AdobeStock_by leo10
By Katie Eskro
I spent the first 30 or so years of my life hustling for holiness. I thought I knew what God wanted of me, and I worked myself hard to fulfill my duties. I had good and holy habits, like praying the Rosary, holy hours and silent prayer each morning. I also fit my whole vocation around what I thought were the most holy choices: I stayed home with my children, and I put their needs above my own aspirations. And yet, there was no lasting peace or joy in my life.
I begged God to give me patience, to give me joy, to take away the anger and resentment that clawed at me from the inside and that my husband and kids took the brunt of. Little did I know, God wasn’t intentionally withholding good things from me—actually quite the opposite. He was allowing me to experience life as it is when we’re not listening to his whisper.
It took hitting my own rock bottom and a good friend getting into the mud with me to be awakened to what God’s voice actually sounds like. When I let loose to my friend about all the things I did every day that I just knew were the right things, she had me question everything about why those were the right things to be doing. How did I know God was calling me to these things? They were all good things, but was I okay with breaking the mold of what I thought a healthy, happy, holy woman of God looked like and did with her life?
My friend explained to me that many things are black and white. We know it’s never for our good to commit adultery or commit murder. But so many of the day-to-day decisions and choices we make are not black and white, though we often treat them as such. My friend shared with me how I could begin to look for the fruits of the Spirit as the indicator, or the bread crumbs as it were, that I was following God’s will for me.
The fruits of the Spirit, as shared by Paul in Galatians, are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When we make decisions and choices in our life, we can look to see if these fruits are present in us and in our lives to assess which things we are called to and which things we are not called to. It doesn’t mean there will never be stress, anxiety or suffering, but that even through those hard things and our hard days, we will experience these fruits in a lasting way.
When my friend shared this with me and my spiritual director concurred, I began to try to make some different decisions in my life. It was clear that what I thought I should be doing wasn’t actually what God wanted for me. From my normal “I should’s” like: “I should be doing the dishes,” I started making decisions like: “Maybe I actually need a hot bath or to sit and read a book.” And what I discovered was that my work-hard lifestyle wasn’t actually serving me or my family.
Over time as I learned to make decisions this way, I discovered that I was more refreshed, less angry, more patient. My whole family benefitted from the fruits being more present in my life.
Eventually, my decisions became bigger. I discerned that the beautiful stay-at-home mom vocation that so many women are called to and love, I’m not. My cup is filled by being apart from all of my kids for part of the day, at least at this stage in my life. I found a job I love.
Two years later, I can’t believe the difference in my life. Just recently my husband and I had a wonderfully fantastic conversation where he said, “I would call our relationship lovingly playful.” No way in a million years would I ever have expected to think of my serious self as playful, let alone the man who knows me better than anyone and who deals with all of my shortcomings on a daily basis. But I knew he was right, and I feel it, too—there’s a playfulness, a joy, a love that I never had before no matter how hard I worked for it.
I am a living example that God uses every decision we make in life to help us discover who we are and what we’re called to. Each of us is uniquely called in different ways to love and to serve him. There is no cookie-cutter holy man or woman. Holiness is available to all of us, and I truly believe it’s only possible when we challenge our “I should’s” and instead allow God to speak to us through the fruits of the Spirit.
