Confession is a Gift

This week celebrates the end of the liturgical year in the Catholic Church.  As we approach the feast day of The Solemnity of Our Lord Christ the King of the Universe, it is an excellent time to prepare ourselves for Christ coming into our lives in the Advent season by taking stock of our lives.

In the Catholic Church, the sacrament of reconciliation helps believers turn towards Christ's mercy, asking Him to intercede for our sins, giving us new birth in His life and death and resurrection.  2016 has been a special year for the Church, which celebrated the Year of Mercy.

Mercy is the message and hope we have in Jesus Christ.  Sin cannot hold its ransom on us.  Death cannot conquer our souls.  We have hope in HIM.

To those struggling with Christian theology in the modern world, it can be easy to second guess this mercy.

Oftentimes in our secular worldview we fail to recognize inherent truths because they don't manifest in material matter.  It can seem paradoxical that God would create a world where sin and death would even be a problem - would an all-loving God do this?  We negotiate these questions with anger and disgust.  Why would God allow death to be part of the equation to the point He let HIS only son die on the cross - just to save humanity?  How does death save life?  How does that make Christ merciful?

We all wrestle with our questions and demand answers from God.  One answer that is absolute is that God is all loving and in that capacity HE too is all-merciful.  It is easy to discount free-will as our problem.  We prefer to blame others and to take ownership of the fact we 'are the way we are.'  We tend to forget that to live in a sin free world we could not have free-will and that makes us robots.  Love demands choice.  It is the natural law and God's nature is love.  He doesn't condemn anyone.  We condemn ourselves by refusing to take ownership of the fact we are sinners and we need love.  We need help.  Sin comes from the absence of acting on love.  Sin leads to death because it separates us from love and love is the power of life in Christ Jesus.

When we sin we actually do become robots in a way because we lack the freedom that comes from loving God.  God wants us to explore His earth, to grow, to share our trials and triumphs...He loves us - He loves even those who go against Him, because He is our Father and no matter how far a child runs from the parent - the love remains.

The question at the liturgical year - is have you heard the cry of God - yearning to be in relationship with you?  You are never too far gone to turn back to HIM.  He is waiting and anticipating your return.  He is ready to welcome you home?  Will you take the steps and say 'Jesus Christ, Have Mercy on me, a sinner?'

So many people assume God is only a judge and His mercy is just an extension of harsh judgment.  The fact God allows us to live alone, in spite of the horrid atrocities of mankind - is a sign that He has faith that we will return to Him - He is willing to be patient and to work in human hearts and hands to move His kingdom forward.  Some will fall away, but God is not silent and is not a tyrant.  He died for us on the Cross, so that we might live and have life abundantly.  Sin is missing the mark on what life is: communion with God.  Anything good comes from God.  We are created with the divine spark of life - with goodness - if we are willing to just respond to His call.

God always is forgiving us - but unless we ask for reconciliation - we won't have access to that forgiveness because we ourselves are too stubborn to accept it.  All the rules and regulations in the faith are not meant as hurdles to harm your ability to enjoy life - but are guideposts placed out of love because God understands human needs, our behavior and the consequences.  He is helping us know the way to go.

One of the blessings of the Catholic Church is the sacrament of reconciliation or Confession.

It is one of the most misunderstood sacraments because our faith teaches that we can go directly to Jesus for forgiveness of sins.  To go to a human intercessor and take their absolution seems counterintuitive, however confession is biblical and necessary to help strengthen one's faith.

An examination of conscience in reconciliation helps us face our sins and to have a person trained in doctrine and theology able to give some discernment about the sin.  The true forgiveness does not come in the absolution from human hands, but the work of Christ who is present in the confessional.

When we go to confession we have to 'face' our sins and have an ability to hand them over in a way that allows us to feel a release of the guilt.  Most humans have the psychological tendency to hold onto guilt and anxiety until we speak to another person about it.  Christ recognizes the fact that confession helps the penetient to acknowledge their sins and to receive some spiritual direction on the issue.  The priest is not the one forgiving the sin - that power alone belongs to Christ.

The scriptual basis comes from Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18.
"Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The sacrament of confession offers us a door to the light of Christ, a place where we can lay down our sins and admit to them out loud without fear, but with hope.

Confession has been a blessing for me as it has helped me to better understand what sin is and how it affects my life and others.  At times I go into confession extremely guilty about something, only for the confessor to discern that my guilt is not based on real sin, but stems from my clinical depression and low self-esteem; whereas it can also lead someone who has a lot of pride to break the veil of being 'sinless' and comprehend - they are broken and in need of God's grace.

The act of saying a prayer of contrition - helps us to turn over our sin to God and ask for HIS divine mercy and counsel in our lives.

The confessor absolves your sins In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Anything we ask the Father in the name of the Son - Christ promises will be answered.

The confessor gives a penance to help draw us closer to Christ and to make amends for the sin as a sign of love.  This is like a husband buying a wife roses for forgetting their anniversary.  The wife might forgive the husband, but the husband wants to go the extra mile because they have such a deep love and desire to show that person they care.  Most penances are simple and designed to help the penetient draw in close to Christ's mercy.

The Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be - are three penances that help us to stay faithful, reminding us of grace and our relationship with God.


The AMAZING thing about God's grace - He never withholds it as long as we approach HIM, through Christ in faith.  Truly Christ is the king of kings.

From the Catechism:
1496 The spiritual effects of the sacrament of Penance are: 
- reconciliation with God by which the penitent recovers grace; 
- reconciliation with the Church; 
- remission of the eternal punishment incurred by mortal sins; 
- remission, at least in part, of temporal punishments resulting from sin; 
- peace and serenity of conscience, and spiritual consolation; 
- an increase of spiritual strength for the Christian battle.

Why I disagree with reincarnation

Life is a tangled web of knots, and at times we find ourselves lost in the labyrinth driven by anger, confusion, self-knowledge and bitter peace.  


Bitter peace?  It is the peace of the world - the peace that makes you think if you do x, y and z you'll end up as a to z, perfect and loved.  Bitter peace is devious because it meets you in the shadows with a false light.  It makes you question the pure light in your heart. I give the example of seeing a star in the darkness of night - dimly lighting the canopy of a stormy night.  Suddenly a flashlight turns on and you rationalize: The starlight is certainly not as powerful as the flashlight because the artificial light is so much brighter.  You are drawn light a moth to the flame - chasing after the flashlight's beam, forsaking the starlight.  

You rationalize: 'but I can see so much clearer with the flashlight and it really makes me see myself in the the best light and I can see that I have all this self-knowledge and I am really more powerful than the natural light because I have this flashlight and I can turn it on and off at call and it goes wherever I want it to.'

This false light molds this bitter peace to our fears and our shadows.  It de-humanizes by feigning humanistic approaches to life.  'Universe is power' 'I am the universe,' 'the light and dark are the same in me.'  For some the false light shines on a shadow - beckoning the person to believe that they have no freewill and destiny and fate are cosmic forces part of a pre-planned life by the cosmos.  For others it is complete free destiny and any bad influence is one's own choice in bad karma...it is a spiritual buffet where you buy the light bulb that fits your life style and when one path gives out you move onto the next spiritual path and harness power until that power gives out.  It is a web of 'occult' knowlege you have to dig to find and one maze leads to another maze, which you pursue because the light seems bright and you think this is some cosmic journey you were meant to take.

We are all guilty of this, even the most devout Christians fail in recognizing God's love and power.  We often do see faith as something we want to see in the flesh, instead of adhering to trust in God's mercy and love.  We struggle like Adam and Eve with the same question manifested in infinite ways: 'Did God really say?'  

Did God really say that He loves us?

We are battling with the devil's illusion under the curse that we are like gods and at the same time with battle our innermost demons of the shame of our sin and longing for God that we bottle up because we are ashamed.  Shame and the desire for power are almost always connected because we feel ashamed and want to ignore the pain and shame, we want to know we have some control and are not going to be condemned for our shame.

God knows that shame is a culprit of the disease of sin, it blocks us and keeps us from loving Him and loving each other and all of creation.  It blocks us from enjoying creation and engaging in life - instead we want to have a power in our life that is truly a chain that keeps us from living an empowered life.  The devil knows our weak spots and is able like a wily lawyer to wear us down with a barrage of lies mixed with a hint of truth - one hint of truth makes us start to believe the lies.  He manipulates us and knows how to coax us like a top-earning salesperson...but in this sale you go home empty and your soul will be left famished.  

God does not lie to us, nor keep what knowledge we need hidden.  He does not manipulate us, but rather scolds us in fatherly love to help us to realize how our mistakes hurt us - just like a friend telling a friend not to take drugs because they see the damaging effect.

God does not lead you astray - you can trust if he tells you not to do something it is for your good.  God does not make mistakes...we do.  God make you to be a unique person, to be deeply loved, creative, and perfected by Him in Christ.  He wants to embrace you as you are and help refine you to be your best self.  

The devil makes you question yourself.  The devil makes you feel lack and hunger for material instead of spiritual things.  The evil fruits he feeds are envy and jealousy and greed.  The devil makes you think you can be satisfied if you 'only knew x y and z...' and provides you with false truths of supposed hidden knowledge to pervert what knowledge really is - knowledge is God's love - God's peace which does not seek to destroy a soul.  The devil makes you think that if you delve into 'occult' knowledge you will become more loved, more powerful, more beautiful, more one with the universe and you don't need God to get there.  When that doesn't satisfy you, then he makes you think that you are just karma and cannot be redeemed and have to relive a thousand lifetimes before dying to be absorbed by the universe....the occult teachings are all over the place.  Some have tinges of truth, but are saturated with poison.  Unfortunately most delve into the mysticism with good hearts, hoping to find God and by the time the recognize the dangers of the occult they are consumed by it.  Not all knowledge is power.

I have always been very intuitive and empathic.  I know this is a part of how God made me.  Discernment is a gift as is prophecy.  However the devil wants to corrupt the gifts God gives us.  He wants to trick us into worshipping these gifts instead of turning them over into humble service for God.

