Are you discerning something right now?
Are you trying to figure out the next step for something in your life? Your work? Your vocation?
Is this discernment easy?
Or is it challenging you?
Last night, I got the opportunity to talk with some colleagues about discernment. I got to hear the tools they use, the challenges they face, and the graces they’ve received in their own unique journeys.
I realized through our conversation that the most difficult parts of any discernment for me are the letting go and jumping in that comes right at the end of the process.
Letting go and jumping in.
These are the two hardest parts.
But you can’t do one without the other.
Is there something you are being called to let go of right now?
Name it and speak it out loud to God.
Ask God to help you release your grip and turn whatever it is over to God’s hands.
Have you done it? Have you let go?
Are you now at the moment where you have to jump into what you’ve discerned? You know the moment – the one where you have done your research, weighed your options, sought counsel, let go, and the only thing left to do is move towards the decision itself.
What’s keeping you from jumping in?
Name your fears aloud to God.
Ask God to take your hand and help you move towards this new thing that is calling to you.
I realized as I chatted with friends and colleagues last night that every time I have let go and every time I have leaped…
incredible things have happened.
Today if you needed to hear these words, I hope you found them. I hope you believe that you are capable of both letting go and leaping into something new.
You are capable of discernment.
You are capable of choosing what your life will be.
You are stronger than you think.
As Mary Oliver’s poem concludes:
“So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.”
