Experiments in Catholicism: What were you made for?

As I enter the latter half of my 20s, one question has dominated my prayer life: What do you want from me, Lord?

When I graduated college, I thought I had my path figured out. I quickly learned that the path I picked was not the path the Lord had picked for me. So, I went back to the vocational drawing board. I had always loved writing, but wasn’t that just a hobby not an actual vocational path? Was that really what the Lord wanted from me? I wasn’t so sure.

Then, a friend sent me the application for the GIVEN Institute’s 2026 Cohort.

GIVEN is a nonprofit dedicated to helping young Catholic women in positions like mine asking ‘What do you want from me, Lord?’ I filled out an application, was accepted a few months later and hopped on a plane in late June to the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. to get some sort of an answer. During the week-long conference, the Lord did answer me, but I didn’t realize that until much later.

The GIVEN Institute Forum focused on three themes – Receive, Realize, and Respond. On day one, we dove into the theme of “receive the gift that you are.” Dr. Mary Healy, a professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, spoke about the creation of woman in Genesis. Although the Lord created man and woman with equal dignity in His eyes, He gave us very different purposes. At our very core, women are called to be the receivers of love. Just as Mary received love Himself in the form of bearing Jesus Christ, our first vocation is to bring love into the world.

On day two, the theme of “realize the gifts you have been given” allowed me to start to realize the full gift of my ability to love and that it is often the path of suffering. Sister Mary Madeline Todd spoke of female saints who embraced the harder paths of womanhood and became stronger as a result. St. Josephine Bakita was enslaved and sold several times in different parts of Africa. Although her enslavers were cruel, she discovered Christianity and later negotiated her freedom. Instead of harboring hate for them in her heart, she chose to forgive her enslavers – a truly radical act of love. For women, our ability to suffer and find redemption in those hard parts of our stories is a gift, and women have been uniquely created to take it.

After spending two full days filling our minds with the goodness of our existence, we reached our third topic: “respond with only the gift you can give.” We were not created to hold all this goodness inside ourselves; rather, we need to share it with the world. Montse Alvarado, the incoming Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication at the Vatican and current President of EWTN News, spoke about the woman at the well from the Gospel of John. In this account, Jesus tells a woman who has done everything wrong in her life, who has no hope left, that He is the Messiah. He knows her sins but instead of rejecting her, acts out of love for her. Montse asked us to step into the shoes of this woman as she leaves the well. As a result of this act of love, she is reborn. She came to the well as someone with no reason to hope, but this one act of love transforms her, and she goes to tell everyone about the man she has met. How would this one act of love change everything for her? Montse invited us not to ask the Lord “what do you want me to do?” but instead, “Who am I becoming because I know I am loved?” Instead of wondering what the Lord was calling me to do, I needed to look at myself as I drew nearer to Christ and consider what that was doing in my life.

As I left the conference, I really felt like I was on the same page with the Lord for the first time in a while. After a lot of reflection, I realized that I received an answer to my question in the form of another question from the Lord, “Daughter, what did I create you for?” Instead of searching through a book of options for my life, I needed to realize that although God has written my story, my unique gifts and talents mean that I get to be the person to write it down. That’s how I can bring more love into the world. By sharing my struggles and stories, I can find strength in my vulnerability. And because God loves me so much, I get to glorify Him in a way that is completely unique to me. Isn’t that wonderful?

Experiment of the week: What gifts have you been given from God? How can you use them to glorifying him?