It's not so weird to wear jeans anymore

+ other thoughts from the past 12 months

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Last Labour Day, I got on a one-way flight back to Vancouver from St. Louis. After a few weeks of deep and intense discernment, and 11 months in the convent, the Lord was calling me out of postulancy and back home.

The day itself is still vivid. Unlike the previous days before, for the first time I put on a t-shirt and jeans instead of a blouse, sweater vest and skirt. In the convent, “regular clothes” that weren’t our uniform are affectionately called “civvies”. Looking at myself in the mirror in my room, I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that the jeans (thankfully) still fit — but even more surprised at how natural it felt again to be dressed in this way. I would be unnoticeable, inconspicuous, hidden.

The flight from St. Louis to Chicago, where a few hours of layover awaited me, was more turbulent than the flight itself. I was ecstatic, excited, anxious, and nauseous to go home. It simultaneously felt like the best and the worst decision I had ever made. As I boarded my second plane and watched as we made the U-turn over UBC —signaling that it was almost landing time — I cried. I knew God was closing a door, and I was grateful for the clarity. But now that the door was closed, the question remained: where do I go next?

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Where do I go next? has pretty much been the only question on my mind this past year. While I’m no closer to figuring out the answer, I look back on where this year has taken me and can’t help but feel a mix of emotions — is it confusion? Delusion? Frustration? Relief?

I know that I sometimes tend to dwell on the negative and get stuck on what’s not working. But in small moments, things start to make sense. It’s been incredible to see God move in real time, nudging me along paths and telling me right away that actually, this isn’t it. And actually, that’s a-okay.

I used to get really paralyzed by the idea of “perfect discernment”. I don’t think anyone else calls it that but me, but I don’t think that the idea is unique. I know that God has a perfect will for my life, but I forget that God is much bigger than I am. So in the search for that “perfect will”, I let myself get choice paralysis. I discern… perpetually.

Fact finding and taking time to understand what you are embarking on — whether it’s marriage with someone or the priesthood or religious life — is important. After my first discernment retreat in 2019, I was ready to enter on the spot. Thank God that’s not how that works! It takes time to learn, understand, talk to people further along on the path than you, and discern.

But discernment must always lead to action.

I feel like in the last year, I’ve made a ton of mistakes. It’s kind of like when you’re writing an essay with pen, and you don’t like what you wrote, so you use white-out to fix your mistakes… again and again and again. To the point where you’ve got layers of white-out on the page. That’s what this has felt like. And while it’s felt like God has been silent at times, He’s also been pretty clear on other occasions — but those are stories for another time.

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One of the most common questions I’ve received since coming home has been this: If you could do it all again, would you enter the convent?

The answer is a resounding yes. Even if I knew what it would entail — a lot of tears, heartbreak, uncomfortable inner work — and I knew where it would lead me, I’d still do it. Because on the other side of those tears, heartbreak and uncomfortable inner work has been months of joy, laughter, celebration and peace. There’s also been a closeness to the Lord that I’ve never experienced until I was in the convent.

Admittedly, these last months I may have lost that closeness. It feels like we’re on opposite sides of the same room and we’re not talking. Or maybe more accurately, I’m not talking, but He’s always trying to make eye contact. And maybe in the midst of feeling lost, I forgot to look up. I forgot that I could run into His arms, and He’d welcome me.

When I saw the mountains in the airplane window as I was flying into Vancouver, I could feel Him say to me in my heart, “Your home is in me.” Not “welcome home.” Not “this is your forever home.” “Your home is in me.”

Ironic, considering that this is truly the call of a religious — one who could be sent anywhere where there is a discerned need in the community. I was getting ready for a lifetime of that. And God in His mercy has brought me back to my natural home.

I have no idea where He’s taking me, but I know that no matter where I end up, my home is in Him. My home resides in Jesus, the Way, the Truth, the Life (John 14). As much as I want to stay in Vancouver, who knows what the future may hold? Maybe He’ll let me stay, or maybe He’s got something waiting elsewhere. But while home is a place, home is also a Person. And in the depths of my heart I know that I’m never lost in Him: I just need to look up and see that my help is in the Lord (Psalm 121).

In Jesus,
Rachel