Posted By Christina M on June 2, 2013

… or please forgive me if I engage in navel gazing.

I’ve been fairly quiet lately, and have probably bored away those few who followed Carmel Sundae. I would apologize for that, except that it may have been a favor, since I’m not sure I was accomplishing anything in the last year or two, anyway. But, unwilling to give up the blog, around the time of renewing my domain, I realized it was time to do some thinking and evaluating of what this space is meant to be. And I’ve come up with an answer: I’m not sure.

Kind of like my life.

Things I am sure of: I love my family. My husband is the most wonderful and supportive man in the world. My children are a delight and a genuinely full time interest. My vocation as a Carmelite Secular? God has made it clear to me that He wants me there; but there hasn’t been time to pursue it in the ways I’d expected, and I don’t “feel” like much of a Carmelite lately. Certainly not enough to wax brilliant on the subject. Maybe there’s my problem in a nutshell: my wish to wax brilliant, when what would be more useful and infinitely more honest would be to wax overwhelmed and occasionally confused.

The fact is that my life is never what I would have planned or expected. I planned a peaceful and proud life of raising easy, strong, impressive, and brilliant kids. The reality? Proud, yes; peaceful, no. Strong, impressive, and brilliant, yes; easy, NO. I never expected to have a house full of Autism, ADHD, auto-immune, depression, bipolar, anxiety disorders, developmental delays, Tourette’s, and OCD. I planned a career of teaching, not of answering the phone constantly when the school calls about my kids.

You know what they say about if you want to make God laugh. Make plans.

God made plans, and is probably laughing at my own simplistic plans that went in other directions. Truth be told, I am kind of honored that God put so much on my plate. I’m beginning to realize that just because I got a teaching credential doesn’t mean He intended me to teach (at least for now) in a public school. Just because He called me to be a Carmelite doesn’t mean He necessarily intended for my vocation to be about meetings. He gave me this oh-so-complicated life, and His gifts are to be treasured, even if we don’t understand them.

As I come to understand His will for my life, which includes parenting a noisy, sometimes disabled tribe maybe what He wants for this blog isn’t for me to share esoteric wisdom so much as to share my challenges so others may know they are not alone… and in the process I may find that I’m not alone either.

So please forgive me if I spend some time reaching into a grab bag trying to rediscover what my Carmel Sundae looks like. Please forgive me if it involves some self-examination, and yes, navel gazing.

And please do feel free to offer a prayer for me to know and do God’s will.

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