I will admit because of my intuition and empath abilities at one point I was led to do some crystal therapy.  I went in believe it was something harmless as long as I kept my intention on Jesus Christ and my faith in God.  Not once during the process did a I renounce God or the Holy Trinity.  I simply believed that utilizing this 'energy' would help clear up some negative energy I had absorbed from abuse.  I did what is known as a 'chakra' cleansing with crystals and prayed the rosary and said the prayer of St. Michael.

I won't go into details, but the experience was not a good one.  I know that Christ interceded for me and I felt St. Michael's protection but Christ showed me why doing any sort of 'energy work' is not a good idea.  I had been to communion that day and believe that Christ interceded because he saw how distressed I was and in need of healing, but he also wanted to show me that this energy cleansing is dangerous and opens doors to things we don't need to open.

There is a lot of information in the universe, a lot of unknown things, but God has revealed what we need to know for this life in scripture, in Christ and in His creation, the sacraments of the church and lifes of the saints.  We don't need to eat certain fruits because the knowledge is tainted and will lead us away from ourselves and who we are in God, all why fooling us into thinking that we are on a deep spiritual journey.

I was first opened up to the occult when my aunt became a Hindu, which broke my grandmother's heart.  My family is very strong in the Christian faith and a love of God.  My aunt told me her original purpose was a desire for love and self-fulfillment after some heartbreak.  She has come back the church and is active in the Lutheran Church now - she found her way back by God's grace and now is a staunch defender of the Christian faith and the dangers of Eastern mysticism and pagan practices.  

Last year I had a friend who was a Christian with intuitive abilities tell me that reincarnation is true because he saw past lives.  I told him that I disagreed.  Right before my confirmation into the Catholic Church we had a falling out because He told me that he was losing faith and belittled and degraded me for being so blind to the other 'spiritual realities' out there and cited how Egyptians worshipped other gods.  I am open and respectful to others beliefs but I had to put an end to being driven down with this beating up of my faith in Christ and his focus on reincarnation. 

Unfortunately the pain of having someone I trusted really belittle me and the chakra cleansing mistake made me feel confused.  During this time I saw a snake by the door to my church, just as I was praying to God about how I could not bear for these falsehoods to be true because I recognized how important my life is as an individual and my need for a personal and loving God (Christ) in my own life and the life of this world. 

I am analyzer so I started to research and to pray.  We all at some point have joked or thought 'wouldn't it be interesting to live another life?' but the truth is we need to recognize our individual worth in this world and in the universe - not as some cosmic force, but as a soul - loved and created by a living God who has plans for us because He knows the desires of our heart - not the impure desires that we get tangled in, but our deepest desires - Love and hope for a future in living peace.

We spend a great deal of our lives trying to be other people and beating ourselves up for how we look and our lack of abilities - to the oppositie end of the spectrum where we also allow shame to give us tunnel vision to think that we are self-important apart from God's grace and that we are all powerful in our own right.

God wants to empower us - but without God we are dust - this is not a condemnation - but a fact.  A lake is not a lake without water.  God is the living water for our soul.  We see this biologically in the fact we are born from parents and have ancestors - all creation in this world comes from God's will for life in grace.

Many Eastern religions believe that we have to be reincarnated because we have so much karma from this life that we have to face that karma in the next life, learning lessons and taking on that shame and karma as a scapegoat, each lifetime learning a little more until we reach Nirvana - a state of simply ceasing to exist and being one who is absorbed by the universe.

New Age practicioners try to meld reincarnation with Christianity in several ways (THESE ARE FALSE TEACHINGS BY NEW AGE PRACTICIONERS AND NOT IN ACCORDANCE WITH SCRIPTURE AND DOCTRINE)
- they say that Christ was a 'god' one of many incarnations of the one God and He was an ascended master who leads us to a better path.  His death on the cross was to teach us about karma and our role in alleviating our karma while also empowering us to recognize our true state as gods.
-they claim that Christ died to forgive us from sin but Christ is so loving that he wants us to have multiple lives to learn from our mistakes before ascending to heaven and that way the penalty is not paid by the cross as much as our getting out of 'jail' quicker by following His teachings.
-they claim that reincarnation is in the bible and it was silenced by the early church to secure power for the elite.  THIS is a FALSEHOOD!  Reincarnation is not scripturally and the body of text for the bible is the most comprehensive in the number of copies and accuracies in all of religious texts along with the Hebrew scriptures.  I will add more about this in a future blog, but it is very important to recognize this is a false teaching to lure you astray from trusting in God's WORD.  
-the FALSEHOODS go on and on.

One person to be particularly leery of is Doreen Virtue - who claims to speak with angels.  I was hookwinked by her for a week or so - she is good at lying - but then I started reading her books and recognized - she is an occult practitiioner.  If you want to ask for intercession from an angel - then ask Christ to send angels to guard you or say the prayer of St. Michael which is authorized by the Catholic Church.  


