Just Friends?

I'm not sure whether to pursue or step back and stay neutral. I have recently rekindled an interest in one of my good friends...but she is just that right now...a good friend. I don't want to do anything that might jeprodize that friendship. I also...taking advice given to me by this very girl in the past...need to know one way or the other to help me move on, or if everything worked out expressed a mutual feeling. I hesitate to move forward because I care about her...does she need the friend, or would it be ok to be the boyfriend. If she doesn't reciprocate the feelings...have I destroyed any friendship bond for the future? God grant me patience and to be exact in my wording that I may follow your vocation laid out for me.

Thine Will Be Done...

How does one discern the Single Life? Of this I am bewildered. I don't know whether to press on, or give up. I want to give my life in service...but is this a call to live free from outside distractions or a call to love a spouse first and serve my Church second? I cannot give a straight answer, nor can I get one. Where in a Church that preaches three vocations does one find the information for the out of the ordinary choice? I have asked, but I have been met with silence and uncertainty. Where do I turn for the answer?

Part of me feels the call to live my life in service to the Church, the other part feels alone. Alone and longing for a relationship where I can be the ear to listen, but also have an ear to listen...a shoulder to cry on. Is this in the cards for me, what does God want from me.

At the beginning of the summer I was gung-ho about the whole discernment thing. The answer would come...I just needed to be patient; well I am getting tired of waiting...I am drained. Why do I feel so alone when I am surrounded by a community filled with love and friendship? Is this the community where I belong? I love my job and the service I am able to provide...but what do I receive in return, what spiritual refreshment do I draw from. I need someone to challenge me, but also someone who will listen when I can't hold it in any longer. Time and time again I think I have found someone to fill that hole inside...but I am promptly let down by disinterest. Where do I go to find the one who will compliment and complete me...is there such a person?...am I looking in all the wrong places?

Sometimes I wonder if the failure lies with me. Do I need to just grow a pair and go for it? But do I risk the friendships I have...is it possible to care too much for the other person to worry that letting them know my true feelings will further burden them with a choice? Why must I live in solitude and simply imagine what could be? Lord take this burden from me, I want a woman to shower with affection...to live as a princess...to wait on and show my full devotion to. I want someone to love and care about, that I can make feel special for just being themselves.

Help me Lord, for I do not know thy will for me. I wish to serve thee with my life, I wish to lose this emptiness and fear to gain true love and devotion to my vocation.

The Pit Inside Me...

I think this last girl I dated really messed me up. I haven't felt the same since we broke up. I was super excited just to get back into dating again after a 3 year gap. I thought it was what I needed to help me fill the gap I feel, it didn't...I feel worse. She lured me in and hung me out to dry. It hurt so much more the second time, and has affected me emotionally.

I feel depressed a lot of the time. It's hard to have the same excitement. Maybe it has just been a long last two weeks but I am almost positive that dating that girl did some sort of damage. It's not that I am swearing off girls...it isn't easy to find a girl...first that I am able to date...and then I have to get her to like me. I sometimes want to take this as a call to the single life...but it doesn't match up. Where is the immense happiness you feel when you find your vocation...it isn't hidden among the despair and depression. It hurts...and I don't know how to make it better. I hide my feelings trying to keep face to minister in my job, but I don't know if I can handle this. What do I do?

Same Issue, Different Faces

Well...I've avoided this long enough. I keep telling myself that I should write on my blog...but never really talk myself into it. It's time...

So, the last month has been rough. I gave a girl a second chance. It was great, or so I thought. I started out slow telling myself to be cautious, that I might get hurt. I reached a point...probably when she asked me why I hadn't kissed her while we were making dinner (there were several ample opportunities, and I wanted to...but didn't). That's when I gave in, and threw cares to the wind. I kissed her, we talked about it for a few minutes that night...and decided we would be dating again. SWEET RIGHT?

Well...a few weeks later I was supposed to cook for her at my apt, plans changed and her family was in town so she needed to head back to spend time with them...she invited me to go with. I did and asked her on the drive over what I should say if asked who I was...she said I could be the boyfriend...I was STOKED!

A month passed...I had made a few trips down to her place, and she was back in town so we were going to do a movie night. Well she came over for movie night and did not seem like she was up for the movie, we needed to talk. She stared into the same speel she gave me last time about how she wasn't sure it was fair for her to put her weird personality on me. I saw this coming, but this time I had a better argument for her how I could explain to her that it didn't bother me and that I was willing to work with it.

This should have been a sign. It didn't feel right but at this point it was just nice to be dating again, so I ignored my gut and went ahead with an "I don't care" attitude. About a week later my gut proved right. She texted me saying she needed to talk to me...asking if I had time to talk on the phone later that evening. I had a feeling where this was going so I asked her what about? My phone rang and we had a 10 minute conversation about how she still couldn't see it, leaving me single.

I don't know if I would have been better off not giving her the second chance, but I have had a hole that I cannot fill since she broke up with me that night. Its different than the hole I had earlier this year somehow. I tried after the breakup to tell myself that this was a renewed call to discern the single life, but I don't know if I believe myself. I am still stuck in the balance of "I want a girlfriend" and "Do I have time for a relationship?". I feel a hole that I cannot fill, an emptiness/longing for someone to share my life with on a deeper level. Time and time again I face the same challenge: I can't find anyone that I can date in the area, nor can I find someone who wants to date me.

I am usually the one to be all ears, to listen to others when they struggle in a situation. It is hard though to do that when I don't have anyone I feel comfortable enough with to be those ears for me. I bottle it in and I am reaching the point of overflowing. I feel like all the posts on this blog are me moaning and groaning over my life problems...never really happy posts. Is this blog the place I turn to for a comforting ear? Am I afraid of being alone? Why does this emptiness hurt so much, and when/how will it go away?

