Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5125998" data-attributes="member: 54707">Well Dan, I've known I was meant to be a priest since I was a little boy. Always felt that was my Wyrd (know that term?) and that eventually I'd be one. I've always felt called by God. Used to have dreams about it. In which I was priest in North Africa/Egypt thousands of years ago. (Not saying I believe in past lives or anything, just that it's always been deep in me. Even subconsciously.) Still have dreams about it, only different kinds.On the other hand I always felt a big struggle between the priesthood and what I owed God, and having a wife and family. I never thought I'd live long enough to marry anyways so originally I started out for the seminary. But I met a woman and had a real time wrestling with the idea of, "could I be celibate, or was I supposed to have a wife and a family?" When I was younger I saw them as ideals conflicting with each other. As canceling each other out. After college and work in different fields I woke up one morning and realized I was thirty and would live a lot longer than I had originally thought. (Not that I was in bad health, I've always had pretty good health except for my injuries, but I just lived sort of a dangerous life doing dangerous things - I was pretty sure I'd die in an accident or be killed working undercover.)But when I reached thirty still breathing I just felt that it was right at that point to get married. So I did, started my own business, and had a family. I know now that was not a mistake of any sort but part of my destiny, and an important part. Yet God and the priesthood always sat in the background of my mind and my soul. And I knew I would always become a priest eventually. So I started attending Mass at a Coptic church (which I really, really enjoyed) off and on (usually High Holy Days), and eventually began the conversion process to become Orthodox, which I'm undergoing now. A few years from now I'll be off to the Seminary and then I'll be ordained, God willing, and if I live long enough, which right now I'm sure I will barring some unforeseen (to me) accident. My wife and kids should be well off enough that I won't have to worry about their physical or financial needs, and with the kids grown up they will be fine. After I'm ordained I'll take the wife with me (maybe the grandkids on occasion) and I plan, if I'm allowed, to go to either Africa, where I've had a lot of past dealings (and my wife is black so I think she'll find it interesting) or Asia to pursue mission work and helping the poor. (I've always liked missions work.) Plant churches, start schools, help with education and medical needs, that kinda thing. I've never desired to be anything more than a lowly priest so that will be more than fine by me. I've got no ekklesiastical office aspirations. Most of my earnings from my writings will just go back to the church and to help the poor. It's funny now to be pursing this much later in life than I originally planned, but I feel like it was all meant to happen the way it happened (though at the time I didn't know that), and so I'm glad of it. I personally think that I'll make a much better priest now, knowing what I know and having been through what I've been through, that if I had tried to pursuing being a priest was I was young and conflicted about my priorities. I'm not conflicted now, I'm totally relaxed and at peace with my situation and my life, and the way things turned out. I know though for sure that this time I'll end up being a priest, assuming I live long enough.Thanks for the encouragement though. And by all means pray for me (and anybody else that wants to, take your shot, I never turn down prayers) so that I'll have wisdom and strength. You know I'm completely at peace now, but I'm still much older than I used to be. It'll be psychologically and spiritually and I even suspect academically easy. Physically easy, maybe not so much.</blockquote>

Verification