If there is a way to misunderstand God, we in our freewill and predisposition to sin will find it.
By most measures, this has been a good Lent. I’ve forgotten a few times about my chosen fast, but I’ve attended mass more, gone to confession and adoration more, and been more able to pray. At the same time, I’ve found myself in a desert of my spiritual life, discovering how needy I am in everything. How empty. How grieving. How frustrated that I’m needy and grieving.
The masses fill me, as do all these sacraments, but I struggle with feeling disconnected from both God and others. I know the flatness is grief as well. Going to Sunday mass, I am holding all these burdens I shouldn’t, because there are many worries. I am anxious about many things. Mass is a safe place to let all the tears fall and every Sunday, they do. I’ve learned not to wear eye makeup to mass.
This weekend, after meeting a very wise priest at a local church who told me, to trust Christ, I found myself hearing Martha’s profession of faith, that even death would be removed as a good rebuke.
With God, nothing is impossible, so I should not shoulder these griefs. I should surrender them.
I thought of all the miracles –Christ’s words, “Fill these vats with water…bring me the loaves and fishes, have the people recline…put out into the deep and lower your nets,.. your faith has saved you,… your little girl is not dead but sleeping,.. Lazarus, come out, and come out onto the water.” All these impossible moments that Jesus wills into joy were a reminder, that the Lord supplies for our benefit. They are a reminder that our God is bigger than the storm, than all storms, including death. I’d been aching and holding onto hurts and worries. Christ wanted to roll away the stone and remove all the bandages that bound my heart and kept me from engaging the world.
My mind wandered again, to the desire for all my children to have faith. I begged God to break off a bit of my faith and share it with each of my children, to make sure each of them had mustard seeds. I asked Him to pour his precious blood on the hearts of each of my children, to heal their wounds, to bring them deeper into His heart. The church we attended this weekend, has not given out the precious blood since 2020, and I privately mourned this reality, as I really wanted to drink and receive Him. I knew it was a little silly.
God doesn’t mind silly, He uses it to instruct. “Sherry, they, like you, are already deep in my heart, held there and always have been.” I knew it. I walked up to receive and saw, they were giving us the opportunity to receive the precious blood.
Tears, happy tears, and a promise from my heart to His as I drank, to accept the peace He offered me too.
Sometimes it happens, I walk back from receiving with a goofy grin.
Sunday, the smile couldn’t stop, it wasn’t a lack of solemnity but an inability to contain the joy, the comfort, the peace given in that moment when I knew, a prayer I’ve held, though not yet fully reflected in time by reality, was answered by God and as all His promises are true, sure and forever, I didn’t need to worry. It didn’t mean I didn’t need to pray, but despair at all the world, at the worries for each of my children and the struggles they have in their life, was no longer something I should or could allow myself to indulge.
God promised and that was all I needed to know.
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