What if your calling isn’t a single decision, but an unfolding invitation?
The Myth of the One-Time Yes
What if clarity isn’t something you wait for before taking the first step, but something that emerges as you walk?
Many people approach vocational discernment as if it hinges on a moment: the big decision, the right yes. But in truth, our response to God is often lived out through a series of yeses—some bold, some hesitant, some renewed each day through ordinary faithfulness. This is the essence of what I call the “long yes.”
What Gets in the Way
As a mentor, I’ve walked with many men and women who carry within them a deep desire to live for something more. They sense a call stirring beneath the surface—sometimes toward a particular vocation, sometimes toward healing, service, or a new chapter of life. But what often holds them back isn’t a lack of desire, motivation, or discipline. There are often emotional or relational obstacles in the way.
Fear. Doubt. Inner resistance. Shame from past wounds. Patterns of over-functioning or emotional self-neglect. A life lived at such a relentless pace that there is no room for stillness, let alone clarity.
These obstacles often wear religious masks. Fear is called prudence. Perfectionism is confused with excellence. Shame whispers that we’re being humble when really we feel disqualified. I’ve mentored people who are deeply faithful yet silently convinced that they need to earn their worth before God can use them. Others are so accustomed to caring for others that they have no practice of tending to their own interior life. In some cases, the very people seen as strong, spiritual, and capable are the ones most in need of someone to sit beside them and ask, “How is your heart?”
The Role of Mentorship
In these moments, many people try to “figure it out” alone. They wrestle in prayer, read the right books, and seek insight from the saints. These are good and holy efforts. But sometimes, we need another person to sit beside us in the fog. Not to give us answers, but to help us listen more honestly. To name the things we cannot yet name. To remind us that we are not alone, and that our desires are not foolish or self-indulgent, but often the very place where God is speaking.
Discernment is not just about making decisions. It’s about becoming the kind of person who can respond to God freely. And that often requires accompaniment.
From Insight to Openness
What does that look like? Sometimes it means having a companion who helps you listen beneath your surface thoughts, who gently reflects back what you’ve been afraid to admit. It may mean being asked a question you’ve never considered, or hearing someone say, “That desire sounds like it matters. Can we sit with that a little longer?”
I’ve walked with people who are discerning big things—like marriage, religious life, or a shift in ministry—and with those discerning how to stay faithful in a call that feels heavy. The gift of accompaniment is not that it gives you clarity on command, but that it creates the safety necessary for clarity to emerge.
I remember one woman who came to mentorship unsure whether she was even “allowed” to want more. Her life was full of good things—faith, family, service—but she felt dry, disconnected, and unable to articulate the longing that stirred just beneath the surface. Through our time together, she began to name desires she had buried under decades of self-denial. Her calling wasn’t something new; it was something old being remembered. Accompaniment didn’t give her a new direction—it gave her permission to trust what God had already planted in her heart.
Another man, a deacon nearing retirement, came into mentorship with questions about his effectiveness in ministry. He had given his life in service but now felt unseen and uncertain about his purpose in the next season. What emerged was not a new assignment or role, but a renewed yes to presence. He learned to see his limitations as invitations to grace. In both cases, the long yes was not about changing direction, but about deepening presence.
The Long Yes Continues
The long yes is not easy. It seeks something deeper than a checklist or a deadline. It invites us to surrender our timelines and expectations, to release the fear of getting it wrong, and to risk the vulnerability of being led.
But when we do—when we say yes not only with our words but with our presence, our time, our healing, and our openness—we find that the call is not a task to accomplish, but a relationship to live into.
And the long yes doesn’t end when you finally make a decision. In fact, that’s often when it begins in earnest. Saying yes to marriage, to ordination, to religious life, to consecrated single life—these are not endings, but entry points. From there, the long yes continues in daily fidelity, in deepening surrender, in the slow and sometimes painful process of being formed. There will be seasons of doubt, dryness, even desolation. The long yes makes space for all of that.
Anchored in the Life of the Church
Scripture gives us countless models of this kind of yes. Mary’s fiat was not a one-time consent, but a lifelong surrender that accompanied her through hidden years, public misunderstanding, and the foot of the cross. Peter said yes to following Jesus but learned, painfully, that his yes would require humility, perseverance, and love that went far beyond enthusiasm. Each of the saints lived their long yes through struggle, sacrifice, and grace.
You Don’t Have to Walk Alone
This is the gift of mentorship: not to replace your own discernment, but to walk with you as you uncover what is true, good, and beautiful in the call God has placed within you; to hold space for the long yes, especially when it’s quiet, uncertain, or costly.
When you find yourself in the space between longing and clarity, remember that there is grace in the waiting. The longing itself is holy.
There is certain kind of peace in the slow becoming. And there is joy in saying yes again and again, as God continues to call you deeper into the life He created you to live.
Professional Mentorship is a way of providing accompaniment as you explore and uncover what God wishes to reveal to you.
I offer professional mentorship rooted in presence, prayer, and peace—a sacred space to listen more deeply, tend your interior life, and follow the call within.
