sHOW me oBEDience

Inspired by the 2008 FOCUS conference, I took their challenge and knealt down one evening and prayed, "Lord, I surrender my life to you. This life I give to You. Help me to die to myself daily, so that I can live a new life in You." 


Totally expecting to feel smug and super holy I was shocked when, in my heart I felt God raise an eyebrow and question me saying, 'Woah girl, slow down. Now, seriously think about what you just said, do you really mean that?" 
The first time it happened I was taken aback and shocked - and honestly, a lot a bit offended.
"Of COURSE I want to die to myself and give my life to you, Lord." I respond in a defensive confusion, "DUH?"
"But Tori," my heart replied, "I want you to know that this isn't going to be easy. It's going to be really hard - really hard." 
"Seriously God? Are we really having this conversation? Seriously? Like, I thought you wanted all of us to hand over our lives to you as if this was the big moment- and now you're trying to convince me out of it? Is this some kind of trick? You're lucky I'm so willing to do this. Do you know how many people do this?"
"I tell you, it is going to hurt. You won't like it. It's going to be tough." 
I stopped for a moment. This really surprised me. I've never wanted the journey to be hard. I  wanted to follow Christ because that was what was going to make life easier - not harder. I don't want pain - I don't want hurt. Hurt? What? 
"But God, I know that I am supposed to choose You...but uh, since we're on the topic...just how painful are we talking about?" 
My heart only responded with a firm challenge, "Will you follow me?" 
And as my whole body shrieked 'NO!' I answered, hesitantly, 'eeehh, well, uh, ummm, ooook? yes. YES. Yes, I will follow you." 

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" - Matthew 6:21

A year ago, while in tears, I pulled out a black journal and wrote, "God, bring me to another group of friends...bring me that joy again." I was past the point of asking, I was telling. 

I went to bed that night feeling miserable and not just alone - but lonely. 

But in the past year God has answered that prayer.  Today, I am blessed and graced with so many great friends - I am not lonely - and far from feeling alone...until tonight.

Tonight I realized that
Gillian is moving to New York. Allie is living in LA.
The Aussies are in Australia the Dominicans are in the Dominican and Lori is in Washington
Matt's headed to Louisiana
Bobby's gone...Caitlin's gone...Sara's gone...
It feels like everyone is being taken away- that my prayer is being taken away. 

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future - Jeremiah 29:11

But, twistedly, I see what God is doing.


As I am working through this Pre-Life Crisis, I am beginning to figure out where God wants me to walk next - but I'm hesitant to step, filled with excuses and attachments. But this entire summer, slowly, one by one, God started taking them away. The plan. The job. The backup plan and the backup job. And now - the people. 
Because He knows I can't leave you - that I'll struggle putting you before Him. So what is God doing by taking away my friends? God is removing from me all the distractions - all the excuses and attachments- and leaving me with a choice: the world, or Him. 

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” - Matthew 10:37

The struggle is: I love this world. I love it's food and it's clothes - it's colors, it's sunsets - it's people. This world is AWESOME! But God desires for me to desire something even more, even greater. And I've already made my choice, I'm going to choose God - but in this moment, I'm trying to give the world one last squeeze before my God puts it away and asks instead that I love Him. 

And I know that God's love is so much greater than this world. I mean, I love this world and my God INVENTED it. Like, He's so much bigger - SO much bigger. And my head knows this.
But in my heart, I'm still unsure - still fighting it - because I'm still holding on. 

I don't want to let you go - because you are the ones who I see Christ in. You are the ones who taught me how to love and who inspire me to love more. You are the ones who aren't afraid to sit me down at Starbucks until 1am to remind me how much you care. Who let me cry abnoxiously on the phone for two hours and tag along on adventures to milk goats. You pray for me, even when I've been a total jerk and don't judge me when I fall short on this walk towards holiness - again and again, you forgive, encourage, inspire and support.  


I never understood why people cried at graduations or why 'empty nest syndrome' plauged so many mothers: But I understand it now. It was a twenty-one year learning curve, but I got it. I got it now. And it totally sucks that God's in the process of taking it away just as I'm realizing it. And what's worse, is I know that God's doing it out of love. 
I just wish love didn't have to hurt so much. 

And then on love hurting - hurt - suffering - Christ DIED on the cross for me - for love of me - His love meant His death. Who am I to fight to hold on to people when "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13


Holiness isn't easy. The path to Heaven isn't always extraordinary miracles and visions and healings. True holiness like true love, is in the details. The day-to-day. The ordinary. Suffering, not because we're being punished, but because we're being extraordinarly LOVED. It's a new kind of love. And my heart gets it, but my body is still fighting it...


"When a fetus is in the womb, it resists leaving the womb for the outside world. It fights as hard as it can to stay in the womb. The reason is that when the fetus leaves the womb, its home is destroyed. All its nourishment and everything else it had in the womb breaks apart and flows away.Who would want to go through something like that? Every fetus cries, "No!" right up to the moment of birth. But the child who experiences pain in order to emerge from its mother's womb grows to become the object of its parents' love. In the same way, our spirit self must leave behind our crying physical body in order to be born anew as the eternal object of the God who is a spiritual being." Revered Sun Myung Moon on Death and Dying

God, you are right. This walk IS hard. It DOES hurt. It is NOT easy. 


