Onie Mision-Reed’s whole life has been one giant leap of faith. So it’s not surprising that she took one more leap recently. Last June, just weeks after she made her commitment as a Springfield Dominican associate, Mision-Reed, (whose family name is pronounced in keeping with its Spanish origins, Mis-YON) decided to retire from her position as director of pastoral care for Mercy Health System of Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, Ark., and begin a new career as a spiritual director.

    “I know God will provide. So far God has been providing,” Mision-Reed said. God’s providential care extends from Mision-Reed’s childhood in the Philippines right up to the serendipity that led her to Mercy Hospital, into a friendship with Sister Concepta Joerger, and ultimately and into the associate program.

    Her widowed mother raised five children on an accountant’s salary and taught her children the value of an education. Mision-Reed followed her mother’s path. After 23 years working as an accountant “I was depressed and bored,” she said. “One day I just quit.” She wasn’t sure what the next step was, but she knew that she would know when that next step presented itself.

    She spent some time in temporary vows with the Congregation of the Religious of the Cenacle in the Philippines, but at that time felt that she was called to social action, not contemplation. She left the congregation and found her way into hospital chaplaincy, working in the Philippines until her supervisors encouraged her to become certified in chaplaincy in the U.S.

    Deep trust in God brought Mision-Reed through lean times, such as when she was a student at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif., and ran short of groceries two weeks before her stipend was due. “‘I will sleep away my hunger,’ I said to myself, and had just gone to bed when there was a knock at the door.” A neighbor was standing there with a casserole, explaining to Mision-Reed that God told her to cook something up and bring it to her.

    Similarly, the day after she called her mother to declare herself free of the traditional Filipino pressure to marry and settle down, she spoke with a man she often saw reading outdoors in the apartment complex. She has been married to that man, Ronnie Reed, for twenty-two years. In fact, she says, it is largely her husband’s willingness to follow her career moves that has enabled Mision-Reed to find herself, having come full-circle from her days as a Cenacle sister, in the business of contemplative prayer and spiritual direction.

    “When God calls God give us whatever we need,” Mision-Reed says with confidence. “The only certainty is God.”

 Sister Beth Murphy, OP
 This story first appeared in the Spring, 2007, edition of Just WORDS.