Hoping to Find my True Purpose

 “It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives.” St. John Paul II

I have always been a people pleaser. Years ago, I did a personality test and the result was that I am a peacemaker. This makes sense. In order to avoid conflict, I please everyone. The problem with this is that while I may be pleasing others, I am leaving myself out. Many times I have sacrificed my own goals in order to help others fulfill theirs. 

One of the things I’m realizing during this 3-month sabbatical that I’m taking from social media is that I have not always been true to myself. God created me for a purpose. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reminds me: “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.” If I’m necessary to God, He must have a mission for me. If I am always focused on pleasing others, I will never discover what God’s true purpose for me is. I am on a journey to discover what God wants from me at this moment in time. If I get distracted with constantly doing what other people want, instead of what God wants, I lose focus and therefore I lose sight of my own mission. 

Our purpose can change over time as our life evolves. When I was in school, my purpose was to study so I could graduate. Then my purpose became to get married and have a family. My children and husband then became my primary purpose. But now, my children are all grown up and living their life. My husband is still by my side, but he’s not my sole focus. I love him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but I know that he’s not my main purpose. I can feel deep inside that God has a bigger mission for me. 

I am turning 60 in a few days, and I have been asking myself, “what is my true purpose?” I know I only have a limited amount of time left here on earth so I want to make the most of my remaining years. I would like to leave my mark somehow, and leave my little corner of the world better than I found it. But in order to do so, I have to unite my goals to God’s plans for me. I hope that with the help of the Holy Spirit, I can respond to God with the confidence that what He desires for me is what my true purpose should be.

I hope that by taking this time off from all the social media distractions, I discover my true purpose. I know I’m not going to find it sitting around doing nothing. But hopefully, spending this time journaling and reading spiritual meditations, will allow me to reconnect with my inner self, and it will help me to see more clearly where God is leading me. 

I will probably continue pleasing others because it is who I am, but I am going to concentrate now in pleasing the One that really matters, and that is God. I know that if I align my goals with His plans for me, I will find my true purpose, and my mission will flourish without me getting exhausted or discouraged during the journey. And in the process, I hope I learn to always be true to myself.

Copyright © 2022 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

La abuelita de algodon

 ”Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” Eleanor Roosevelt

There is a little old lady that I see on most of my morning walks around the golf course. She’s usually standing outside her house with her walker. She has the sweetest smile on her face. She always tells me “Buenos Días.” I have baptized her with the nickname “la abuelita de algodón” (the cotton grandma). The reason is that she is always dressed in white and her hair is the color of cotton. I love seeing her. Her smile brightens up my day. 

Even though I don’t know anything about the cotton grandma, not even her name, seeing her gives me hope. She must be around ninety years old which means that she has seen a lot of heartache in her lifetime. She was alive during World War II, the Cold War, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, the assassination of President Kennedy, Watergate, and many of the horrors that took place during the twentieth century. She’s Hispanic, so she has to have endured at least one exile. Only God and her know how many tragedies she has experienced in her personal life. And yet, she’s always smiling. She has perfected the art of smiling with her eyes since she still wears a mask.

She reminds me a lot of my own grandmother. Physically, they don’t look anything alike. My grandmother was tall, she’s short. My grandmother dyed her hair, she doesn’t. My grandmother never wore pants, she always wears white pants. But there is something in her eyes that makes me think of my grandmother. I think it’s the kindness and wisdom that I see when she looks at me, smiles, and says “Buenos Días.”

My grandmother was born in 1910. She was a little girl during the Spanish flu. She went through her first exile in 1924 when she left her native Spain and moved to Cuba. She experienced two world wars, the Cuban Revolution when President Batista was overthrown from power, and then Communism. She had her second exile in 1972 when she returned to Spain, and her final one in 1974 when she moved to the United States. But through it all, she never lost her joy. She always had a kind word to share or a wise story to tell. If she was still alive, we would compare notes between the 1918 pandemic and the current one. I can close my eyes and picture her wearing a mask as an eight-year-old girl in northern Spain. 