I really miss my friends. The ones who have left, I want to come back. The ones who are here, I don't want to go. 


But today, you are asking me to choose. You are asking me 'where is your treasure'? And in the midst of all this ache, and all these tears and all this reluctance, there is only one answer that I can really give. One decision that I can make, and though my answer is simple and obvious - it's complicated and discreet and painful and liberating-


I choose You. 

voCATions and visIONS of yOUR future spouse

It's engagement season. My facebook news feed is littered with 'x person is now engaged to y person' and my private messages are filled with, 'Tori!! I'm entering the convent!!" 

When it comes to vocations, I've always flipped back and forth. Ever since Jimmy Mitchel asked that fateful question, "Tori, it's your moral obligation as a single, catholic  woman to discern ALL vocations - because are you really following God's will if you aren't open to anywhere He could call you?" I've never been the same.


After Jimmy's challenge, I began to really discern the religious life. Weekly trips to the Maj (Mother House of the Sisters of Saint Cecelia), daily mass, monthly discernment retreats...and then, my secret dress-up-like-a-nun sessions. When my roommate was gone for the weekend, I'd lock our door and place a towel around my face to look like a habit. Staring at myself in the mirror I'd make introductions, 
"Why Hello! I'm Sister Mary Pio" or "Oh yes, you can call me sister." 

One day, I was watching 'Friends' on TV when the air around me suddenly became thick, warm and heavy. Chills ran over me and as fast as I could, I turned the TV off because I didn't want the Holy Spirit to know I was watching Friends. 


I sat up straight, Indian style and put my hands out in prayer, 'Welcome, Holy Spirit! I'm ready.' And just as my eyes are looking upon my dark dorm room, I was at the same time in another place. There, in front of me, was a young man, crying, in front of the tabernacle and he was praying. 'Lord, where is she?" He asked. "I keep searching for her and I think I've found her but she's not there. Where is she?" I felt the Spirit calm him and he spoke again, "Let her know that I love her and I am waiting for her." And then, speaking to me, he said aloud, "I love you and I am waiting for you." 
Then I felt myself being pulled from that room and all of me was back in my dorm room, where I'd been the entire time. But I could still hear his voice, "Hug her for me, please. Let her know I'm here." And I held my breath as I watched the T-shirt on my shoulders move closer to my skin as I felt a tight embrace. 


Then it was over. The room was cold, and damp again. But I was so alive. I spent a few minutes pinching myself - 'was that real?' - 'did that really just happen' - 'how do i know if I just made it up?' 'Wow, TorTor - you are CRAY CRAY!! Seek professional help now'


But the peace in my heart was overwhelming. I began to start praying for this boy- and then I had the craziest idea...I went before a tabernacle and prayed.


"Lord," I said, "Take my heart and bury it deep within yours. Let he, who is my husband, seek you in order to give my heart back to me. and Lord," I continued, because I was on a roll, "please, oh please, guard this heart. And make every relationship with a guy that's not with him totally and cosmically fail before anything ever happens - because Lord, I know he is out there and I want to be the best for him - the purest for him - I want him to have my whole heart."


Well, ask and you shall receive - and since that spontaneous 'pray before the tabernacle for your future spouse which you hallucinated about' day, every date or love interest or potential boyfriend has been an utter, cosmic failure. But still, it's really easy for me to begin to loose hope - to get so frustrated with it all that I just want to give up. There are all these things my friends are doing - that seem totally normal - long goodbye hugs, late night talks, stolen kisses after dates - and I don't do this. A married woman wouldn't do this - a girl with a boyfriend wouldn't do this - so why would I, who is so confident of the existence of a spouse, do this? 

But it's really hard sometimes. I don't entirely trust myself to know if what happened was a dream, or from God or from the devil. I don't know. And who knows if I'll be alive after tomorrow to meet him? Or if I'm really called to the convent and this is just the devil distracting me? But whenever I'm at the point of giving up - of saying, 'I'm sorry, but this is just too hard. I don't have the trust or the patience and I don't know if this is right.' God - or at least I think it's God - steps in and  gives me enough hope to keep holding on. 


Yesterday morning, my heart was so sad. I watched as the holy families from Assumption walked down the communion aisle and I couldn't help but question God, 'How blessed they are to have found each other. What a gift a spouse is. Am I foolish? Is this your will for me?'
And as I'm thinking about how insane I am to everyday offer up communion for my future husband and our currently non-existent family, I drop my bible and it opens randomly to Hosea Chapter 3, I wonder what it says." and then I read, "And I said to her, you will wait for me for many days. You will not commit fornication, and you will not be with a man. But I also will wait for you." 

Yes, I also, will wait for you.