The Steps to Newman

It always seems that when I am the farthest down in the dumps God answers with hope and purpose. It has been a long few weeks, not necessarily stressful...but trying...emotionally, sometimes physically, and spiritually. Discernment is not easy, i'm not sure it is meant to be. Matching our wants and needs with what God wants for us is hard to do, it should be easy but it's hard to let go.

Strangely the steps to Newman Hall have become a place of comfort. I remember sitting here as a Super-senior ready to graduate, to go out into the world...wondering where/how I would find a community like this. I now find myself, on occasion, drifting back to these very same steps...just to sit down and reflect on how far i've come since that night...and te ways in which I have not left these steps. They are a blessing; a "concrete" (excuse the pun) representation of where God calls me.

I don't know where i'm going, or exactly what i'm supposed to be doing. I'm scared, and searching for the next level of community...one that I can go deeper with. I need a community where I can make it about me everyonce in a while and not feel like a selfish jerk...I need to open up and let it loose. I need to find steps that allow me to look out onto the world, and not just reflect on the past.

Stuck in 1st Gear

I am not sure what it is but I continue to struggle with the age old question in my vocation. "I want a girlfriend but I don't think I have enough time for one, but am I willing to make time or am I just selfish?"

I struggle with not having someone to share my life with...with a lot of my friends getting married I don't even have what resembles a relationship. I understand and realize that not everyone is called to a married vocation...but I also struggle with not having someone there to spend time with. There are plenty of girls who I think would fit the role, but I have either been friend zoned or am looked up to as a big brother not dating material. I also sit in the awkward situation that I am in a campus ministry role and whether or not that is kosher to date...and I probably don't help myself by being known as the awkward guy.

I just want to have another chance at a dating relationship. I have failed in the past but I hope to have learned from those and apply them to the future. I want to move forward...but I feel like I am stuck in this gear for life...

The Continuing Struggle...

I haven't posted on this blog in a long while, i've been posting on my other blog "Following His Vocation - Counter-Cultural Catholic".  I just felt that this post was more appropriate for this blog.

I continue to struggle with the whole female situation. I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. I really like hanging out with girls and find several of them very attractive, but i'm also happy to be single and often don't have time for a relationship. I also run into the issue that I work for a campus ministry and wonder if that hinders my ability to date the Catholic girls I meet even if they are my friends. I don't know how I feel about the whole thing. I just wish I could understand more fully where God wants me and why it hurts so much when I try to find a woman who might mean more than just a friend.

Vacation from Vocation...

If only it worked like that...I wish I knew, could say what my vocation was. I feel like I know sometime but not always. Sometimes I feel completely lost, read right now, and I just want direction. Thankfully, though not certainly, I have discerned out of the priesthood and religious life. I just don't feel called in that direction, nor do I feel like I can use my gifts to the fullest as a man of the cloth.

This does not however assume marriage. I have weighed both and found pluses and minuses on each side. The single life means that I can make decisions on where I need to be to serve HIM and weigh the options without needing to consult a spouse. I can spend my time how I see fit to bring joy and life to a ministry I feel strongly for. I don't have to ask permission to help with this retreat, or work on that project. I don't need to call home and check-in that I am running late tonight or that I need to take a raincheck on something because something came up.

Marriage also has its pluses. The ability to love someone more intimately than a good friend, more than a best friend. Children, being able to raise the future, to carry on my name, and to enjoy while they grow up in front of my very eyes. Someone to hold and care for.

Lord, give me strength, show me patience, allow me to find peace in my vocation. I need you to help me find comfort that what I am doing is in Your will. Help me to sort out my feelings for these women, these beautiful creations of yours. Help me to finally see where the joy that comes from doing Your will, will be able to expand to its fullest extent for me. In your name Lord...AMEN!

Moving Forward, But Not Really Changing

So I finally got up the nerve to ask my boss for a raise, and I got it. I really think that if i hadn't gotten the raise i still would have gone right along working the same job. It's frustrating sometime's but it ends up enjoyable. I feel like God has put me exactly where he wants me.

I am still cluless whether he wants me in my vocation, marriage or single life. Though i will say He has leaned me toward Single Life recently, and i'm not entirely fighting Him. I don't know, just keep praying and trusting that God will show me the way.

I thouroughly enjoy doing what i am doing and i can't imagine myself doing anything else.

The Little Kicks in the Butt

It's the Monday after Awakening #4, man did I need this...

God has given me so much hope and surrounded me with so much love. I am grateful for everything that comes to me from Him. I don't know if I would have said the same only a week ago.

Every now and then we, as humans, need renewal. We need something to kick us square in the butt to show us that this is what we are being called to do, and why it brings us so much joy. DJ has done this for me and now Awakening. I don't think I can put my finger on it exactly, the point this weekend when God said "Hey, trust me. You are where I want you, this is where you will find true happiness in Me." It could have been several points: meeting someone who works pretty much the same job as I do at the University of Oklahoma, the beautiful talks, the point of complete mental exhaustion only to be brought back to reality by a warm shower and given the strength to finish everything for the BIG finish, or being caught off guard by two close friends and brought to "ugly cry" tears just before the BIG finish. Strong, Loving, Passionate!

Thank you Lord for all you have provided for me, and all that you have allowed me to do in service to you. I am blessed beyond imagination, that I may serve a campus ministry that is so vibrant and ALIVE! Thank you for the little reminders...