Scriptural context: 
Hebrews 9:27 tells us:



While some debate that the early church silenced reincarnation teachings based on the Roman desire to have power over the people, this makes no sense from a historical standpoint.
For one, Christian teaching empowers individuals outside of family ties, caste systems and other social norms that dictated Roman and world society.  Christian allows for more openness in society and values individual personhood, something that would have been inflammatory towards the Roman Empire.  If anything Rome had ever reason to deny Christianity and it actively fought to eradicate it - but even in persecution the church grew.  That goes completely against the sentiment of 'huge coverups to control the people.'  I will detail this in a future entry


If reincarnation is true then we have so distinct personhood and nothing really has a divine purpose, even though proponents say that we are 'divine' - the goals is to suffer and suffer until you reach a place where you so renounce life you become one with the universe - so you as a person die in each life, your karma moves on and any part of you eventually just becomes part of the universe.  This is a rather joyless existence, without hope and we do not have any assurance of have reconciliation with family and friends in death.  While we cannot feel that we are so self-important that we have 'godly power' in this flesh - we cannot forget that we are unique and loved by God, just as we are and He is building us up in ourselves to HIMSELF in Christ.

It means that everything in this life has no value really - it is just a circular cycle. Practictioners of Hinduism and Eastern mysticism might disagree but this is a structual belief in Eastern religions. They claim they have 330 million gods that are all one God, just different incarnations and Jesus is an incarnation - but when Hindus who are converting to Christianity tell their family they choose to worship Christ as their only God they are scolded because 'what if that one god doesn't help you?'  If all of the 330 gods in Hinduism are one god manifested in different forms then shouldn't any god you worship in that religion satisfy your need since they have the same root source?  I feel that the fruits of Hindu practices speak for themselves when they ostracize their family for worshiping Christ because in their practices they have so many 'gods' then why would they have an issue with it?  Christ can be recognized as the true God by the very fact so many oppose Him.  It sounds counterintuitive but why would a religion with so many gods hate Jesus so much.  The darkness likes to hide in the darkness and often the darkness is so used to artificial light it cannot perceive the true light of God when it is present.

The truth is without God, becoming incarnate in Christ (his only son - God from God, light from light) we would have no hope.  Reincarnation cannot satisfy the need for real healing.  We are sinners - we are living in a fallen world...no matter how many lifetimes we have we won't become sinless and we won't learn lessons without remembering the mistakes we made from supposed 'past lives.'  Christ alone is the only one who can supply the need.  Unless God HIMSELF has come down in the flesh and taken up a sinless life and life and is risen then we have no hope of real healing and cleansing.  God alone is pure enough to wash us clean.

I have really spend a lot of time in prayer and heartache over pondering this.  I discovered how each of us is unique in debating this and inquiring and the real loss of power is our shame of thinking we cannot just ask God to forgive us and to accept His love.  If we accept we are loved and there is purpose in love for love - then we can find peace even in hardship.  Because love is sufficient enough and if we have love then we feel our personhood is full of that love - we change out of love not to impress or for personal power - but for the sake of love.  

Christ laid his life down for the sake of love.  His is the true light in the world, even if our stubborness and sin blinds us to HIS light.  He is there and while a flashlight's batteries die, Christ is a light that is, was and always will be.

God's Love - Straw in our Bricks

God is love.  The Holy Spirit breathes in the love of God into our hearts.  Mercy demands love and love demands mercy.  Love and mercy demand grace and in love there is life and hope.  I have been carrying a lot of crosses from past trauma, the sediment layers exposed as symbolic buried wood after years of burying the pain deeper and deeper.  Christ has always been my refuge and fortress.  I have found my resilience in the understanding that love is the light that expels the darkness.  Love is forgiveness and in love there is suffering - because love is willing to be patient.  Trials always make us stronger and I trusted that Jesus, who endured every trial had a plan to bring my hopes and dreams to fruition.  

When I was four, I was in my grandmother's rose and daffodil garden on a Sunday and I remember looking at the glorious beauty of the yellow daffodils and I thought about Jesus.  I felt the overwhelming sense of HIS presence and love.  I heard a small inner voice say with purest conviction: Jesus is real, He loves you.  I came to recognize the timing of that revelation was to prepare me for the fact my dad abandoned my family and other trials to come.
When I was seven I asked God to be my Father because I recognized that my father was unable to fulfill the role.  I forgave my dad for this, but I recognized the need for God, not just as an omnipotent ruler but more importantly as a Father and a Friend.

When I was a pre-teen, recognizing the pain and hurt of loss from family discord - I turned my trust over to God - asking HIM to test me like Job...I did so enthusiastically - wanting to be refined by his testing love.  I sometimes question myself about that now - because life has been beautiful and yet so forsaken at times.  And yet - God has been there - present and begging me to question - God doesn't answer readily all the time - he uses the mountains and deserts to help me see the magnitude and complexity of HIS love and grace.

I have learned beauty in the suffering.  It doesn't make sense except that I understand the peace of knowing that nothing can separate us from God and that even when he draws us into life's 'Agony in the Garden' moments - HE is present and feels our hurt and cries tears with us.  God wants us to recognize that we need His grace because we are broken and yet in the brokenness He also wants us to recognize we are loved and he longs for us to not be afraid to live in that love.  We are not scapegoats - Christ alone is the only perfect sacrifice and yet in suffering God invites us into offering small sacrifices to Him - out of love. 

