Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children: 4 boys and five girls, all of whom survived childhood and were married off for political advancements. The last child was Princess Beatrice who was only a toddler when her father died. Queen Victoria, who was madly in love with her husband, was understandably distraught and closed herself off from most people. Princess Beatrice eventually became her closest companion as she grew older and watched all of her siblings leave home. Her mother felt that Beatrice belonged with her and never considered marrying her off. Though the queen eventually allowed a marriage to take place, Beatrice was already 28 years old, quite old to be marrying at that time. (She and her husband had to agree to live with the queen.) But Beatrice spent most of her young adult life believing that she would always be taking care of her mother and accepted that fate.
Have I accepted my fate? Will I always be the one to take care somebody else? Who will be there to take care of me when I am old?
I have always wanted something I didn't have and not been grateful for what I possessed. I focus on the negative instead of the positive. It would be great to have a stable job and someday I would love to own a house and be able to pay off my student loans (though I'm grateful that everything else is paid for) without having to deal with the daily fear and stress of it. And most of all, I want a family of my own, instead of just being on the outskirts of other families. But do I actually deserve any of these things?
The short answer is, of course, no. I don't deserve these blessings. I've made a mess of all of the opportunities that have been given to me over the last few years, professionally and personally, and have been such a burden to my friends and family. And now I am in Illinois taking care of my grandmother. There are many blessings in this but sometimes it's hard to see them. I feel like my family has left me here to take care of everything by myself, though it's nice that my uncle mows the lawn. One less thing for me to do. But I'm turning into my gram's mother.Seriously. Among other things, I stay up at night when she's sick, I chide her for not listening to her doctors and when she tries to do too much, and I tuck her into bed at night. I'm also turning into a spinster. The running joke in my family is that I would live to be an old lady living in a third-floor apartment with 12 cats and crocheted-covered mismatched furniture. And this was before I even started crocheting. As much as I fight for a different kind of life, and aside from having 12 cats, would that life be any less important than if I had a job, a house, and a family of my own?
When I was Protestant, I was under the impression that I needed to hear God's voice to find my calling. Since becoming Orthodox, I've learned that God's call isn't necessarily a specific job or blueprint I have to follow step by step in order to please Him. It's much simpler (or harder, depending on how you look at it) than that. God wants us to take whatever we have and give it to Him. Whatever job we have, He wants us to glorify Him with it. And that's something I have had trouble with. With things the way they are now, it is difficult to remain Orthodox and have that desire to do so. Orthodoxy isn't just my faith, it's a way of life, or at least it should be. My spiritual father once told me that if you never go through a "desert" in your Christian walk, then you will never grow spiritually. Maybe this is just one of the deserts I have to go through. Right now, I can rarely get to church to be with my Orthodox family, fasting was ridiculously hard during Lent, and my prayer life is also suffering. What used to be important to me isn't as important now. Orthodoxy is no longer the way I live my life, though I'm desperately trying to hold on. A good friend once told me that when I became Orthodox, it wasn't just a piece of paper that was signed, but that I was anointed into the Body of Christ. And that can't be taken lightly or erased.
Until next time,
~Staci~
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