questions

the last few weeks have been hectic schedule wise and in the midst i've found myself wrestling with questions that at the moment have few answers. they somehow all relate to what do i want to do with the next phase of my life.

i'd thought i'd be married by the time i was thru school, then it was 25, then 30, then 35. now i'm staring down 40 (18 months away) and not a wedding in sight. i'm trying to figure out what my life will look like when i completely take marriage and parenting out of the picture. and it's hard. it's something i've always wanted but it just hasn't happened. it could have if i'd chosen to settle, but marriage is too important to just settle. and waiting seems to be blocking me from dreaming. yesterday as i sat thru the core in orange county, we read thru the end of matthew 11 in the message where jesus says he won't lay anything ill-fitting on us. for the first time, i've wondered if marriage would be ill fitting for me and maybe whatever it is that's out there for me to do, i can't do if i'm married or do as well. i don't know but it's something i left the core wondering about specifically.

as i drove home, i ended up stopping at mission san juan capistrano. i'd never been there and often wondered about it when i drove past it and since i had time yesterday i stopped. i wandered around the old mission where, ironically, there was a wedding taking place so you couldn't visit the chapel. i was wrestling with the what else is there question and came across a prayer card in the gift shop of st. teresa of avila. on it there's something she told her nuns, "it is not a matter of thinking much, but of loving much. so do whatever most kindles love in you." marko had posted the questions he worked thru on his sabbatical. i'd been looking at them since he blogged them. but out of the st. teresa quote, i think i've found the question for me to sit with, "what do i do that kindles the most love in me?"