When People Find They Do Not Have A Religious Vocation...

[Anastasia13]

What is the confirmation like?

[maximillion]

Very similar to that which indicates you have, or that you are in alignment with what He wants - peace.

A sensation that 'this is right'.

A gut instinct, a sense of fulfilment.

 

For some time after I left the convent I wrestled with the notion that I had somehow failed God and lost my vocation, but I had a deep peace when I prayed, and put my trust in Him, and eventually realised my vocation had not ceased, it had changed.............

[Blessed&Grateful]

I experienced (and I don't really know how to describe it) a feeling of letting go of a dream that I wanted but not what He wanted. Quiet acceptance and calm is how I would describe it.

[Catherine Therese]

I concur with both of the above responses... my experience was similar. A peaceful acceptance of His will despite the fact that my desires hadn't caught up yet. 

 

HOWEVER, in my case there was also this other thing - a sort of fearlessness that I don't normally experience and an exhilarated, rock-solid trust in the face of extreme objective uncertainty about the future. Along with massive gratitude... and the feeling of loss was already there - before I left. I already knew somehow enough that I was experiencing that grief of loss before I was conscious of it... but the grief was DEFINITELY offset by the peace, and the fearless trust. 

 

The benefit of the fearless trust was that it helped me to realise that i was being CALLED to something else, that it wasn't a failure or a running away, but a successful completion and a running toward where He was calling me next. 

 

I still don't have the "why" - but having a bit of a sense of the "what" really helped me.