Dear Ann,

If God chooses you to be his bride, it is not because of your merits but an invitation he makes to you and a grace he gives you. Sure, we have to do our best on our side to be "worthy" of his gift, to live up to it, I don't want to minimize this, but a one-time fault is something that with his forgiveness we can pull back from and rebuild our life after, with his help - perhaps even more humbly and more truly believing in our smallness and his goodness, and with a greater sense of our weakness.

It is true, of course, that there is certain behavior, because of the way in which it affects us and weakens us, that shows we shouldn't attempt to follow a vocation. What you describe does not seem to be of that category of fault.

If you are more unworthy than others yet do have a vocation, all the more reason to give yourself to God more intensely and totally, full of hope and love, because you can truly say that he must love you more than others if despite what you are he still calls you.

Don't look at yourself, look at him. God bless.