...on Returning To The World

[miserere55]

I want to thank everyone who posted on this thread.  I, too, am a returnee to the world.  I wish I had known about Phatmass and" Leonie's Longing " when I left, it would have helped quite a bit.  My novice mistress from the monastery told us novices, postulants and juniors often, "that anyone who answers God's call to religious life, even if they only stay an hour, will be blessed in Heaven for having given up all and gone where they were lead."

 

 

 

[cmaD2006]

LittlePaula -- thanks for having the courage to share part of your own journey.  There are a number of us on the phorum who have left in different stages of religious life (I myself left two different communities during postulancy -- one very positive experience and one quite negative).

 

If I can be of any support (that goes to anyone on here) feel free to PM.  We're all in this together, going towards the same goal of some day meeting face-to-face with Our Lord and King.

[maximillion]

I've been out now for a lot longer than the 14 years I was in, but I never cease to praise Him for all I was given and all I learned in community.

I think it was preparation for the selfless giving that came later in caring for a very wayward and damaged foster child/children, and taught me valuable lessons of patience and faith that I would never have learned any other way.

 

So, though I still miss it  (yeah, none of you had guessed that had you? :hehe2:  :saint2: ) I know it was the right decision. I thank God for my vocation, I praise Him for the wonderful Sisters who demonstrated His love and His acceptance so ably whilst remaining so clearly human in nature...........

 

The decision to ask for exclaustration was the hardest decision I have ever had to make and the few months after I left the hardest time I ever faced at a personal level in my relationship with Him, so prayers to all of you have faced or who are facing those few months.

Wanting the life (in the cloister) so badly yet knowing in my heart it was no longer what He asked of me was a much more profound obedience than leaving everything behind to enter ever was, at least for me. It would have been so lovely to have stayed, and so wrong.