March 2024 in review

March 2024 was a huge month for me. And it revealed a little bit of a pattern to me.

I guess God likes to use the month of March to shake up my life a bit. Last March, I was accepted to grad school and rejected from a job I was so confident I’d get. March 2022, I was making decisions about my future, did a fast, and a weeklong spiritual program. March 2021, I did a soul sabbath and my aunt died. And of course, March 2020, the world was completely disrupted by insanity. 

This March was its own brand of insane. The first week of March was filled with major editing and submitting my audio master’s project. A project I honestly believed in November would not get itself done. But I found a way! And had wonderful sources through a church in the Upper West Side. 

Then, there was Ireland, which was wonderful and delightful. I learned a lot about how to handle myself in a foreign country. This wasn’t my first trip overseas, but it felt like the first trip I took overseas where I was on my own. My only caveat is that things were in English and that made everything a whole lot easier than if it were German or French. But I navigated my way through public transportation and learned how to get from point A to point B in different cities, and I grew in confidence.

Before our trip began our professor told us that we should make sure to remember that we’re also pilgrims, not just journalists or tourists, and to be open to spiritual experiences (which is not something you hear a lot in the world of academia). But on my last day in Ireland, I had a wonderful time walking the pilgrimage outside of Belfast to Downpatrick. And Holy Spirit whispered to my heart as I fell asleep that last night. It was so unexpected, and so kind. That’s the lesson I’ve been learning this year—how kind a God he really is.

And then I returned to New York City with the career conference in mind. It was honestly not so bad. I wish I could say I was more enthusiastic about the job market, but I’m not, considering how many times we’ve heard people say they were laid off. It’s a cruel world if that’s something we have to get used to hearing. 

But the last week of March was again, a sort of kindness. I sat in a room next to a cathedral watching spring come. I was meeting with a consecrated sister Hannah, and it honestly felt like spiritual direction. We talked all sorts of things: testimonies, discernment, moving, and next steps. A cup of black tea in my hand with the steam rising so gently. It was genuinely such a gift of a conversation. Pray for my discernment for what’s next ❤️

Luckily for me, the good conversations didn’t end. At the weekly prayer gathering, I met Grayson who has such a soft but firm spirit in him. He’s a relatively new believer, yet he has this conviction of this is the God I shall serve and my life has this singular purpose. It reminded me when I was a young believer–that feeling of if this is true, there is no other way I can live. He told me his testimony of coming to faith and joining the community at the cathedral. I asked him questions on trust and prayer and family. It reminded me of the conversations I used to have at the Stud–the Study Center I worked at in college.

More than anything, this post was to mark down how important this month felt to me. To get it down in stone. To memorialize what I could so easily forget.

The real lesson: pay attention. Pay attention to how it feels when you walk in a room. Pay attention to what repeats. Pay attention to what the Lord is telling you. Pay attention to where the peace and discord well up in your soul.

Signing off,

Gigi