I Gain Nothing

"No," I said to no one in particular as I closed my Bible and set it on the floor.  ...Okay, maybe I was saying it to God...

"No," I said again, "I'm not interested in meditating on You loving and serving us."

Let me back up a minute.  Just before Lent started, I commited to a new method of praying with scripture. I made a list of the major "action" moments of Jesus' life from John's Gospel, and I've been working my way through the list.

Next up on the list: The Washing of the Disciples' Feet.

Now, back to the story...

I realized a couple of days ago that I'm really, totally, and completely kind of mad at God.  I feel like I've honestly given myself to Him.  I know I took a courageous leap of surrender by leaving my 2nd grade teaching job and coming to Springfield.  And even though I had no real expectations for what this journey would bring, I did expect that it would become something.

It doesn't seem like it has. I feel abandoned and forgotten.

This morning, I woke up to a text from a friend happily declaring that God is so good.  The text went on to describe the reasons why. I found myself thinking, "Of course. Because you aren't me, and God is willing to bring good things into your life."

Earlier this afternoon, I got a text from another friend asking for prayers.  My prayer was something along these lines: "God, please bring good things into _____'s life. Don't treat her the way You treat me. Let her be holy and HAPPY."

...did I mention that I'm kind of mad at God?

At one point, I even went so far as to let God know that I think He is taking advantage of the fact that He knows I won't walk away. This God thing - this faithful Catholic life thing- I'm all in.

Here's the truth of the matter though. We have to live the victory.

God does love me.  He does bring good things into my life. He doesn't do everything the way I would, but that is the biggest blessing He gives us.  Because He can see perfectly. His ways are best.

Does that suck sometimes?  Yes.  But only because we are human. 
Does it hurt like crazy sometimes? Yes.  But only because we are being made holy.
Does it look unreasonable and unfair sometimes? Yes.  But only because Satan is constantly clouding our vision.

Today, I'm standing at a crossroads.  I have a choice to make.  I can stand up, trust God to build the Kingdom with my suffering, and LIVE like I'm all in.  Or, I can continue about my life with my arms crossed in stubbornness, pretending like God owes me the life I envision for myself.

What do I want to do?  I want to be stubborn.  I want to wait and try to force God's hand.  I want to throw a mini-temper tantrum until He gives in.

But I gain nothing by holding on.

I gain nothing, but Satan wins.

I don't want to be someone who hands Satan a win.

So what am I going to do?

Well, first of all I'm going to pray that scripture I said no to this morning.  And I'm going to meditate on God made flesh kneeling before His Church -before me- and humbly and lovingly serving.

And I'm going to choose to trust that Jesus.  I will choose to trust that He is building.

Because I gain nothing by holding on.

The Hard Parts

I once saw (okay, I think I actually trice saw...but that isn't important) a Rob Bell video called "Shells." I only have vague memories of how it specifically went, but I remember the jist (okay, a friend reminded me of the jist earlier today...but that isn't important either). It went something like this...

A boy is walking along the beach collecting shells. He is happy and enjoys what he has found, but they are nothing magnificent. None of the shells are big and many are merely broken fragments. Suddenly, he sees it. A full and beautiful shell floating out in the ocean. His father encourages him to go get it. He tries to get out to it, but keeps stopping short and returning to the shore. With more encouragement, he makes it out to the shell, but he doesn't grab it. He comes back to the shore and his father who asks what happened. The boy explained that he couldn't get the full and beautiful shell. The father asked why, and the boy responded, "My hands are full of shells."

How often is this us? We cling so tightly to the things around us that we can't grasp the better things God has for us. We are unwilling to let go of the comfort of the life we've created and grown accustomed to.

I've realized in the past few days I don't really and truly surrender. When I trust and hope in a future that God has planned for me, I always focus on some possible way that it will work out. I surrender to a possibility - one that might make me slightly uncomfortable, but with which I am ultimately okay.

I don't surrender to an unknown. I don't surrender to a future full of hope and happiness that I cannot imagine for myself. I surrender only insofar as I can understand.

That isn't real surrender.

Real surrender embraces the darkness.  Real surrender trusts the God whose plans I cannot see and desires those plans in my life. No. Matter. What.

That's the hard part: joyful surrender to what appears to be a dark abyss, while trusting and hoping and delighting in God's promise.

After all, if my hands are full of my own comforting visions, how will ever grasp what is actually better?

I Didn't Let Him Sit

I've been avoiding something in my prayer life.

Want to know how I found this out?

I noticed that when I imagined Jesus in prayers and tried to encounter Him in the Gospel stories, I didn't let Him sit down. My mental picture kept Him walking. If He stopped to act in a story, I switched my perspective to that of a more distant character.

Sure sounds like avoidance, doesn't it?

The most shameful part of this is that I've been complaining in my prayers that God has been keeping things from me, hiding His wisdom and love.

It seems that all I had to do was let Him have a seat.

That Person

I struggle in my prayer to give myself, as I truly am, to God.

