How Did I Get Here?

(Photo from SLS 2018)

I had the privilege of spending part of my winter break in Chicago at with 8,000 other catholic young adults at FOCUS’ (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) Student Leadership Summit. During lunch one day I found myself in adoration and while I was praying I couldn’t help but wonder how I got there. Now my immediate response was that I took a train into the city and then a car to the conference center and then wondered around aimlessly with my friends brother toll we located the right building, but the physical process of my arrival isn’t really that important in the grand scheme of things. The real question is how did I get to this conference, what led to my decision to dedicate my time to the Lord and spend my vocation learning to better serve him. How did I get here?

My journey here was not a linear one and I doubt I could put it all on these pages even if I tried. The fact that I’m currently sitting in possibly the largest adoration chapel I’ve ever been in in a giant conference center in Chicago is the culmination of a million seemingly inconsequential decisions that I have made over the course of my life. It’s the result of me choosing to suggest the conference to my friend, which only happened because I heard other people talking about it and the fact that we’d both casually be in Chicago for other reasons. It stemmed from the fact that I got placed in the small group I did for the duration of the conference and we decided to dedicate part of our lunch break to adoration. It links back to my decision to co-lead a FOCUS bible study, which I ever would have done if I hadn’t been put in charge of Newman small groups which only happened because I decided to apply for exec which wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t broken my foot, prematurely ending my fencing career at Penn. I wouldn’t be sitting here now if my parents hadn’t agreed to let me stay in Chicago for a third of my break, my aunt hadn’t let me stay at her house for an extra night, and my friend’s family hadn’t taken me in for the duration of the conference.

And yet my presence here is a result of so much more than just these little choices I’ve made in the past couple months. I would not be here today if I hadn’t gone to Penn. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gotten involved with my Newman center. I definitely wouldn’t be here if that day in eighth grade when I stood outside CCD with my best friend a few short weeks before my confirmation and said “I don’t even know if I think God is real anymore” I had let myself walk away from the faith like I was so tempted to do.

I look back now on all of these decisions and all the decisions that led to them, and I I’m left in awe of the fact that I am sitting here today, on this foldable chair, in this giant conference room turned adoration chapel, in front of our Lord. There are so many tiny details that could have gone differently, so many time my yes could have been a no or my right could have been a yes, that would have caused me to end up in a completely different place. And thinking about this all made me realize how truly beautiful God’s work is in my life, because despite everything I am sitting here today in adoration and I can tell you honestly there is no place I’d rather be. It is clear to me in this moment that God has a plan for our lives, a complicated, messy plan filled with millions of little decisions that sometimes lead from A to B and sometimes lead from A to G to W to L to B. Yet no matter what, they always lead me to exactly where I belong; they always lead me to him.