This week is National Vocations Awareness Week across the Catholic Church in the United States. Each day this week we are bringing you a vocations story. Today Jenny Ingles, Director of Fertility and Life Ministries for the Diocese of Lansing, tells us about her “messy” vocational journey towards marriage and motherhood. Jenny has been married to PJ for 14 years. Together, they have three children: Miriam (7), Teddy (6) and Eloise (2). Here’s Jenny's vocation story:
“Messy. That’s the best thing I can call my vocation. Being married and having three kids often results in messiness. If it isn’t a baby handing me a dirty diaper while triumphantly proclaiming ‘I’m naked!’ or someone asking me the same question for the third time is six minutes, then it’s grocery shopping and cleaning. All while trying to remember that my husband and I actually need some time together... without the kids. But it’s in the messiness of this vocation that God calls me to Him. It’s the tremendous amount of grace He pours out on me so that I can laugh when 10,000 goldfish crackers find their way onto the kitchen floor. It’s the quiet moments at 2am when I’m holding a toddler who had a nightmare. It’s my heart filling with joy when the youngest ends her meal-time prayer with ‘Pwease Bwess da Bears, da Budds and da Andwes’. It’s my husband and I cracking jokes around a campfire. There is so much beauty in my vocation that even at the most hectic moments I praise God for his goodness. Is it easy? Nope. Not a chance. Is it cross free? Definitely not. But it is what He has called me to. Christ’s words ring out loud and clear ‘For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’.” (Matthew 11:30)
“Living this vocation isn’t just me leaning into God and growing in virtue – although that’s a huge part. It is the recognition that these people He’s entrusted to me aren’t mine. They’re His. And He doesn’t just want me keeping them alive (although some days that’s the only goal I have), He wants me leading them to Him. He loves them more than I do. And for this reason, I approach Him daily in fear and trembling asking Him to transform me; to make me worthy of this calling so that when I stand before Him I hear the words ‘well done good and faithful servant’.”
* For more information on how the Diocese of Lansing can help you prayerfully discern your vocation, go to: https://www.dioceseoflansing.org/vocations