Waiting For The Future

“There is more to life than your science.”

That’s a phrase I have heard time and time again ever since I started graduate school. “Science” can be replaced with anything. There is more to life than your job, your dog, your workout regiment, your relationships, your…anything.

We live in a world where if we are not growing in every aspect of our lives at every moment that we are considered “behind.”

And no one wants to be left behind.

For myself, as a graduate student in Cell Biology, I am often reminded that I need to be out of the lab more. People say that I need to be out on the town, looking for a boyfriend and cutting loose. People say that I need to be investing in stocks with money that I do not have. People say that I need to be spending less time walking aimlessly around campus, speaking to an “invisible Dad” so that I can notice all of my faults.

After facing burn-out so many times, I found myself avoiding the lab.

And I did the one thing that we all seem to try every new year: I tried to move everything forward.

In an attempt to make myself “better,” I went out with my friends more often. Even though folks loved having a reliable DD, I could not help but feel an emptiness in my heart as I saw the degeneration of livers and wholesome relationships. I prayed more fervently for God to send my St. Joseph, but my heart started to throb from not understanding what that would mean. I started several hobbies, and I did so many things to try to be the best version of what the world said I should become.

What happened you may ask?

I was significantly more tired from trying to “improve myself” than I was by being a happy Cell Biologist studying cholesterol.

Maybe some of my Dear Readers are in the same place. Perhaps you looked at your life at the turn of the year and saw someone unworthy of the many great things you have been promised. Perhaps you looked at yourself in the mirror and said you were not beautiful or handsome or healthy. Perhaps you saw all of the engagements and birth announcements on Facebook and felt a pain in your heart for companionship. Perhaps you saw people you graduated with spend several hundreds of dollars on Christmas presents for their family and wanted to be as successful as them.

Maybe you feel like you are stuck in the same place.

Maybe you have tried to change too much at once and feel burnt out.

Dear Reader, I will share what I heard in my heart after asking God what to do in these moments 

At first there was silence. It was the kind of silence that makes a faithful person angry. It’s the sort that makes you think that maybe God just isn’t listening anymore. If anything, it was the silence I faced nearly every time I asked God what to do. However, because I learned in my first year of graduate school that fighting God is not really worth the time, I decided to be silent. 

Then I heard, “Rest.”

Over and over again, I heard “Rest.” 

This confused me. The whole world, even my priest friends, told me that I needed to be doing so many things. Over and over again, I was told to stop being in lab at all hours and to stop being so obsessive about cholesterol sensing. People said that I would miss my life if I chose to be in lab instead of searching for what I wanted most in this life. Why did God want to hold me back?

I was incredibly wrong.

I was not being held back.

And neither are you Dear Reader.

I’ll use a Gospel story to explain my point. There is a parable from Matthew where a landowner went out to hire workers. He went out to hire these workers early in the morning, at mid-morning, at noon, in the afternoon, and finally he went out at an hour before the work-day was over.

All of the workers were paid the same wage, regardless of how long they were working.

Now in those days, workers went to same place every day to be hired. It was not like these workers were just begging for a specific job. They were just waiting- waiting all day for a job. They were not denied work. They just had to wait a little while longer.

But what were they doing while they waited? Clearly they weren’t on their iPhones.

I would like to think that they were getting to know one another. The longer they stood in the square, the longer they got to talk. They found out more about themselves as they interacted with those they were given for companionship. All of them were worthy of work, but their job was not open yet. They had to wait together.

And they found themselves in the waiting.

My Dear Reader, when we must remain somewhere, we are not behind anyone. We are all on this journey of life together, and we must not give up on hope. You may be in one stage of your life for a long time, but the souls you encounter in those days will help you find yourself. You will love and be loved. It is not a loss to rest.

After several moments of prayer, I said to God.

“Why must You make me wait?” I asked, “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Rest so that I can love you too,” I heard in my heart.

“The Lord does not delay His promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but He is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” ~ 2 Peter 3:9

Sometimes we really just need to be in a space for a little while longer. Sometimes we really do just need to learn another lesson, meet another friend, or do another project before we can move on to the next thing. It sucks, but there is something beautiful about doing the task you have in any given moment, regardless of the reward.

