Discernment - It's never really over

Linking up with Blessed is She at #BISisterhood today to talk about discernment. 

I attended a lot of "vocation awareness" type events growing up. Vocations retreats, come and sees, young adult talks, etc. It was easy to focus so hard on discerning what your main vocation was to be, that we missed talking about all of the discernment that comes afterwards. The discernment that allows one to live your vocation to the fullest.

Discerning is a constant effort. It is never fully done and over with. Our vocations take re-choosing every day.

Even though I am in the state of "married" indefinitely, I still have to re-choose to live being married every day. I might miss a friend's birthday party because it means a lot to my husband to be able to attend a talk that same night. He might skip his gym class at work because I'm over my head with the kids that day and we really need someone to go to the store for milk.

It takes a lot of discernment to figure out what I, and we, should be doing right now. Are we living in the place where we can do the most good? Am I meeting the needs of my kids in the best manner I can?

There are so many ways to discern. Figuring out what works for you is a part of the process.

I really like to talk it out. One of my favorite ways to do discernment is to reflect on either scripture or other writings, and write out that reflection freeform. It's typically only when I read through it again, maybe a day or two later, that I start to see a pattern and notice what seems to be calling me.

The second part is saying yes to the result of that discernment. This is probably the hardest part for me. I often know what I should be doing pretty easily, but it's actually doing it that can make me hesitate. God is awesome and he still lets us choose, even when it would be so much easier if the right choice was just made for us sometimes.

So while discernment can be difficult, the result of choosing the good and right path found out in the process is often the path that will eventually give the most peace. In my experience, saying yes to something discerned as right and good does not often create feelings of true regret. But ignoring, or skipping, discernment leaves one very open to regrets.