Discernment, Desolation, and the Drive that changed everything.

Discernment sucks!

Well at least for me it has. It has been a frustrating journey of extreme emotions that leave me feeling like there is little I can do to gain a clearer understanding of what God wants from me.

When I began discerning my vocation last year, I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. I figured a vocation was how God wanted me to serve so of course I would want to know the answer to that question! Oh I was so naïve.

The beginning of my discernment story is made up of a 54-day rosary novena. I prayed this novena with the intention of discovering my vocation and to love Jesus as much as Mary does. I have no doubt that even prayers that are loosely said are considered by our heavenly Father. At the end of that novena, I was certain of two things. One, Mary doesn’t play. Two, ask and you shall receive. Not always in the way you want, but always in the way you need.

At the end of my 54 days I was starting to feel that God was calling me to serve Him in a deeper way. To give my life to Him. Perhaps I was called to religious life. The weeks that followed this novena included a trip to the Marian Shrine at Ngome and me contacting a religious community. I was certainly beginning to feel that I was called to be a nun. I shared my testimony of my discernment journey up to that point, at a youth leader’s conference. People were deeply touched by the visible sign of the invisible God working in my life. I was not. Sure, Jesus was calling me, but I wasn’t getting clarity on where He was calling me to. I began to feel like God had used me to spiritually fill everyone around me, but He had left me empty. Void of His love and His presence. I was an empty vessel.

It was after that moment that I began to enter a state of what I now would call spiritual desolation. I couldn’t see God, I couldn’t feel Him, and I certainly could not convince myself that He loved me. It was a dark time for me. I would often think that if people really knew how I felt about God at that time, they would question why I would still attend mass, and receive the sacraments. I felt like God was hidden from me. The consecration seemed like an empty gesture, and receiving the sacrament of reconciliation would leave me in a pool of tears, unable to receive His mercy. It was at that time that I began to read St. Faustina’s diary. The workings of this saint in my life are reserved for another time. All I can say is that her writings, the words of Jesus, helped pull me through that dark period. The most profound thing I read at that time was an entry about spiritual darkness, in which she wrote “The soul is drawn to God, but feels repulsed. All other sufferings and tortures in the world are as nothing compared with this sensation into which it has been plunged; namely, that of being rejected by God…. The soul no longer looks for help anywhere. It shrinks into itself and loses sight of everything; it is as though it has accepted the torture of being abandoned. This is a moment for which I have no words. This is the agony of the soul.” (Divine Mercy in My Soul). It was agony. To look to God and feel no love, no comfort, no mercy.

This darkness went on for close to four months. It was made worse by the fact that I was still looking for a job, and the stress of unemployment was eating away at me. I cannot say how I managed to get through those months that seemed to stretch on. Each day felt like an eternity, and yet each day went by like a second. I found no joy in the company of family and friends. In fact moments spent with friends left me feeling unworthy and empty. The question of my vocation was more painful than ever. How could I be called to something, when I no longer heard the One who called?

The daily agony went on, and I would try filling my days with half-hearted prayers. Mass was always a constant and my empty acceptance of the Eucharist, a necessity. Each time I took a sip of His blood, I would pray that this time would be different. This time I would feel something, but the nothingness remained.

Four months into this agony, a bus trip to the rural village of Qwidlana in the Eastern Cape arose as a distraction. I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a bus driving through the mountainside of rural Eastern Cape, but the experience is both beautiful and scary. We were attending my sister’s wedding and we left Durban in the morning. The trip was beautiful. We had complete trust in our bus driver *Ed, who assured us that he would get us there safely. As we rode comfortably, we were able to enjoy the ride and admire the beauty of the landscape. We arrived safely in Qwidlana and celebrated a beautiful union between my sister and brother-in-law. The celebrations went on a bit long, so by the time we left to return to Durban, it was getting dark. This is when the trip became scary. I was sitting in the front of the bus. Here’s a piece of advice: when travelling on a bus, at night, in the rain, it is not a great idea to watch how scary the route is. As the driver made turns over gravel, everyone on the bus began to panic asking Ed if he was still okay to drive, if he didn’t want to have a rest. The constant questioning of Ed’s ability began to make me uncomfortable (even more than the fact that it felt justified).

I decided that it was best for me to go sit near the back, curl up under my blanket and pray we got home safely. After a while I awoke from my nap. We were still driving, and it was still dark. I could hear the ladies at the front saying a Hail Mary, and as I looked out the window I was struck by a thought. I was a lot like those ladies in my life, and Ed was a lot like God. I had trusted him during the day when the path was clear and I could see where we were headed, but at night, when the path was not visible, and ride was uncomfortable, I questioned his ability to do what he had done before, to get me to my destination. I realised in that moment that I was clearly in darkness. The path that God was leading me down was unclear and felt lonely, harsh and very uncomfortable, but as willingly as I had trusted Him in the light, I had to trust Him now. You see, at no point during this bus ride, did Ed turn around and shout at us for the constant barrage of questions and doubts. He simply drove, resting on the first assurance he’d given us that he’d get us home safely.

God has given us this assurance. Through the prophets of old, and in the sacrifice of His Son, He has assured us that He will get us home. So even in the moments of darkness, we need to trust in Him and His love for us. Trust in His desire to get us to where He wants us to be, to where we need to be, to eternal life. That bus ride changed the way I viewed my time of desolation. I decided that if God wanted me to go through it, I would offer it up for someone else. I said a prayer that I would continue in this, if it meant someone else out there would avoid it. I asked God to spare one person from what I was going through. Through that prayer, my suffering was no longer about me; it was about my cross, and my willingness to bear it to spare another. It was about Christ, and my desire to accept it the way He did.

My discernment continues, I suppose it always will. I have realised that discernment was a way of me learning to welcome God into the decisions and movements of my life. I think desolation was God’s way of helping me grow in faith and trust. Thanks to that scary bus ride, I have resolved to continue to always strive for heaven, and to trust in the path that will get me there. He will get me there, I just need to trust.

Love, Nqobile.

P.S. I'm praying for you xx