So, a month ago I blogged about discerning which parish would be the best place for me personally to glorify God and further my spiritual journey. I laid out both the good and not so good points of each parish as I saw them at the time.
A month later, I am still at the same parish with no plans to leave it and with a greater appreciation of the parish as a whole, our Pastor, the 4 Associates, and many of the parishioners.
One super thing that discernment of anything brings about is a greater awareness of whatever you are looking at or comparing. I started recognizing all that my current parish really does offer from every aspect – and 99% of it was good. As late as tonight, one of the Priests said something about me to a couple to whom I was talking that filled me with so much love that I wanted to cry.
I recognized that although at the time of the last blog it looked like the other parish had more to offer me personally, after a closer look and more discussions with some of the parishioners, I am now inclined to believe that is not necessarily the case. I think it was more just timing of them offering particular things that I was looking for in that period.
I love how the Holy Spirit knows how stubborn I am and so goes out of His way to get through to me. In this case, it was showing me just how good I have it, how wishy-washy I was being (not to mention selfish and self-centered though I used the excuse of “first priority is to get myself to Heaven”), that I was not giving the new concept a fair evaluation as to how or if I could fit into it and benefit from it spiritually, but most importantly how I was uniquely challenged at my current parish that I may or may not be elsewhere.
As I expressed before, I felt that my current parish just was not using me and/or that they really did not understand how much I have to offer, what I am capable of doing, the skills and intelligence that God has gifted me. But God reminded me through this discernment process:
- I have never been around such men (especially our Pastor and the Priest this evening) who are so filled with the Holy Spirit and therefore, I should be confident that if God wanted my talents to be used the way I thought they should be, it would have happened.
- If He does not want to utilize me that way, it will not happen no matter where I am.
So as I shut down my computer to try to get a few hours sleep before heading back to MY parish, I know that I am at peace and am a little closer to truly understanding how to trust in Him who knows best.
blessedadorer 
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