I ache with longing.
I typed that sentence out feeling overly dramatic. But the fact is that I do ache. I feel it in my chest. Like a thread is anchored there and is pulling me onward. But toward what?
Things felt so certain only a few weeks ago. I spent two weeks in the convent of my dreams interviewing and applying for a position there among the nuns. It went so, so well. I loved every single moment I spent there, even the moments that had me realizing that the life of the vowed religious is not as glamorous as I'd dreamed it to be. I couldn't have asked for a better stay with them, and I couldn't have left more certain of my next steps.
But here I am a few weeks separated from that trip. And I can't help the ache that tugs at my heart. I long to be back there. I think of the deer panting after water in Psalm 42. That's how it feels. Like my very soul is panting after the thirst slaking water that is life in that particular community centered around prayer. I long to be in that chapel. I long to hear Sister Ellen Francis cant the Psalms and sing hymns. I long to have tea with Sister E.S. and I long to make rosaries with Sister Linda. I long to hear stories from Sister Rosina and I long to talk long talks with Sisters Miriam Elizabeth and Carol Andrew. I miss all of them, each in their own unique way. I long for life among them again. I received a foretaste, and now I long for a life-long, soul-satisfying, thirst-quenching gulp.
This is a waiting period. I am waiting to hear back on my acceptance to the convent. In the meantime I am working at the coffee shop and taking on various writing projects and crochet work. But I'd be lying if I told you this weren't an incredibly difficult season.
Waiting isn't easy. We are accustomed to the instant gratification of our day and age. On top of that, if I'm being honest with myself, I can tend to be impulsive. All this combines to make waiting periods very hard for me. Especially when the timeline for the end of the wait lies outside of my control. And it does now. I don't know when I'll hear back, and I don't know with certainty what the verdict will be. All I do know is this longing. This aching. This panting.
I've been thinking about what it means to wait. It is such a seemingly empty time, not unlike Lent as I think about it. The point of Lent, as it seems to me, is to prepare our hearts for Easter. To prepare our hearts for Resurrection. But you can't have a Resurrection without a Death. That's what we get on Good Friday. The final blow. But the days leading up to Death, Lent, is a gradual process in Dying. It's dark and cold and comes with a sense of increasing numbness. This is similar to how waiting feels to me. A process in Dying. A process in letting go.
But in Dying, true Life can begin. As I said, there is no Resurrection without Death. And if waiting is in a sense a Dying, or at least a dying to self, then the other side of waiting means resurrection and life-everlasting.
And so, I wait. I long. I ache. I pant. But I know that regardless of the outcome of this waiting period, I will live. And I will live abundantly.