God does not want us to suffer, and yet he understands the cancer inside us - pain, hurt, betrayal, agony, worry and doubt - are not going away without relying on the cross - just as a cancer patient requires chemo, we require God's healing hands to cure us.  The cure is trust.  Trust is hard in suffering and yet - Christ shows us the way to trust.  

A priest told me that it is okay to question God, but in that questioning we need to come to the conclusion that God is trustworthy - even when we don't understand.  Some information from the divine order is really too much for us to bear and that is why we need to let God do the heavy lifting.  I learned this earlier this year through a spiritual experience I encountered.  

I have been struggling not with my love of God as much of questioning - Why?  Why the suffering in the world?  I am fortunate to have been born in a Christian background - but what about those who suffer in poverty with no knowledge of Christ or a culture that is so indoctrinated in other faith traditions that the Gospel is rejected...that is something that is not as easy to combat as we'd like to think.  What about those souls in desperate need of God's mercy at the time of their death?  Are they redeemed?

We need to evangelize because Christ is right here, right now, for us and with us and on our side and has healing in store for everyone...we do not need to condemn the majority of humanity to hell based on small-minded views of God.  I don't know how God judges non-Christians - but I know love demands mercy.  Christ is the only way to salvation and yet how can a God who took so much care in His plan for redemption, forsake so many to an eternity in suffering for just being misguided - because whether we like it or not - we are all confused with knots and we are all in need of God's mercy and healing grace.  

I prayed on this and had a dream:
In the dream a friend found a box of rosaries in my closet.  They said: "You have a lot of straws in this box."  Straws?  I was confused, I said: "No those are rosaries."  The next morning I recognized the beauty of this parable the Holy Spirit led me to: in Egypt the Hebrews did not have straw to make bricks as punishment - brick can still be made without straw, but it is a lot more tedious and difficult - it can be done, but greater graces come from having the straw.

Christ is the straw in our bricks and He calls all people out of that heavy labor of fear in sin to freedom from sin and hope in love.  That doesn't mean others cannot be saved (in my discernment, here is Pope Francis on issue: ) but that Christ is the way - the only way salvation happens and it is His grace alone.  As Christians we are to share our faith not in judgment shaming fear tactics, but in love - because love is the message and love has justice, and justice in Christ has mercy.  We know the best way through the sacraments of communion and prayer, and a 'How-to' by God's WORD incarnate and chosen prophets on how to live.  The Gospel helps us live as our best selves now - growing closer for the heavenly communion in Christ.
 

Letting Go of the Destination...Journeying with God

I find peace and solace in my parish's Adoration Chapel.  Spending time at the Chapel forces me to be silent and to listen to God, it helps me relent as I surrender control of worries, fears, anxieties and doubts over to God's grace.

We all have knots, rocks and corrosive roots on our life roads that make us stumble, leave us dejected, sully us with fear, oppress us with doubt and at times in the wandering roadblocks we feel trapped, forsaken, alone and orphaned.  

I tend to see God as being far off in the distance, already at the destination and I am struggling fiercely to rush from task to task, making each step a marathon - thinking if I can only accomplish an infinite number of tasks then I will reach the destination of peace and understanding.

I am a creative perfectionist - which means I can be laid back and go with the flow - and yet I am my harshest critic when it comes to being a taskmaster - every single second of every daily activity has to be accomplishing a task and accomplishing it well.  I typically work myself to exhaustion before savoring complete and total rest - yet in the resting I feel guilty because - I should be doing something.  I often feel like I have failed God because I'm not further ahead on life's plan with goals and plans - I have not accomplished the plans I have on my agenda: writing, editing, publishing, music projects, road trips, life agendas. 

God gently reminds me with the power of the Holy Spirit that I need to stop feeling guilty about not accomplishing my temporal plans, and instead focus on just allowing the SPIRIT to guide me to the plans Christ has in store for me.  When we clutch a dream or a goal too tightly we end up failing because we don't surrender it to God's will - and HIS perfect direction - when we become preoccupied with attaining the goal that we strip ourselves of enjoying it - we never find satisfaction.  We are always jumping tiredly from one project to another before falling down, too exhausted to get up.  Failure is not failure but a redirection opportunity to turn to God and say 'help me.'

I am exhausted, in something's gotta give mode.  I am tired of my job and I want to pursue a career with my talents and yet none of the plans I work towards seem to come to fruition.  I'm tired and I feel as though I'm failing.  I have debts to pay and they are causing great anxiety.  While it is easy to shake your head and say: 'you should have not taken out that debt,' life is not that simple.  Both times I prayed over the situation and the loans were absolutely necessary given the circumstances.  The loans were taken out to help with life journeys - including a cross country move...in the wake of the fact my father disinherited me and I had family members steal money from my mom.  God knew we needed the funds and the loan provided for the expense...and yet now all I feel is fatigue and frustration...anger and worry...how long am I going to be in this debt...God please help me get out of it...What am I supposed to do with my life?  I've worked hard...I followed the rules...why do I feel like I'm on this wandering road so far from my destination?

