Discernment and Trust

“Yahweh said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you’….So Abram went as Yahweh told him.” That is the call to all adults: those called to marriage, to religious life and/or priesthood as well as to those for whom the single lifestyle is one’s vocation in life.  All are called to leave their families and their parents’ house “for the land [God] will show [them].  

Discernment means that a person comes to the realization that it is time to leave one’s family and one’s home for whatever reason:  as a single person seeking a job or pursuing an education beyond  high school, or to give one’s life to another in  marriage or to God in religious life or in the priesthood.  Moving out on one’s own is a normal and essential developmental process that all need to embrace to become one’s own person, develop a separate identity and discover one’s own strengths apart from others. Why? To enter into relationships freely and with a maturity that comes from leaving home for “the land [God] will show you.”  The going out on one’s own is part of trusting the Lord or deepening one’s trust in the Lord by trusting oneself.

All kinds of feelings will surface in this process and need to be attended to and treated as friends. All feelings associated with leaving one’s family and one’s home are normal: fear, trepidation, sadness and possibly joy, excitement, hope, love, gratitude.  Name the feelings that surface. What is that feeling saying to you—identify the message and share the feelings with someone you trust. Clearing the air by dealing with the feelings will give you clearer insight into that to which God is inviting you.