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Are my emotions affecting the discernment of my vocation?

Jennifer asks:

I am 23 years old and currently discerning a vocation to religious life. I was engaged for a year, but then we broke up about 6 months ago. While the break up was tough, I have learned a lot about myself through that experience. I have been seeing things in a different light and have never been more open to a religious vocation. My friends and family, however, think that I am turning to the religious vocation because I had such a bad experience in my prior relationship. While I do agree that my recent break up has tainted my emotions, there are some things that are just a lot different. The only thing that seems to set my heart on fire is deepening my faith. Please help for I am very confused on where my feelings are coming from.

Dear Jennifer,  

I think it is safe to say that your recent experiences have something to do with the feelings and confusion you are experiencing, and also with the thoughts that are going through your mind. Now, feelings change. So the pain will recede with time, and other feelings will rise and ebb in their own good time as well. What you have to do is make sure that your actions/decisions are not simply a reaction to your feelings, but rather that you base them on reasons, the sounder the better. They will be sound if they are based on realities and truths that you can validate both with your reason and your faith.  

The question for you to ask yourself is, is there more to your interest in the religious vocation than simply the reaction to some perfectly understandable feelings? In other words, you have to question yourself and see if your experience, as well as causing you certain feelings, has also opened your mind and spirit to certain truths that you can build your life on. This will be the most important factor as you continue forward with your search. Often it is a passing circumstance, almost irrelevant in itself, that causes the first thoughts of a vocation to spring up in our minds; but then there has to be the deepening, the discovery of something more solid, of truths you can stake your life on, for the vocation to mature.  

God bless.

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