How can we be sure we’ve made the right choice? Sorry, but we can’t – at least not absolutely. A key moment in the discernment process comes after we’ve chosen what we believe is the better option, when we pray for confirmation. As we live into the consequences of our choice, we seek this gift/grace. We ask the Holy Spirit to bless us with some sense that we have chosen rightly and well.
Praying for confirmation is not asking for a divine guarantee. Such a thing doesn’t exist. As long as we are fallible and easily swayed by forces within and outside of ourselves, we cannot be absolutely certain.
I was finishing my commitment with a L’Arche community, and had made plans to enter a program in a few weeks that would lead to a Certificate in Respiratory Therapy. Having studied philosophy and theology, I was not prepared for any kind of career. I knew that my life was meant to be of service to others, and I had worked in hospitals for a number of years and felt comfortable in that environment.
The community’s leader approached me with a request: Would I be willing to stay on just a bit longer to allow a part-time assistant, who also worked full-time outside of the home, to participate in a large international meeting of L’Arche? This was a first for this person, after a number of years of humble, faithful service. I knew two things to be true, if I chose to stay: The people with disabilities would feel safer and more secure with me than with a patchwork of benevolent caregivers who did not know those I was living with as well as I; and, I would not be able, at that moment, to fulfill my desire of attaining the skills that could lead to the satisfaction of having a concrete and tangible line of work.
I had an immediate and clear sense of what appeared to be the “right thing to do” – to continue a little while longer with these wonderful, vulnerable people who had taught me so much. Yet, in the back of my mind, there was this creeping sense that I was “throwing away” my first real opportunity for stable work. After all, respiratory therapy was a relatively new and much needed area of healthcare. I would be helping plenty of people.
I stayed on in the community. The community leader and the other assistant went off to the big meeting. The extra time passed by, and I savored each day. I became filled with peace and the sense: this is the right thing to do. Yes, I did miss the date to enter the training program, but it was okay.
I hadn’t formally prayed for the grace of confirmation, but it was given, and I recognized it as a gift from God. We can feel the grace of confirmation. We are at peace, even though the decision was difficult and may have seemed illogical. There is an inner sense of rightness. We can feel joy, new energy; we may feel freer and more alive. Choose carefully, and then ask for confirmation, before you finalize your life-plans or major decisions.
Jana Buckley says:
The life example that you shared in the discernment of decision-making is very helpful. It gave me an expanded explanation for the ‘gift/grace’ to which you were referring earlier in the article.