The very first time I considered becoming a nun was the summer before starting college. I was on a pilgrimage with some people from my youth prayer group. It was there that I experienced my first call to the religious life. Being that the idea had never entered my mind before, it was quite startling. I briefly entertained the thought while on pilgrimage, and when I returned home I pushed it aside thinking that I still had much "life" to live and experience before even considering it. So that is what I did. I continued with my life. I went to college, received a teaching position in an elementary school, and eventually bought a condo.
As I was happily coasting along, the thought of religious life never completely left my mind. Every once in a while the idea would creep up. Each time this happened, I would entertain the idea briefly and then pushed it aside as the religious life seemed so mysterious and unknown to me.
I had heard that if one didn't act upon a vocation right away it could be lost. I figured this had happened to me. However, as the many years passed the thought of a religious vocation kept returning. So I knew things had to change. Instead of running from the religious life, I felt it time to accept this as a real possibility for my life.
So here I am living the life of a cloistered nun. For me the passage from Henri Nouwen's book, The Only Necessary Thing explains it all:
I am deeply convinced that the necessity to pray, and to pray unceasingly, is not so much based on our desire for God as on God's desire for us. It is God's passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer. Prayer comes from God's initiative, not ours. It might sound shocking, but it is biblical to say God wants us more than we want God!
What it is really about is God's desire for us. All this time God has been pursuing me! He was choosing me for a special vocation. Thankfully, vocations are not always lost if not acted upon immediately.