It’s 3am. I’m awake again because of a hungry child, The first thought in my head is, “ I need more sleep. Child, why are you always up at this time? Let me sleep…”
Growing up I never saw myself here—getting married or even having children. In any typical marriage, husband and wife argue and fight, and as a child, I saw this as marriage. As I grew older these arguments and fights my parents had affected me a lot. I saw marriage as hard work. I saw motherhood as difficult and I didn’t want any of it.
As a young girl instead of putting on pillowcases pretending to wear a wedding dress and veil, my sisters and I pretended to be nuns. As a young adult, I explored the religious life in a community in Chicago. There I met a frail 90+-year-old nun. She spent her days in bed, praying, sleeping and eating. When the superior nun and I visited her one morning, she asked “ Sister, what are you going to do today?” She could barely move and talk but she replied, “Love Jesus.” Those two words completely changed me.
Throughout my life, I was always around priests and nuns. It was so easy to pick that as a vocation because I saw their joy, the impact they made on others, and how selfless and dedicated they were in their service to God.
If I am honest, I was choosing it as an easier and simpler way to get to heaven not because it was where God wanted me. I was choosing it because I saw the difficulties in being married, I saw how hard it was being in a relationship and raising children.
But when I saw the nun; she was so frail. Her life was not easy, and yet was still able to do the most important thing: Love Jesus. I realized that whatever vocation or whatever situation I am in, it is just about choosing to love Jesus.
To live out a vocation took on a whole new meaning. It was more than the road I took but how I took it.
A few years later, I got married and was blessed to give birth to two children within the first two years of my marriage.
When I let go of my own plans and sought God’s heart, He gave me a new heart for marriage, for having children. It’s here I discovered a love so much different than what I had experienced ever before. It gave a whole new meaning to the passage, "For God so loved the world he gave us His only Son." He loves us so much that He sacrificed His one son to save us. Holding my children in my arms made that love come to life in a whole new way.
When we discern our vocation, we often get caught up in the right plan or making the right choice for our life. A nun once explained to me that discerning our vocation is like a balancing scale. When we look at all the types of vocations, whether singleness, marriage, or religious life, sometimes the scales can be pretty balanced. Sometimes it’s not drastically one or the other. Wherever God puts the weight, we can be at peace with it knowing He is in any and all of them.
For me, my scale was tipping a lot to religious life. It’s a good call and a beautiful life but it was out of a selfish desire—believing it was the easiest way to get to heaven. What God wanted to do in my heart was open my eyes to marriage as a vocation rather than a barrier and it was where I believed He led me.
But it’s also here that I learned whatever vocation I choose was not the real call. It is simply to love Jesus first.
It’s 3am again. A groggy and grumpy me can’t even think straight. Eventually, I’m more awake as my little boy snuggles in. In the quietness of the early morning, there’s a sense of peace and stillness with just me and my boy. These morning wake ups become my favourite moments of reflection.
I reflect on Mary, the mother of Jesus. The only time we hear of Mary’s motherhood is her giving birth, being worried when Jesus went missing at the temple, encouraging Jesus at the wedding at Cana and carrying Jesus in her arms when he dies. I’m curious about what Jesus was like as a child and more what Mary was like as a mother. I imagine Mary doing the same things that I’m doing as a mother—cleaning little bums, waking in the middle of the night, or answering the 100+ questions my almost-3-year-old asks in a day.
It's so simple yet so complex. I'm called to love Jesus through the crying, the lack of sleep, the mundane tasks, and through my children discovering the world. Every action I do has an impact on the spiritual, physical, mental life of my children that calls me on to be the best I can be for them.
While it may look different for all of us, we are called to love Jesus in our work and normal circumstances of our life. Our response becomes our vocation and no matter what we choose, God blesses our decision. I know that as long as I choose to “Love Jesus”, through my role as a wife, a mother, through the daily tasks of caring for my children and husband, through my work and the people I interact with, I am doing what I am called to do.
