“There are very few men who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves entirely to His hands and let themselves be formed by His Grace” (St. Ignatius of Loyola).

I never felt that I fit in with the mild, dainty version of the Catholic woman. While I love St. Thérèse, I have a fiery devotion to St. Joan of Arc. While a good majority of my friends were studying catechetics in college, I was pursuing a degree in English writing and had my sights set on the likes of international journalism. I spent most of my life outdoors, trained and rode horses, and jetted off to pursue adventure in foreign countries. My spirit, the way I was created, is just … well … wild.

For a while, I believed that a wild spirit made me less of a mission-focused woman attuned to God’s will. Though I wished for the desire to wear the pearl earrings and cardigan sweaters like the cute, holy girls, what I really wanted was to believe that I could serve God and pursue a worthy vocation by being true to who I was.

Growing Into Our Vocations

Funnily enough, I’ve never placed much value on fitting in. As a teen, I was deeply moved by Aesop’s fable about the man, the boy, and the donkey, the moral of which is that when you try to please everyone, you drive yourself mad and please no one. To write our own story, full of adventure and joy and mission and faith, we have to live our own story, to be aware of who we are, and to choose that person on purpose.

There’s continual room for progress, but maturity, age, and spiritual growth eventually led me to see clearly: I didn’t need to be on the praise and worship team or study theology to be a faith-filled woman on a mission in the world. God was calling me along a path He ordained just for me, and it didn’t look like the path of my friends setting out to be religion teachers. In fact, it doesn’t look quite like the path of anyone I knew. One thing is for sure: God placed me where I am today.

The younger version of myself had yet to realize the awesome things I would do on my journey of striving to follow God’s plan for my life. I had pigeonholed Him into someone who is better served by stereotypes — even stereotypes that I formulated in my own mind — than by passion, mission, and faith.

Everyone struggles with something, and while my struggle generally wasn’t feeling insecure, it definitely was feeling like my goals and dreams didn’t offer an opportunity to serve God and show His heart to the world. I know now that those sly whispers I battled about not being able to follow Christ if I didn’t “fit” were from someone else.

Every person “fits” the opportunity for missional work. Nurses can proclaim the kingdom just as equestrian trainers can; the opportunity for ministering to a world in need doesn’t stop at religion class. In fact, there’s profound need for evangelization in every industry, vertical, and job role.

Becoming Ourselves and Exerting Our Influence

I’m honored to be Catholic. Our faith is rich, beautiful, Biblical, traditional, and mysterious. It intoxicates my senses and captures my heart, yet it’s strange to be a Catholic working woman. In male-dominated industries, I am in the minority. I don’t quite fit in with the evangelical and non-denominational Protestants, but I’m so similar that I sometimes forget that I’m different.

It’s a blessing to come to the realization that we don’t have to fit a mold or a majority — we just have to seek truth. In the inspiring book “Clout: Discover and Unleash Your God-Given Influence,” author Jenni Catron writes, “When we discover and unleash our God-given influence, we position ourselves to lead with passion and purpose that defy our personal limitations.” There’s tremendous value and influence in being exactly who God created us to be.

My article at the beginning of quarantine about the opportunity for stillness during the pandemic shared a challenge to emerge stronger, wiser, braver, and quieter, to be fully aware of who we are and to be that person on purpose. Thomas Merton, a 20th-century Trappist monk, wrote extensively about spirituality and mysticism and became one of the most beloved spiritual masters of our time. In “An Invitation to the Contemplative Life,” this paragraph on solitude and silence especially speaks to women:

When you are by yourself you soon get tired of your craziness. It is too exhausting. It does not fit with the eminent sanity of trees, birds, water, sky. You have to shut up and go about the business of living. The silence of the woods forces you to make a decision which the tensions and artificialities of society may help you evade forever. Do you want to be yourself or don’t you?

We’re wonderfully made (Psalms 139: 14), ready to be formed by grace if we abandon ourselves to Him in trust.

Laura Pugliano is marketing and content strategist at the digital solutions provider Candoris and an alumna of Franciscan University of Steubenville. Along with her husband, she’s working to launch a brand and bottle the olive oil that her Italian in-laws produce in Southern Italy, where she and her family spend summers in the sea, sun, and olive groves. Join Laura on Twitter and Instagram.