I went to the Chapel tonight with these questions heavy on my mind and my heart.  Instead of starting my prayer session with petitions and litanies begging God for help with money and life circumstances I attempted an 8 minute session of contemplative prayer. The goal: to not think about anything accept dwell in the presence of God.  My centering words in prayer: Trust, Surrender, Jesus.

I'll admit it is hard for me to just surrender my control.  I am able to relax and to relent a part of my heart in prayer, but there is a shield I keep guarded.  It goes back to past trauma and my current habit of always needing to think and plan and negotiate the next destination.  I am so attune to having to be on the move, feeling insecure and desperate to accomplish tasks that the act of just sitting still without praying words or petitions or thanksgiving - I struggled to just be with I AM.  

In the middle of my meditation as I strove to just 'be' - I heard the message : journey - it is not the destination but the journey...if you go through life only looking at accomplishing tasks - it will be one task to another task until you get to the final task: death.  

I have continued to marinate on that message of the heart.  Why can't we just enjoy the journey.  Life is a journey - a pilgrimage - we are not in control of external circumstances and internally we find independence and true freedom only when we surrender to God.  That does not mean we don't have control of life circumstances to a point - God wants us to live and exercise our choices - but it has to be in line with HIS will - otherwise we will not find satisfaction.  St. Ignatius discusses the fact that we all have many ways we can follow God, and some are better ways of surrendering and living in Christ - but God gives us options and is content with whatever way we follow HIM as long as we follow him. The Ways of Knowing and Being - God is alive and is with us on the journey.  Life is not about awards and merits, while those are great accomplishments and God wants us to do our best and to believe in our abilities, God's primary desire in our lives is that we seek relationship with HIM and enjoy the presence of Jesus in our lives.

Jesus is always with us.  The Holy Trinity is all around us and the SPIRIT lives within us.  We are loved and cared for.  Every second is holy because every second Jesus is at work in the world.  Every breathe we take, every word we speak and every action we have an opportunity to be in communion with God and each other.  So something as simple as cooking dinner can be a holy event when we do it for the glory of Christ.  The simplest act of kindness can be more important to God on your life resume than your executive business title.  We are meant to enjoy life and sometimes even the crises become roadblocks where we learn to surrender, to love and actually help us persevere in our journey so when we reach the destination - it is not a check box accomplishment - but something richer, something deeper and more fulfilling.

Reaching heaven as our destination is wonderful, but our journey with God is right here and right now...in heartache, in joy, in sorrow, in jubilee, in grocery shopping, in a record deal - God is present in all things and wants to travel with us and be our friend, FATHER and guide.  

I find the hardest part is tuning the reception to the right station.  So often I go into prayer - asking God for things I am really demanding of HIM, instead of asking HIS will and trying to listen for solutions outside the scope of my planned list of options.  How can God help us if we won't let him? 

Later as I read the daily reading I was struck by God's sense of humor and insight:
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,
knelt down before him, and asked him,
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?
No one is good but God alone.

Journey - there is the word again.  Jesus did not accomplish HIS ministry without first journeying - reconciling HIMSELF to the people who rejected HIS father and ministering to the broken and wandering through some rough places, wilderness deserts and stormy waters.  Jesus could have simply come down and said 'okay I'm going to die, then rise again and be done with it...salvation task accomplished,' but without the journey and the story of Jesus's life the destination has no meaning - no hope, no truth.  It is simply the end, not the beginning.  Of course the cross is the crux and the power and glory of God's grace and love and sacrificed perfectly and how we are forgiven, and its power would still exist but it would lose the depth of life and love - because Christ came not only that we should get to heaven - but that we start to learn how to live an abundant life as we journey on this earth.

Why do we call Christ 'good,' not because He simply is good (which He is), but because of His actions and works on the journey - which is an outward showing of grace.  God does not need to prove His goodness, He is good - the journey reveals the goodness, just as grace is a revelation of love.


At the end of my prayer session I heard the word I dread the most: patience...Tonight though I welcome it as a friend on a journey.  

God's Living Word

Proverbs 8:22-31
"I was his delight day by day, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race."

Beloved we are called by God.  The Holy Trinity seeks us and desires to have a relationship with us.  Through Christ, we have been given the gift of an Advocate, the Holy Spirit - to help us hear God's voice - to comprehend HIS WORD.  In Christ, God came down to earth as the Living Word.  In all of creation, God spoke and HIS WORD formed the deep and the horizon.  God's word is Life and our life is in God's love and grace. There is no life apart from the WORD.  

The Word is not a book comprised of ink and ideas.  While ink and ideas can ignite our imagination, God's WORD is in SPIRIT and the Holy SPIRIT is the author of truth, and life pours forth from the SPIRIT.

God's WORD is living.  God's WORD dances with hope like light cracking through our brokenness, inviting us into HIS peace.  The deeper we breath in HIS WORD, the barriers of fear and doubt start to splinter and collapse.  God's WORD speaks LIFE into our situation, allowing us to cast our anxieties on HIM.  When we seek God in HIS WORD our cup is always filled. When we surrender ourselves to accepting scripture and pondering it, asking the Holy Spirit to instruct us - we find a key the door we need to open, or a lock to prevent us from moving farther from God's will.

