Day for Direction

So today is my monthly visit with my Spiritual Director. I have ventured away from my kids leaving them to fend for themselves this morning so that I could have a more leisurely morning here at my mom's house (my Spiritual Director is the parish priest in my mom's parish coincidentally) and get to my morning appointment without rushing or getting caught in highway traffic.

I love spiritual direction. It is probably one of the best decisions I have ever made to seek it even though it does take quite a bit of effort on the part of not only me, but my family for me to be able to avail myself of the opportunity. I also have been blessed with very capable directors -- I have had four -- in the years since I began to seek direction.

My current director is a very busy priest who shepherds two parishes, but when I am with him for my monthly visit I am the center of his attention. He has helped me to look critically at where I am, where I want to be heading and how I intend to get there, both in my spiritual life and in my work and family life. He really helped me to regain a sense of self confidence when I was picking myself up after I left my job last spring. That was when I began to see him.

Now we are working through not only my decisions about where to go in my professional life, but how to handle the stresses of my mother's illness, and with my own illness as I am healing and learning to cope with the asthma and allergies that I was left with from the stress I was under last year.

He keeps me honest, and he helps me to examine new ways of seeking God's presence. He also affirms what I am doing that is on the right track.

I had better get moving, or I will be late. I don't want to miss a moment of our time together.


Addendum: I got to my appointment on time, but my wonderful Spiritual Director, who happens to be slightly overworked, had written the time down as one hour earlier in his calendar. His secretary didn't have my contact information so she had no way of contacting me to find out why I was late. We still met for a much shorter time and set up next months meeting for a time that both his secretary and I agreed upon and she has my numbers now so she will be able to contact me. I am sure this happened for a reason. As I have said my favorite beatitude is "Blessed are the flexible, they never get bent out of shape."

Pax