization that maybe, I can't seem to get full-time status is because this is not what God wants for me. Maybe this is just to get me by until I figure out what it is He wants me to do. That is terrifying in one aspect (that I will may not use a degree that I shelled out major money for) and amazing in another (that I have been provided for even though I'm not really doing what He wants yet).

Several weeks ago, when we first started the retreat, I had no idea what I was doing. Really, again, it was one of those things everyone else was doing, so I just did it because I thought "well I can only benefit from it." I was at adoration and doing the meditation when I just thought, "Lord, I don't even know what I want out of this. I don't even know what I want out of life, really. I just know I want to please you and join you in Heaven." Then the oddest thing happened. In my mind, I immediately began to think "John." Shrugging it off, I kept thinking about how I really, truly didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. Again, but louder, the voice in my head is saying, "John." Again, I thought, that's a funny thought and went back to previous thoughts. Finally, the voice in my head was just screaming, "John, john, john, john!" I looked up and my eyes immediately sat on the first numbers of the hymns from last Sunday - together, they were 15. Then, the voice started saying John 15. Pretty shaken at this point with no bible, I dug out my daily devotional and started flipping through the pages. At the bottom, there are always meditations, and John is pretty popular. I thought, "surely one of these will say something about John 15." Not even a second later after I had thought about that, a coupon I had stuck in the book fell out. I flipped to where it had been. I had read the right hand side page earlier; the left side had been blocked by the coupon. The left hand side's meditation was this - "Jesus usually asks us the obvious. What do you desire?" At the bottom of the page, the scriptural meditation was John 15! I was shocked. I thought, you got to be kidding me, right? I was just asking you this! (Astonished exclamation there, not sarcastic). I think I actually cried a bit. The other person there must have thought I was somewhat crazy or sentimental.

Since that point, I have continually been drawn back to thoughts of writing as a career. I honestly don't know what to do with all these realizations; I guess that is why I feel like I need to finish the retreat. I feel in my bones that God is trying to tell me something, but I'm letting all this other stuff get me distracted or discourage me. I've got to have the courage to finish, maybe on my own time frame, and I've got to take this free time this week and use it wisely. If I am a hermit and no fun to be around, please excuse me!

Most of all, as I stated earlier, Jesus wouldn't quit on me. He didn't NOT go to the cross after expressing that he really wished "this cup would pass from me (to paraphrase badly)." After all He's done for me, I can't quit on him. And I won't.