Journey Archives - Page 113 of 122

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink! How many times have we heard that one? Before I moved two years ago, I was sitting with my meditation/reading group in the Parish House doing lectio divina. I remember reading the assigned Gospel several times. We went around the room sharing the word or phrase that struck us, we shared what we thought the Gospel meant and then we shared how we thought the Gospel was speaking to us personally. What I shared I think shocked most of the women and even surprised me to an extent. I said: I believe the message for me this week is that I need to detach from my family! Wow! Double take for sure- but at that point in my life, being one of nine, I was exhausted! Exhausted by the drama, exhausted by the dysfunction and exhausted by my desire to keep it all together. Exhausted by my desire to “fix” the people and relationships that were “broken”, all at the expense of losing myself in the process.

During a conversation with my husband over coffee this weekend, a breakthrough. I was expressing how conflicted I am nowadays – feeling such joy and peace and enjoying the quiet that surrounds me in my solitude and feeling a sense of guilt for not being as accessible to my family. As I was expressing myself to my husband, I realized something – it’s not the distance that makes me inaccessible, it’s the realization that in my 46 years, as one of the youngest, I have lost my SELF as I have tried to lead “many horses to water.” I recognize as I write that the “horses to water” is my metaphor for “family members to peace through Christ.” But they refuse to drink! These past two years “away” have been eye opening and have allowed me the space to come into my OWN! What a great feeling that is and I don’t want to lose it. So I ask myself, after giving all that I have and all that I am, am I wrong to feel this way?

What I know now is, there’s a difference between being selfish and knowing when it’s time to let go. Why is it that we feel guilty or selfish when we decide it’s time to care for ourselves? Who said that we need to continue to suffer and put our own needs on a back burner to help those who take no care to help themselves, let alone others? Who says it’s right to give so much to others that we have nothing left to give ourselves? Looking back on the past two years and how I’ve grown and changed, I know that my new perspective is not wrong. My God has brought me to this place – a place where I can be free from all distraction, a place where I can focus on my relationship with Him and be inspired to share it with others. How can that be wrong? Here is where I have realized my passion, here is where I have determined my purpose!

When I was a teacher, I would always tell my students “the grade you get is not as important as the work you put in to get it.” In other words, if you gave it your all and all you got was a 75, then be proud of the 75. However, if you slacked off on your studies and didn’t try your best and got a 75, then you should feel bad about it. I guess the same holds true in life. If you’ve given your all to someone or something, then the condition of either (whether it flourishes, remains stagnant or deteriorates) should not cause you distress, as long as you know you’ve done your best – you’ve given it your all! If the horse you’re leading to water is refusing to drink (whatever that may mean for you), then maybe it’s time to DETACH and that’s okay. To everything there is a season! Do yourself a favor – don’t revisit the past, live in the present and don’t worry about the future. I heard a priest once say: the past and future are God’s, all we have is the present. If you’re depressed, you’re living in the past and if you’re anxious you’re living in future. Leave yesterday and tomorrow to God. God Bless you!

my boys I was thinking the other day about the things that I write and the advice that I give to friends and family when they’re going through tough times. I realized that what I offer may not always be well received because sometimes things don’t turn out the way we expect or the way we want. Then come the questions. I kept thinking, how can I help people understand the importance of trust in God and do I really practice it myself? Well, of course, when I opened my bible that day, it led me to the book of Job. Job 38:1-41 to be exact.

We are all familiar with the story of Job, a righteous man who endured suffering as a test of his faith and integrity. He questions God through it all. He cannot understand why he, a righteous man, has been subjected to such fate. How often do we experience things in life that lead us to question: Why is this happening? How do I handle this? What did I ever do to deserve this? We see God respond to Job, but He doesn’t answer his questions. Instead He responds to Job by basically asking: Who are you to question my plans? He accuses Job of being a know it all!. He admonishes Job and begins to question Job about all of creation. He challenges Job, in essence saying: come on, you who know so much, answer me this! Of course, Job doesn’t have all the answers and neither do we. That’s where our faith in Divine Providence comes in.

We are reminded through the book of Job that some of our experiences in life may be incomprehensible. Sometimes, the choices we make are the underlying cause of our experiences but many times we just can’t explain them nor can we understand them. Through Job, we are reminded that God is in control and our job is not to question but to trust in Divine Providence and “go with the flow”, accepting and surrendering to God’s will for our lives. Easier said than done, for sure and for anyone going through a difficult time at present, I believe I run the risk of seeming like I’m writing all fluff – trust this, surrender that. In light of that thought, let us pause for a moment to think about God’s creation and how often we actually DO “go with the flow” and trust when things are going well – so why should our difficult moments be any different?

The human body, for one, performs miraculously every single day and we don’t even have to think about it. From our breathing, to sight, to all the senses and beyond. Each moment we take a breath, God breathing in us, we trust that our next breath will come. We go with the flow. We trust that the sun will rise in the east every morning and set in the west every evening and because of this we wake in the morning and go to sleep in the evening. We go with the flow. I’ll leave the rest to you, you get the point. The God I believe in set this whole universe in motion – humans, the birds of the air, the fish in the sea, the stars in the sky…………He is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent!

We may not always see how God is working in our lives, we may not always have the answers and we may never know why we suffer certain things. Despite the questions, if we remember to remain grateful for the myriad of things going well and come back to the idea of “God’s will be done”, He will grace us with the strength to get through ANYTHING. The bible says, it is in our weakness that we are made strong! Embrace the challenges of life knowing you will come out on the other side – better than before. But also remember you cannot do it alone, remember the famous quote, there but by the grace of God go I! We can’t just sit home and wish things will get better, we have to allow ourselves to be guided by the Spirit. We have to show God that we are placing our trust in Him, that we need Him. He is waiting with open arms to love us and bless us with the graces only He can give but we have to be willing to receive them. Go to mass, sit with Jesus before the Blessed Sacrament, read, read, read. Learn about your faith, allow yourself to expand upon the knowledge given to you as a child. The result is absolute AWESOMENESS!

My dogs Foster and Mellow, both australian cattle dogs, recently showed me the type of trust we humans need to have in God and my love for them has helped illustrate for me, the love Our Father has for us. These guys wake up each and every morning trusting that we are going to feed them and give them to drink, trusting that they will have clean, comfy beds to sleep on and trusting in the love my husband and I have for them. Do you think they worry about anything? (unless they do something wrong, of course, and even then I wonder!) When they run off into the woods to play, they trust that we will either follow them or that we will still be there when they return. These guys live their lives to the full, knowing they will be taken care of and all they have to do is show love and loyalty. On the flip side, we love these pups beyond words, they bring us such joy, even when they mess up sometimes. When I view my relationship with God in comparison to my relationship with my “children”, I see how it’s possible that God can love us soooooooo much no matter what and I see just how much more I can and need to trust in Him. Although I love my dogs regardless, I’m so happy when they show me love and loyalty – so I am also reminded of how important it is to show God my love and loyalty. Do your own comparison, I’m sure you’ll agree! God bless you!