Just in Time for National Vocation Awareness Week: My vocation story

My intention in writing this blog is really to share my thoughts on "objective" and exterior issues related to consecrated virginity in the world, in the hope that my reflections may be helpful to some people. Generally, I find it immodest to speak about my personal spiritual experiences in public.

Vocation stories are sort of borderline in this regard. On the one hand, the sense of being called by God is always immensely personal. But on the other hand, this interior event by its very nature has some wide-reaching consequences for other people. And I think it is necessary to be prepares to explain (at least somewhat) why it was that you choose a particular state in life.

Also, I think my thoughts would probably make a lot more sense if they were given some context. So, this is the first part of my story:

I was always fairly pious as a young child--I have memories of reading the Bible on my own when I was about eight, and I used to tell my grade school classmates that I considered Jesus to be my best friend. But I never considered any form of consecrated life because I wanted to be married and have children. I even used to make a point to take extra good care of my dolls, because I anticipated passing them down to my own little girl one day!

This changed in the middle of the sixth grade, when I was twelve. At this time, I started to sense very strongly in my prayer that God wanted me to give myself entirely to Him by means of my living a life of virginity. Even at this young age, I was blessed with an understanding--albeit not a very developed one--of the beauty of consecrated celibacy.