Because you will be loved wherever you go by the One who loved you first.

After that moment in prayer, I decided to stop trying to be someone that I am not and do what I do best: study cholesterol. I spent countless hours in the lab, reading papers from the 70’s and prepping my experiments. I took time to learn more about what I believed God made me to understand. In some ways, I spent more fruitful time in lab than ever before.

All because I stopped looking for everything else I wanted and accepted what I already had.

At the same time, I was given more opportunities to experience God’s love.

Because I stopped trying to fufill all of my own wishes, I was given wonderful experiences. God gave me the opportunity to work alongside folks who shared similar views on the Faith as me, and for once I felt like I was contributing to faithful people again. I also went to a small meeting called Alpha, and my dear friends helped make the Sacraments available to souls who never understood The Eucharist before. A new book club based on faith formed.

What’s more, I was finally able to talk about the Faith in lab without fear. I even ending up talking about Communion with my advisor, and I did not even think it was strange until I left my meeting.

I did not think it was possible to be a happier Felicity, but I was wrong.

I am loved, and no one can take that from me.

Let’s go back to the people waiting for the landowner to give them work. Yes, they received wonderful gifts by being with one another, but you gotta wonder what passerbys said to them throughout the day. They would say that it is a waste of time to wait in the square, and they would laugh at the poor people who weren’t “good enough” to get a job at the beginning of the day.

People see hope as childish, as something reserved for the fools of society.

This is probably the most painful part of sitting in one spot for a while.

Although these past few months have been some of the most blessed in my life, I would not say that they were entirely perfect. If anything, I was reminded more and more that there was something far greater in store for me than my seemingly mundane schedule of watching my cells and weighing my mice. Each time I grew in faith, I also grew in an awareness that God did not give me a boring life.

My hope seemed too big for a little girl like me. Everyone told me so.

I wanted more, but I did not know what to do.

After a particularly hard night in September, I asked God to stop all of the pain and just let me rest for a little longer. I was sick of having my heart broken by all of the empty promises and the lustful nature of society. I was sick of working myself to the bone without a single person acknowledging it. I was lonely, and my hope felt more and more foolish by the day.

God answered my prayer.

He let me see my life as it will be some day. He gave me an incredible grace to understand what I had been praying for for nearly six years. My heart soared, and I could not stop smiling. For a few months I did not feel like I had to be in lab.

It’s not that I feel trapped in lab. I just knew that my purpose outside of lab was finally starting to reveal itself.

But it did not last.

I was so angry at God.

Whether or not you believe in God my Dear Reader, I want you to know that it is ok to be frustrated when life changes. 

We experience these things because they allow us to understand what really is on the outside of our current lives. These moments, short in nature, are the greatest gifts we can receive. Yes, they are frustrating, but they remind us that our hope is not misplaced.

Do not give up hope.

Think of the workers waiting for a job. They saw the landowner come back over and over, even at times that were abnormal, and their hope was renewed. Certainly it must have hurt for them to watch their companions move forward, just as it hurts us, but they must have known that someday they too would go where they belonged.

Dear Reader, your hope is not misplaced.

And your wait here in this space is just an opportunity for you to feel loved.

I am no longer angry at God for “taking my gifts away.” In a way, I feel more loved than I ever felt before. Even though I prayed the same prayer for nearly six years now, I never really understood how different my life would become in that life. As joyful as it was, I know that I must wait here in the basement until God sends souls to lead me out of this space.

But for now, I belong here with my proteins, my undergraduates, my friends, and my faith communities.

Right now, I belong in the square with the souls who want nothing more than to have their future revealed to them.

And that’s ok.

God’s already started preparing a place for me on His field. I just have to hold on to the hope that has held me together all along. And when I forget what it looks like, I will look back on the gifts that God gave me, and I will smile. They were memories of the future, and I won’t forget them for a very long time.

Do not despair Dear Readers.

Your future is on its way.