I'm fairly certain .... well...as certain as one who tries to remain completely open to God's will can be (i.e. not certain at all) that God does not intend for me to approach Him alone for the rest of my life. In other words, I was made for union with man. (The reasons why I have the amount of timid, uncommitted belief I do is a story for some other time.)

So, being made for such union, I frequently find myself asking God how much time I must spend longing for it. I try to gently remind Him ;-) of that for which I was made.

However, God, in His infinite wisdom and perfect love, has me single now.  He is calling me to a life of something else for the time being. I find it hard to embrace big dreams in Him while waiting.

Around the time of graduation, I was preparing to say many, many goodbyes. I was comforted by great peace in a vision of a life in which faithful servants of God continuously come into my path and leave.  They leave because God calls them.  They leave because of their openness to His will in their lives.  They leave because the Father beckons.

As the Kingdom of God is built up around the world through the "yes" of all these people I envisioned walking in and out of each others' lives, there would be joy.  I saw myself going wherever He called as well.

Right now though, I wait.

I love that vision. But I struggle to give myself fully to it.

It is a joyful life, yes, but the good Christian knows that the joy comes only as the fruit of suffering.

I've found myself waiting, unaccountably it seems, for that one person who would always be at my side - the one person who would walk in and not out, whose call was the same as mine.

As I confessed this in prayer to our loving and gently compassionate God, He whispered His response to the silence and stillness of my heart:

That person you are waiting for...it's me. I am the One who will never leave as others journey away.  That person is me.

Making Me Holy

I wouldn't call this a dry spell - though perhaps many would.  After all, it has many of the classic dry-spell characteristics: loneliness in prayer, feeling like God is not there.  However, I know that it is something more.

This is certainly a time of struggle.  God is stretching me in new directions.  He is challenging me in new ways.  I'm not learning this in my prayer. Rather, I am experiencing it in my life.  I feel justified in saying, "the hits just keep on coming."  I simply cannot seem to get on top.

It's nothing too big. Annoying conversations here.  Memory lapses there.  I've even found a whole lot of more-work-than-imagined mixed in as well. Some things are just constantly not going as planned, no matter how many times I alter the plan. This is a trying time in my life. There are many things I need to be doing to keep up, many that I want to be doing but cannot, and many more that I should be doing but am not. There is just a lot going.

The tricky part is that when I turn to God in prayer, I do not seem to meet a filling wellspring of faith, hope, love, and peace. I seem to meet silence. I pour out my heart, lay down my troubles, and wait. All I hear is silence. I know He is there.  I have no trouble believing that.  However, He is not responding.  He is testing my faith, teaching me to grow.

He is making me holy.

And it hurts. It's hard. To be honest, I'm not particularly fond of the whole process. However, I honestly want to place my life in His hands, to grow closer to Him, to live this life well so that I can be with Him forever in the next.  That means that today I will keep believing.  Today, I will choose to have hope.  I will continuing living and moving and praying.

One day, perhaps even today, I will thank Him for making me holy.

Judgment Day

I was home this past weekend and had the opportunity to watch the funeral mass of Ted Kennedy as well as the brief prayer at the Capitol building and bits of the burial. I found myself proud to be Catholic. There was something empowering about seeing three former presidents as well as the current president present at Mass - though I know they are not in full communion with the Church. I felt proud to know something of the power and meaning behind the rituals they witnessed. I was honored to believe with all my heart in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Liturgy they attended. I was pleased to be part of the Body of Christ, the Universal Church, that mourned and prayed with a faithful family.

 I know that Ted was pro-choice, but this did not taint the celebration of his life. There was much focus on his passion for helping people, on his sense of responsibility to them, and on his natural tendency to turn to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in times of great need. We thank God for the good he did fight for in his life. We remember that we do not know the state of his soul upon death; we did not hear his last Confession. And we can celebrate the man that he was knowing that his soul is in God's hands - the judgment is reserved for God alone, which is the only place it ever really was.

Tonight I had the always needed opportunity to reflect on my own entrance into eternity - the day when I will stand before my Lord and He will take me through all of the good that did and all of the evil that I did. The terrifying loneliness of that moment leaves me feeling hollow inside. I have done so little good and so much wrong. There is something deeply unsettling when thinking about souls. Every person that I encounter will one day either be in the eternal bliss of Heaven or the eternal damnation of hell. There is no time for trivialities.

Following my reflections, I had the opportunity to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. I have never prayed that prayer with so much of heart. In that moment of judgment, all we can offer God in defense of ourselves is His mercy.

THE DIVINE MERCY CHAPLET (On Rosary Beads)
Begin with One Our Father, One Hail Mary, and the Apostles Creed

(On the mystery bead) Eternal Father I offer thee the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Your dearly beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ: in atonement of our sins and those of the whole world.

(On Hail Mary Beads) For the sake of His sorrowful passion: have mercy on us and on the world. (Repeat for each decade)

Close with: Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One: have mercy on us and on the whole world (Three times)