In the chaos of time, the space of seconds pounding into minutes and stealing my sanity, I discovered God's eternal peace in contemplating scripture.  Reading scripture and pondering the WORD engages me in God's truth.  It refocuses my anxieties away from my temporal problems and anchors me in God's eternal grace. Scripture opens the hearts of all who ask, knock and seek.  People have fought fear, oppression, sin, violence, depression...since time began...sin seeks to steal our joy and taint our hope into fear and anger.  In sin we only see death.  Scripture recounts the negative affects of sin, helping us to identify the cause of our dis-ease...the brokenness that can only be healed by God.  It helps us to realize that the temporal problems of this world are under God's concern and care - it reminds us that humanity has been struggling with the ravages of sin for perpetuity and in spite of that looming darkness, the fire of the Holy Spirit - God's light and grace, love and blessing, hope and desire for our countenance has always been present.

God delights in us.  God cares for us.  God walks beside us in trial.  He never leaves our side, even in our darkest hour, he walks beside us as a friend and father.

It took me a long time to comprehend how God can allow suffering.  How can HE truly love me when so much in my life is broken and all my hopes are crushed underfoot?  Where is God?  Why is HE silent.  It took years of hurt, tears, and walking through my own Egypt to understand the greater grace is that God teaches us love in trial.  God could just fix the problem or abandon us until we get our act together, but instead He chooses to say: 'Yes, because of sin, this world is messed up and you are facing horrible suffering, but I will not let it break you - I will refine you in this fire of trial and I will walk through that trial with you and make sure you overcome the enemy.'

That is a great grace!  God cares that we are in pain, and wants us to confide in HIM.  God gives us HIS Living Word, an extension of HIMSELF revealed in the Holy Spirit so that we can converse with him by words, and be assured of peace and rest in I AM.

I have faced immense trials and darkness in my 31 years, I have nearly given up, but every time my strength fails, I turn to HIS WORD and I find peace.  Sometimes that peace comes with questions, sometimes I face down anger, and other times I find myself confused.  Confused is not a word we like to use with God, but it is a word that is present.  God does not confuse us - HE is forthcoming in TRUTH...confusion comes from our own human limitations to be willing to set aside our human blocks - the blocks of the flesh - that prevent us from trusting God's invitation by the WORD.  

When faced with a verse or passage we don't understand this is a great blessing because it forces us to seek God - not to simply memorize HIS WORD or follow HIM like ants marching, but to truly seek after HIM, to listen to HIS voice and to enter into dialogue with HIM and with ourselves; Our true self at its fundamental center is in GOD - we are HIS children.

Christ gives us a wonderful example of studying scripture and communing with GOD even in trial.  In the Passion of Christ, Jesus is the perfect intersection of human will in God and God's grace.  In His agony - Jesus reminds us 'not my will, but YOUR will be done,' acknowledging that even in dark hours - we have to trust that God is in control, His ways our higher than our ways and that we cannot submit to unholy fear and the oppression of sin - God is with us.  He has not forsaken us.  With each step forward in the passion, Christ suffers all the brutal attacks of the world - attacks we too face: scorn, doubt, anguish, persecution...the list goes on...at times we feel we cannot take the pain any more - we speak death and forsake life in Christ.  Jesus struggled to carry the cross and yet instead of giving up, he surrendered in accepting the pain without scorning God or himself - he willingly accepted it and gathered strength in the Father to continue towards the cross, each step closer to dying.  Each step through a struggle and each fall, we get up and step closer to death on the cross - this is not death to be mourned, but a death of hope.  For when we die in Christ we allow all the worry, anxiety, hate, fear, pride...to die and we open our hearts to life, to mercy, to peace and abundance.

Scripture speaks across time, because it intersects the human struggle and displays the awesome loving power of God.  In scripture we can humble ourselves to God, able to recognize - it is okay to be broken, God is love and His love is at work even when we miss the mark.  Not only does God love us and have mercy on His children - according to Proverbs 8:31 God delights in the human race.  


The enemy of our soul wants us to feel forsaken and to question how God can be mindful of humans.  The enemy tells us lies that God is seeking revenge against humanity for our sin and that God's wrath is in his presence.  We carry the burden of extreme guilt for sin and struggle to accept forgiveness because the price Christ paid was so high.  The flesh tells us that we need to pay God back and when we recognize our inability to ever pay the price in full the enemy steals our joy in salvation...

The LIVING WORD reminds us that God is on our side.  He loved the world so much that He sent HIS only Son to live and die among us and suffer death on the cross so that we can be saved by the blood of the lamb.  God is love.  He is at work in our lives.  