Even though most of us are experiencing some kind of hardship either because of the pandemic, the economic crisis, illness, unemployment, or whatever we are going though, the old people in our lives should provide us with a sense of hope. They have seen tragedy at its worst. They have had to abandon their homelands. They have lived through war and disease. And yet, they still find a reason to smile. My own grandmother has been gone for almost 24 years, but I think she has sent me “la abuelita de algodon” so I can think of her every time I see her. This gives me hope that there is a brighter tomorrow waiting for all of us. I am full of hope that just like the cotton grandma and my own grandmother, I will find the strength to cope with whatever tomorrow brings.

Copyright © 2022 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.

Disconnecting to Reconnect

 “The more in harmony with yourself you are, the more joyful you are and the more faithful you are. Faith is not to disconnect you from reality - it connects you to reality.” Paulo Coelho

I have decided to take a much needed sabbatical from social media. We don’t realize it but social media can become toxic. Even though I try to concentrate on just positive posts, it’s difficult to keep the negative completely out. I’ve been feeling lately like something is out of line in my life, and even though I’m not going to place the blame 💯 % on social media, it’s definitely not helping me. I’m spending way too much time with my eyes glued to my phone, surfing the social media pages. I hope that by disconnecting, I can reconnect with the things and the people that truly matter. 

Most of us use social media for one of three reasons:

The first one is to try to show the world that what we believe in is the right thing, and if you don’t agree with me then you are wrong. This could be about anything: religion, politics, the way we deal with the pandemic, gun control, abortion, how to bring up our kids, etc. The problem with using social media platforms to try to convince others that my point of view is the right one, it’s that since we are not seeing the other person face to face, we feel empowered to say things that we normally would not say to their face. We are not going to change anyone’s mind this way, therefore all we are accomplishing is getting angry and alienating others against us.

The second one is to show off. We share what an amazing trip we just had or what a beautiful wedding we attended or the awards that our kids received in school or… We show in social media all the amazing things that are happening in our life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, but the problem is that it gives everyone else a sense that my life is perfect when in reality no one’s life is completely perfect. We only show what we want the rest of the world to see. We share the photos of our idyllic trip, but if we had a huge fight during our trip or we caught a horrible stomach virus that made part of our trip not so great, we don’t share that. If our kids got an F or a detention, we don’t share that. We only mention the honor rolls and the straight As, to the point that it seems like everyone has perfect kids. Social media makes us look at others through rose colored glasses, and life is not always rosy.

The third reason is to share positive posts, jokes or prayers. This is actually my favorite. It’s neutral. Jokes make everyone laugh. We can all use some positivity in our lives. And when we are empowered to ask for prayers, it means that we really need them. But most people are too private to share their pain and suffering on social media. I for one was brought up under the assumption that nobody cares about anyone else’s problems so it’s best to keep them to myself. There is a gap within all of us between joy and pain. We all experience moments of happiness and moments of pain. Lately, this gap within me has become too wide. It’s time to close the gap, and I’m placing all my hope on this summer sabbatical. 

Therefore, for the next three months, I’m going to hit the “pause” bottom on my social media accounts. I will continue to share my blog posts when I’m inspired to write, but that’s it. I will not read or reply to any posts or comments. If you want to reach out, do so the old fashioned way. Phone calls or messages are welcome, but more than anything, I need your prayers so that I can once again feel the inner joy that has been evading me somehow. I hope this summer sabbatical will allow me to disconnect so I can reconnect with myself and God, that it will help me to focus more on my marriage and my family, and that it will help me find the insight that I’m seeking as to why I’m feeling a little out of line. I hope that you keep me in your prayers, and I promise to keep you in my prayers too. 🙏🥰🙏

Copyright © 2022 Christy Romero. All rights reserved.