ONE LIFE TO LIVE. . .  so many choices!

How do we find the answers to the questions 
of what and where God wants us to be? 

Today, young women have a choice in selecting their state of life. Every woman desires intimacy and meaning, these are basic human needs, yet they were not always a reality for many women. Despite their situations women have always sought to find fulfillment in their lives. Even with their limited choices, women have asked the same questions we do now. . .What and where does God want me to be?

The choices have become more numerous but the real problem for us today is being able to listen for and to the voice of God in our lives.

	Listening to God and the stirrings of our heart is called discernment. It is taking all the pieces of our life and finding the best fit for them.

In her autobiography St. Teresa of Jesus' writes of her own process of discernment. At the age of 16, Teresa was sent by her father to a boarding school run by the Augustinian Nuns. Her mother had died and her sister had gotten married so it was not proper for Teresa to remain at home without an older woman in the house. Teresa was not happy about going to school because she enjoyed the company of her cousins. (Later she realized that they had been a bad influence on her). Teresa's father had his own reasons for sending Teresa to school. . .she was hooked on the novels of her day which he did not like.

Teresa eventually adapted to her new environment and began to pray on a regular basis and lead a more spiritual life. She became friends with one nun in particular who had made an impression on her because of her good example. Teresa began to look seriously at her own life and future. She had a great fear of offending God and, like all Spaniards of her day, sought to save her soul--but how? In Teresa's time a woman could be a wife, a nun or remain unmarried at home. Teresa had no desire for either the married or religious life. She began to ask others to pray for her that she might know where God was calling her. About a year and a half later, Teresa became very ill and her father removed her from the boarding school.

Once Teresa began to improve from her illness, she went to spend some time with her uncle. He was very devout and gave Teresa good spiritual books to read while she recovered. Teresa was drawn to religious life yet she struggled with her repugnance at being a nun: I saw that religious life was the best and safest state, and so little by little I decided to force myself to accept it. I was engaged in this battle within myself for three months. . . .And in this business of choosing a state, it seems I was moved more by servile fear than by love.

When Teresa finally 'surrendered' she told her father of her decision to become a nun. He did not initially approve as he worried about her health. Teresa and her father were very close and so he asked her to wait. She did so for a year and then 'eloped' . . .when I left my father's house I felt that separation so keenly that the feeling will not be greater, I think, when I die. (Life 2-4).

Once she entered, Teresa felt great peace. She still had many challenges and sufferings ahead of her but she never regretted her decision to be a nun. Her fear was also transformed into ardent love of God. . .a God whom she knew loved her and desired her happiness.

God's call is a pure GIFT and God kept nudging Teresa both at school and her uncle's. He did not use extraordinary means to do this; rather God used the everyday example of the nuns and her uncle to draw her.

Teresa said becoming a nun was repugnant to her. She struggled against the thought and this inner struggle to be OPEN to God's call was in part why she became sick at school.