There!

My family likes to tease me for not being able to find anything. No matter what I am looking for, I will spend probably half an hour searching the house to find the item.

I usually remember the room where I last saw the item

But when I look in the room, I just glance around and walk away. I pass on what I originally believed because what I was looking for was not sitting out in the open. I won’t dig through a closet, look under a couch, or open a few extra drawers in the original room.

I will tear up the rest of my home/bedroom/apartment searching

Even though I knew where I was supposed to be looking.

Last week I wrote a particularly sad post. Maybe it sounded empowering, maybe it sounded like a sign of humility, maybe it sounded like I was entrusting my dreams to the Lord. However, for the souls who know me a bit better, that was one of my most pathetic blog posts. I was stressed about passing my writtens, and I channeled my fear of not progressing as a scientist in to not progressing as a Disciple of Jesus Christ.

Funny story…I was searching for an answer I already had

Not just for my writtens, but also for my journey Home.

My heart jumped when I saw the question for my advisor’s exam. It was what I was expecting: a question our field has been trying to answer for over forty years. Sure, there was not a correct answer, but I had to develop a strong hypothesis that was testable. The hypothesis required extensive background research, citations, and a lot of confidence. Even with all of the literature in the world and all of the confidence I instilled in my undergraduates…

My hypothesis was lost.

And I thought that there was nowhere for me to look for it.

Desperate, I clutched my figurine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, and I asked Our Lady to help me remember all of the work and inspirations the Holy Spirit provided to me over the past few years.

A wave of peace came over me, and I remembered that I loved to design experiments.

So I decided to ask a simple question and address it with two experiments I developed over the course of the past week. I knew how to design experiments. That was why my peers had such confidence in me and why my advisor claimed to not be worried about my performance.

Two and a half hours later, I had a strong hypothesis and research plan. I went back to write the rationale for my hypothesis.

It was then that I realized that I had developed this entire project before.

There was a picture of my model hanging on the wall across from my desk for several months.

I forgot my model, my well-designed and characterized model, because it was counter-intuitive. Although it fit with all of the literature perfectly, down to the exact genes involved, it was an intellectual leap. My model was complex in the timing and the mechanisms involved, but when one boils it down to the bare minimum, it was simple. Unexpected… but perfect.

God takes the unexpected and makes it the only logical conclusion.

So then how did I have my answer in front of me all along when it came to my relationship with Christ and His Church??

Well…I think I was experiencing what Christians have been experiencing since the very beginning of the Church.

Impatience.

The early Church expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes. Although this is a good way to live, there was a key problem: people were still dying. The early Church worried about the salvation of their families and friends who would not be present with them when Christ returned. Even though they accepted the counter-intuitive reality that God became a man and rose from the dead, they could not accept that the souls they loved would be able to experience the same reality.

And yet, we are all alive in Christ Jesus.

Our hope is in Him, and He always delivers on His promises.

I was afraid that I was not living the life Christ needed me to live. I was afraid that I was not responding with enough heart to the sufferings of the Church. I was afraid that I was not sacrificing enough in order to help more souls return Home. I was afraid of so many things…

“But wait, everything can change. 

In a moment’s time, you don’t have to be afraid ‘cause fear is just a lie. 

Open up your eyes” 

~Strong Enough to Save, Tenth Avenue North

Fear is just a lie.

Our impatience with Christ is rarely a reflection of our position in life; it is a reflection of our weakness, our inability to trust in His goodness. The early Church did not trust that Christ will raise all of us on the last day. The modern Church does not trust that Christ will work miracles and wonders in our lives. We long for answers, for quick fixes, for action…

But we’re just tearing up our houses looking for something we already know we have.

It just takes a little time, a little growth, a little humility to find what Christ gives us every single day.

It takes getting down on our hands and knees, making ourselves small, to find the beautiful little gifts we’ve had all along. It takes cleaning up our inner chamber to see where our love lies all along. It takes changing our perspective, slowing down, and remembering what we already received.

Because it was never our choice to begin with.

“It was not you who chose Me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. This I command you: love one another.” ~John 15:16-17

Christ chose each and every one of us. Not only that, but He chose us so that we could go out in to the world, bring joy to the world, and receive everything we could have ever wanted. He gave us a mission and a purpose, and that purpose is perfectly aligned with our truest desires.

He wants us to know His love, and He gave us a perfect way to find that love.

In one another.

It is our choice to love one another. It is our choice to be loved by others. It was never our choice for Christ to love us, to give us the greatest lives possible, but it is our choice to stop, look around, and accept whatever love He wants to give us.

That love will come from the most unlikely places, from people who you once believed hated you, from strangers on the street, from friends and family…

But it all comes from Christ, who will love you forever, who will choose you forever.

So yeah, maybe I am impatient, and maybe I am terrible at realizing what is already in front of me, but I do know two things. However these two things play out do not matter. What matters is that I always live a life of love, of faith and trust in the One Who Loved Me First.

I was made to do science.

I was made to love and be loved.

My Dear Reader, no matter what stressors exist in your life, no matter what is hurting your hope, know that there is nothing that you cannot do. Christ made you specifically, chose you over everyone else, and is empowering you for a specific mission.

Like myself, you might have a hard time sitting in your innermost chambers cleaning up the cobwebs to find the gift Christ put there.

But I promise you…

We always have a reason to hope.

Always.