Do you go through each day completely convinced that you’re God’s beloved?

Before I began meeting with a spiritual director, I would have told you I was a believer. And in truth, I was a person of faith. But seven years ago, as I started meeting with a director, the Lord spoke life into a dead silence — a silence I didn’t know existed.

For the first time, I started to really hear John 3:16 speaking to me: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” God sent his only Son to die for me. For me— yes, me — and I’d never known how to pay attention! My director started showing me how to receive this immense and personal love from the Father’s heart. 

Because I hadn’t experienced the love of God for me personally before that time, I was tempted to believe that something must be wrong with me.

But I just needed help to know the love of God. Seven years after starting spiritual direction, I can’t get away from my director’s helping gaze. I still remember that delighted gleam in his eye and that small smile of his when he looked at me.Because I was overly focused on my sin and sinfulness at this point in my life — overly focused on me — it was unsettling for me to just be seen and loved out of the goodness of my director’s heart. I was worth his love — John 3:16 again! — and in receiving the love of my spiritual father, I started to allow God to enter the picture of my sinful brokenness, turning me gently but firmly toward himself and toward others.

Letting God love me as I am, allowing myself to be challenged and to grow — yes, that’s spiritual direction and yes, it is for everybody! Vatican II couldn’t have been clearer that you and I are called to holiness. “All the faithful,” the Council Fathers plead with us to understand, “are called by the Lord to that perfect holiness whereby the Father Himself is perfect.”

Don’t pass up the chance to let another person love and guide you along the way to the great banquet where we’re all called to meet with one another — you and I and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit — delighting at what God has done among us. A communion that, to be sure, none of us could have entered into without the other people God puts in our life.

So what can you do, practically speaking, to find a wise guide in the spiritual life? The advice used to be to start talking to priests you know — but the number of priests per Catholic layperson has gone down while the number of laypeople trained in spiritual direction has gone up. Perhaps your parish or diocese has resources to get you connected with a priest or trained layperson. The one thing I’d emphasize is not to wait.

In John 3:16, the evangelist doesn’t talk about our just being fine. He talks about our being loved. That love takes courage to accept — but there’s help for you if you’re among the 100% of people who need it. I encourage you to begin seeking out a spiritual director today.