He made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends. // Psalm 100:3

My experience of college was miserable. I was away from home and desperately trying to find my place. It didn’t help that in just two weeks the three girls in my quad dorm room “voted me off the island,” and I was unceremoniously uprooted to a new dorm across campus. Lonely and isolated, I had nowhere to go.

I had a small group of friends, but often found myself compromising my beliefs and morals in an attempt to “fit in.” At one point, I thought dating the agnostic guy down the hall would be the fix and even tried the rugby team for a bit. Needless to say, those did not do the trick.

The only thing that “made sense” was when I would go home and attend daily Mass or Eucharistic Adoration. Rooted in Christ, all was right with the world.

Then I would head back to school and the vicious cycle would start all over again. Those pious acts didn’t fit the “identity” I’d made for myself, so I’d plunge back into a misery of my own making.

One night I was on the treadmill, mentally lamenting my distaste for running, when I heard in my heart, clear as day, “Then why are you running away from what I want for you?”

Well played, Lord.

For years He had been trying to draw my heart and help me understand that He had “chosen me out of the world” (John 15:18), but I wanted so badly to belong to a world that hated the real me that I was willing to cover myself in an ersatz identity in the hopes of being loved and accepted.

The result? Misery.

Sister, “He made us, his we are; his people, the flock He tends” (Psalm 100:3). Trying to run away from that only leads us further from our identity, co-heirs with Christ, raised from the dead (cf. Romans 8:17).

If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1).

Jesus, I belong to You. Bring me to Your heart that I might know You, and the One Who sent You (cf. John 15:21).

[bctt tweet="Jesus, I belong to You. // Sister Maria Fatima @dsmmevocations" username="blessedisshe__"]

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