Locked Doors and Lightning Bolts

Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

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The past couple of weeks have contained transformative moments that are still repercussing (is that a word?) like aftershocks or echoes of thunder after the lightning strikes suddenly in a violent storm. With only the best of intentions (the very things that pave that famous road to perdition), I tried a little too hard to attain something I have been wanting to do for most of my life—to enter a monastery—and failed miserably. The tearful aftermath was not pretty, but at least now I know the truth. I am not nun material, and regardless of how badly I might wish to be, God made it abundantly clear that it is time to put that dream on the shelf of Things Once Wished For But Better Left Undone.

When you think you have things all neatly arranged in your life, when you think all the years of effort and faith and prayer are finally paying off, don't be too surprised if the doors you thought had opened are suddenly locked again, and you're the one who locked them. There is a point when admirable perseverance is really just pigheaded stubbornness taken a little too far. One must be willing to face when one is wrong and give up gracefully.

But no one knows us better than God does, and He has a perfect plan, even for pigheaded people like me. I'm just not quite sure what it is yet, but honestly at this point it no longer matters. Like the doomed men of the Light Brigade, mine is not to reason why, mine is just to do and die. I can still live a good and even holy life of prayer and good works. I just won't be wearing a long, pretty veil while I do it. Oh, my wounded vanity! I was so hoping to cover this thinning, curly gray mop.

Next to that traumatic event, the rejection of my novel by Pauline Books & Media was no more troublesome than a mosquito bite. Next stop, Ignatius Press. Onward!

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Photo by Thomas Vitali on Unsplash