What Happened on the Assumption of Mary

 I remember a year ago well. It was sister day, and we were meeting up in Davis, a city I had never adventured in. It was the feast of the Assumption of Mary, a Sunday. I had gone to Mass the day before for a new priest's ordination to his new parish with my parents and my brother and his new fiancée. 

So much was spinning in my head and twisting in my heart. It was right before the day when work would start up again and I didn't feel ready mentally at all. I felt too old for it, outgrown and desiring something else- something to do with library science, something that would make me grow and learn! Little did I know that I learned so much last school year, wasn't what I initially expected, and it wasn't at all easy, but it was worth it. I was leaning into Him and trusting in His will. Something kept feeling like I should stay, that it was part of my journey. 

I learned so much about trusting, and humility. So many things kept going back to these things- feeling overlooked and forgotten at my job, feeling less than, outgrown in so many ways, and feeling inadequate. And definitely feeling like an onlooker in others' lives, always watching on the sidelines and feeling the same, again and again.

But with this sameness, this monotony and dead-end that somehow kept working week after week, I found joy because I knew I was doing God's will and it was what I was meant for. There was joy because I felt close to Him in the suffering, in the lamenting, the tears, the unstimulating days, the embarrassment, the early mornings at Mass. 

There was a sadness to start. There was a lot of sifting through in my heart, in my prayer. There was so much in my mind, I very often felt stuck in my thoughts. I would remember the school year prior and though it was severely challenging, isolating and extreme in many ways, somehow it was doable with God's grace. I would look back to help myself in the present. 

After sister day, I talked more with Susie in front of our cars parked in front of our sister's house. I started crying, lamenting about what was ahead and how I was feeling. Her listening ear was consoling to the bitterness I was experiencing, the cross I was holding. "Trust in God, He can do anything He wants" she would say, and I remembered that, and kept that in the back of my mind.

As I was packing my lunch for the first day of school, Stephen and Ali were over and it was about the engagement and wedding details. I didn't feel at all ready for work, and slowly put things together for my lunch. I got an email from Susie, forwarding a written expert she wrote exactly 3 years prior and the unique, rough, sensitive and suffering season she was experiencing...as I was reading her writing, I could feel and relate to all that she wrote at that time. I didn't feel so alone, but it was still a hard season to enter into. 

I accepted, and entered into God's will, and let Him lead. I went to Mass the next morning, and running a bit late for work and realizing how off I felt- it didn't feel/ I didn't feel excited for the first day of school, what was wrong with me? As the day continued, it was better than what I thought, and I was glad to be back.

I didn't know I would or even could make it through another school year. But again, God's will was pushing me through and it all turned out to be so. I've learned to listen to that, if nothing else!