Living in the Desert

I'm not sure why, but I'm a little surprised by the spiritual dryness that I have been going through while I've been home. The thing is I know that part of it is my fault. I'm not putting the time into prayer like I should. I don't take time to foster an interior silence. When I'm alone in my room the music is on. When I'm driving to work the radio is blaring and at work I don my headset and listen to people talk for 8 hours.
The Carmelite Sisters in Covington said that they felt the Lord calling me "to be your own superior for a while, finding the will to be faithful to prayer in myself (=in Christ of course!) before you find yourself under obedience." This came from a conversation we had while I was visiting them in March. When I didn't feel like I was doing enough for God since I was getting Morning and Evening prayer in some days. Now I find myself struggling to meet the basic 10 minutes a day. I can't make it to mass and get enough sleep and the books written by saints which were once my comfort I now only stare at longingly, but picking them up even to thumb through a few pages is like pushing against a brick wall and often when I pick them up the prayer continues to be dry and empty.
This doesn't mean I don't think I'm called to the religious life. I know that this is just spiritual dryness at it's finest but I feel like I'm not doing enough to take care of it. I'm not sticking to my guns. I'm not giving Him enough time. I feel like I'm my own worse enemy.
Looking back on what I'm saying I can tell that it's time for me to brush up on my Ignatius rules of discernment. Paying close attentions to rule 6-9 which focus on surviving desolation. And thank God for rule 10 which gave me the preparation and strength I needed knowing that I would be entering desolation a long desolation before my entry into the religious life.
At this point it's a matter of saying. I can do this. I'm supposed to do this and my God and my Love is very real and very active. Even now. Especially now.

http://www.cfpeople.org/Books/Exercise/EXERCISEp15.htm

An interesting day

So today I received a call today from one of those "Hello Ms. Stockton we want to help you pay off your debt" agencies. Based on my current situation I thought it might be a good idea to listen to them and see what they had to offer. So after about a 10 minute conversation the woman decided that I didn't qualify for their assistance since the payments I was making were too large. Think about it. I started fundraising, working and saving to pay off my loans in June pretty much, and I've paid of 9000 that's 3000 a month. She told me she could make the loans go away in 3 years. I laughed. "Honey, I need this take care of by August. If you can help with that I'm interested. Other wise I think this is a good place to part ways." That was the point she decided that I wasn't just throwing numbers at her and she needed to move on to her next call. I was a little disappointed. I was hoping she would be able to offer some kind of assistance, but I guess I'm not worth the measly amount of interest that they could get by August.

My mom and I went shopping with some of the ladies from the church and I did well until I was left to my own devices. Which brought me to the shoe store. I needed a pair of shoes. The ones on my feet were quite literally falling apart...



... Case point... However what I ended up replacing them with was not exactly in the financially scruple department. (to make excuses for myself I've been saving that money from my allotted eat out money) Don't get me wrong I'm really happy with the purchase.



It just leaves one question... Can sisters wear converse?