Who Are You?

Most people don't know what they want. Most people don't know who they are. Most people don't know who they are capable of becoming." ~Matthew Kelly

I have long struggled with feeling like the above statement. I, professionally speaking, have struggled for a number of years with what I want out of a career. I have a degree in English Literature because I wanted to teach, but I've never stepped into a classroom. I worked in retail management for 11 years bouncing from retailer to the next--4 different jobs in all--trying to figure out what I wanted. I then abandoned retail and pursued a career in sales as a financial advisor. When that didn't work out, I landed a job in youth ministry. In the past 15 years I've had 6 different jobs in three different industries. I've spent, on average, 2 1/2 years at each job, all in an effort to figure out what I wanted.

When expressing to my wife that I just feel like I don't know who I am or what I'm called to do she responded, quite frankly, "Tim, it's not supposed to be about what you feel. You are called to do what God wants you to do, not what you feel like doing." And she's right. Our feelings oftentimes have a tendency to mislead us.

I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months trying to figure out what my calling is--what my vocation is. I've come to the conclusion, that I am in the exact place that God wants me to be in. I love my wife dearly. She is my best friend and my vocation. She is, and needs to be, my number one priority. Although it may seem, at times, like I don't enjoy my children, I truly do love my five kids. I wouldn't give them up for anything, nor, if I had the opportunity to "do it all over again", would I choose to have less kids.

My job is truly wonderful. It fits me so well. I spoke with an old friend the other day whom I haven't spoken to since I took this job in youth ministry. He told me that youth ministry is the perfect fit for me. He's right. Sometimes I lose sight of that when I get caught up in my feelings.

So, after struggling for so many years, I have finally found what I want, who I am.

Why am I writing this today? First of all, this is a new found discovery. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago that I discovered that I am exactly where God wants me to be. It's a very freeing experience to have. I am now free to carry out God's will in my life, and to focus on the third component of Matthew Kelly's quote above--to discover who I am capable of becoming. You see, unless you know who you are and what you want, you can't move forward to grow into the person you are capable of becoming. I am now free to focus my energies on becoming the best husband, father, and youth minister I can be.

The second reason for writing this blog today is that I know that I am not the only person who has struggled with who they are and what they want. I know that there are many other people out there that are trying to find themselves in this world. I know many of the teens I work with in youth ministry are trying to find themselves as well.

So, how did I get to where I am at now? How did I discover what I wanted and who I was? I didn't. God revealed to me who I was and what I wanted. It has taken me 15 years of trial, mistakes, and suffering to get to this point. For the first 13 years I did what I wanted (or, I should say, what the world told me what I wanted). I didn't listen to the voice of God, but instead listened to the voice of the world. God had to break me to get me to listen to Him. And after 7 months of unemployment, God finally revealed to me that what I truly wanted was what He wanted for me. Is my life perfect now? Hardly, but I'm finally at peace with my life. I'm no longer searching for the next thing to do. I'm focusing my life on what God is doing in me today and not on what God wants me to do tomorrow.

It took a long time for me to discover my true calling in life. I have been living this calling for a year and a half now and I only discovered it a few weeks ago. Call me stubborn and thick headed. If you don't know who you are or what you want from life I have some advice for you. Pray. And then pray some more. Seek out the advice of your spouse, your friends, your family. And then take that advice to prayer. Surrender your will to God. Don't focus on your feelings or what you want, but instead try to understand what God wants for you. He has a beautiful plan for each of us, but He won't force it on us. We must let go and trust in Him. My life is radically different for doing so. I'm happier. I'm at peace. And hopefully it won't take you as long to discover yourself as it took me.

Help the Vocation Crisis By Encouraging Marriage!

For many years the leadership of the Catholic Church in America (and perhaps elsewhere) have been talking about the crisis in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. In the conversation to address the issue of the crisis in the priesthood, there have been many suggestions made. Stepping up the campaign to recruit good men, allowing priests to marry, and allowing women to become priests have been popular ideas floating around. While there are people that have strong arguments on both sides of the married priest and female priest debate, I'm not going to address this debate now. If you want to know my views on women priests, you can read my post on why women can't be priests. There is one idea that I have heard that I feel needs more attention, and that is encouraging marriage.

When I first heard of the idea of promoting marriage as a way to increase celibate vocations, I didn't understand the connection between the two. I mean, how can a marriage encourage celibacy? It just didn't make sense to me. But I heard this idea from several sources. So I spent some time thinking about it, and it started to make sense. Marriage and holy orders are both vocations--they both are a commitment. They are both covenants: marriage a covenant between man, woman, and God and holy orders a covenant between man, the Church, and God.

Marriage is also in a crisis, like holy orders. Fewer and fewer people are choosing to get married. And for those of that do decide to marry, many of those marriages end in divorce. People are no longer making the commitment to married life. Many Catholics are no longer taking this sacrament seriously. However, people are still having children. And we have (and are continuing to) raise a culture of children that does not understand the commitment to a vocation because they don't see it modeled in their own lives.

If we, as a culture, aren't making a commitment to the vocation, the sacrament, of marriage, how can we expect our children to make that commitment as well? We need to model that committed behavior in our lives, in our relationship with our spouses. If we can address the marriage crisis by encouraging strong and committed marriages, our children will understand that vocations require commitment. And if we strive for holiness in our marriages then our children will see the importance of holiness, and hopefully strive for it themselves.

It is not celibacy or a male-only priesthood that is at the heart of our crisis in vocations to the priesthood. It is lack of commitment to vocation. If we don't model a commitment to our marriage vocation then our children won't be committed to their vocation--whether it be priesthood or marriage.