Once upon a time when I was a Protestant – an evangelical Protestant – there was a big movement for “Holiness unto the Lord”. It was the general chatter: talked about in small group home sessions, prayed about in Bible studies, and sung about in church.

I want to be holy

Set apart for you, Lord

I want to be holy

Ready to do your will

We raised our hands, belted it to the accompaniment of guitars, and keyboard, and drums. I cried.

There was nothing I wanted more. I wanted to be holy. I wanted to be set apart. Who wouldn’t want to do His will?

Except, that begged the question: What was His will for me? How could I be ready to do his will, if I wasn’t even sure of it?

I prayed and prayed and then prayed more. I prayed in the car on the way to and from my part time job. I prayed in bed at night. I “prayed without ceasing.”

I was desperate to discover what His will was for me.  I didn’t want to miss it, should it pop up in an unexpected place like the prayer of a friend, or a stranger’s conversation. I didn’t want to miss His plan for my life. I knew it would be good – it had to be good – and it was worth waiting for.

I stood ready.

And waiting.

I didn’t want to decide what it was “I was going to be when I grew up” – maybe my choice wasn’t His will. I thought maybe I wanted to be a writer. Or an attorney. Or maybe even an engineer. But were these things were he could use me? Were they holy enough? Were they the choice he wanted me to make?

So I continued to wait.

And to pray.

And I prayed and cried.

I read my Bible.

I prayed.

Here’s the thing. There never was a sign.

I threw my fleece on the line. I put my finger on random Bible verses praying He would speak to me. I waited for Him to whisper to my heart at a worship service.

The fleece never got wet. It never even stayed dry. It didn’t do a thing. Bible verses were what they were. I didn’t hear a thing.

It turns out, the Bible doesn’t contain a career path.

And I was miserable.

Fast forward 15 years.

I was a Catholic now, come into the fullness of faith. I was surrounded by people who loved Jesus, and loved His Church. And they all had ideas about how to be holy. Things that brought them closer to God and made them happy.

I tried to follow as many ideas as I could. As many ideas as they had for me. As many ideas as they told me was the way. In the evenings, in the stillness of a house gone quiet when everyone else had gone to bed, I listened to the old worship songs and sang.

I want to be holy

Set apart for you, Lord

I want to be holy

Ready to do your will

Catholics want to be holy, too.

I embraced the vocation of motherhood as a means to holiness. I washed the dishes with a vigor and religiosity that was hard to be beat. I cooked and baked with gusto. I swept and mopped the floor with religious fervor. I was going to set apart my home.

I homeschooled Jesus into my kids. They were going to grow up with the wonderful and rich Catholic traditions that I didn’t have. They were going to know why they were Catholic and never want to leave.

I read my Bible. And the catechism. And tried to work in a something written by a saint as well. You can’t be holy if you don’t know what it looks like.

I lit candles for saints; bought beeswax Advent candles and had them blessed; tried to plan out feast days with the proper food; prayed the rosary; cried out to Mary for her help.

We were going to be holy, damnit.

Even if it killed me.

And it nearly did.

I wasn’t ever happy.

I cried to God begging him for the joy I knew should be mine.

I ached to be happy. A bone numbing ache that went deeper than I knew existed.

I was empty and starving.

And here’s why:

I was never me.

What’s worse, this had gone on so long, I didn’t even know who me was.

She had gotten lost in all the trappings of holiness both as a Protestant and as a Catholic.

I was a Facebook meme: I choose happiness holiness.

I was living that quotable picture that passed through my feed days ago. Did it pass through yours, too?I wish I could have clicked “not-like” on it. There really should be a thumb’s down option.

There is no such thing as Happiness vs Holiness

It’s a false choice. A false dichotomy.

We aren’t supposed to choose holiness over happiness. We aren’t even asked to choose between happiness and holiness.

Friends, don’t you realize what happiness is? That our happiness lies in only one place? With one person?

I didn’t.

Not until I picked up my “pocket Thomas” and read this on page 35:

What is the will of God? Our salvation, our happiness, our eternal union with Him. How can we discover it, where is it hidden, how can we fathom its infallible directions? What is the will of god for me in this particular matter? How can I be sure? Will I, in spite of my best intentions, make a mistake about his will and wander of the road?

My heart leapt off the page! And here is our answer, on the same page:

His encompassing love has left little grounds for our uneasiness. There are the explicit statements of His will in the divine prohibitions, precepts and counsels. For judgment in the entangling circumstances of particular occasions, He has given us minds of our own, imaging and sharing the divine light of His own mind, and therefore to be followed confidently; and there is the advice of those wiser than ourselves. Beneath, behind and through it all there is the stupendous truth that no man loses God by accident, no man wanders off the road home in spite of himself, no man is in rebellion against the will of God except by his own open declaration of war. Perhaps the months or years will show us that we have taken a roundabout path; but if our heart is right, our feet will find the ultimate goal of God: our salvation.

All those years wasted! Here is the plain and simple truth:

God gave us a mind and free will. We should use them! Gather advice from our trusted advisers, use common sense. But there is no need to fret about choosing His will.

There is no need to choose between Happiness and Holiness.

Happiness and holiness are one and the same.

His love is bigger than that. It’s okay to choose happiness.

It’s okay to be happy.

So you’ll excuse my indignant dislike of your Facebook meme asking me to choose between two goods.

I know what happiness is.

I know for Whom I seek.

Following that path is happiness.