The hardest lesson is that LOVE is a presence in and of itself. What I mean by this statement is that love exists outside of temporal circumstances.  It is easy to say that 'God doesn't love me, if he did I wouldn't be having financial problems...or any other temporal disaster.' While God does care about those issues - HIS love is for our soul and His actions of love in our lives are primarily to protect our soul and to lead us into closer relationship with us.  God's love is fully manifested when we die in the flesh.  God is still showering us with love even in difficult circumstances.
Example: Your parent is dying of cancer and you give them love and support during this crisis.  Would anyone deny your love of the parent even if they die from the cancer?  Of course not - the act of love is in giving of oneself to the peace of the other and support of the other.  Love is not contingent on the temporal material manifestations...it is so much deeper in beauty and wealth than that.  
God's grace is a fruit of love and in grace he grants us temporal help, and while this is a fruit of love - grace it itself does not fuel love - so grace my decide to answer a prayer, but that is because love bears the fruit of grace...the act of receiving is a grace...the act of love continues to run deeper than the grace...love is in and of itself the act of life in God and HIS being.

If you can take time to read scripture for at least five minutes a day.  I enjoy resting in Christ with the daily readings from the Word Among Us.  I also read the Psalms regularly.  They speak to my heart and remind me - even in life's hurricane's, God is in control.

Exercise:
Take five minutes to read scripture then meditate on it by prefacing: Holy Spirit, speak Lord for your servant is listening.

Lenten Thoughts

Over the past year I have been dissecting through layers of inner turmoil.  For years I have battled anxiety related to past abuse and low self-esteem, depression and financial worry, resentment and fear.  In battling abuse, primarily from my father and stepmother I created schema after schema of self-controls and protective measures - ways of knowing.  While the Holy Spirit has always been active in my heart and at work in my life, when we are beaten down by the world and made to feel worthless sometimes we project our insecurity onto God.  Many who have faced ridicule, harm, pain, hurt, loss and turmoil - particularly in inter-family dynamics often scapegoat themselves or others for that trauma...we hold onto bitterness by clutching anger, or by ignoring the pain - numbing it and boxing it up.  Everyone who has faced a trauma deals with it differently, though the root cause is avoidance of accepting grace and hope.  I am guilty of this.  I have internalized the false words others have said about me and accepting the rejection and pain and ostracizing by family as something that is my fault because I wasn't perfect and I was somehow unlovable - even though they were the ones who committed the hurt - as human beings we long for acceptance and when someone shuns us and rejects us - especially those whom we love - we fill that void with a striving need for perfection and self-hatred, antagonism and worry.  

The hardest part is we often don't realize we are in certain patterns - holding patterns, oppressed by the brick walls that we build to protect us from damage. 

I gave up a lot of my dreams and feeling of self-worth and self-love over the years because of ridicule by my family.  I have found myself lose grip on my true-self because I don't want to risk living a life where I am worthy and loved because I am afraid I will be broken.  At times when horrible things occurred and I was facing attack and heartache I turned to God and knew he was there but when things seemed to get worse - I stared to give up on myself.  I did not doubt God's love, but I doubted that he saw me as worthy and I gave up a lot of hope.

I cannot articulate this into perfect words in this blog post.  It is raw and hard and complex- the layers of a broken soul that God heals.  I have found in the past year that God has opened my heart up to self-love - a love not of the ego, but the love of self-rooted in God's love for us and it is a heavy yoke at times because I am so conditioned to despise myself.  Most people would never guess this - I am active in volunteering, friendly, kind and always working on projects - but things are off course.  I want to give my entire self to help others - I'm empathetic and conscientious and this is my disposition - so I used that natural gift of empathy actually as a burden preventing me from moving into greater love for others - until we love ourselves with the heart of God's love then we cannot be free to fully love.  God wants us to experience his grace, HIS hope and HIS reprieve.  

Money has been a big hurdle, money was stolen from me by family and it left me conditioned to beat myself up about having anything - I started to think - I deserve nothing - I saw wanting abundance as selfish - instead of the balanced and whole view Christ wills for us.  I have a hard time accepting grace because I feel shame, and so I strive for perfection but always fall short.

I have been praying the past few months for financial help as my job is very stressful and I'm not pursuing my goals...but i have struggled as I plead with God - WHY?  Why won't you help us get out of these financial blocks when I've always worked hard and have tried so hard, and yet I feel trapped and the pain of all those times I was made to feel like nothing by my father and stepmother comes out.  Then I feel guilty because I trust in Christ's love and it is more precious than money and success and I am embarrassed to focus on this in prayer and yet - God has used the past year of begging, hoping, demanding, loving, crying...praying persistently to open up my heart to healing - to recognize I have value and it is okay to value myself and in doing so I value others.  He has taught me about the depths of His love and compassion and the power of trusting in HIS word, not the words of the world.  Still at times it is hard..especially when I still am desperate to get some bills paid down and my job is on a cliff.  I continue to pray and bless God and at times I shout...yet God is working through me and i know sometimes we having to allow the debris of our shame, worry,doubt and attachments and core foundations to be turned upside down before God before he fixes the temporary problems.

What good is it to fix a kitchen sink when the crack foundation is leaking water and causing the house to sink.  God wants me to recognize  my value to Him and trust in Him and in trusting in Him to trust in myself and to lean on His understanding.  To truly believe I am wanted and God wants to help me.  It is as much a test in learning to quiet my anxiety even in times of turmoil and to rest in God.  The truest rest is in the water of life God gives the soul with the Spirit and Christ is the eternal water - resting in Him and seeing that only Christ is a sure foundation is hard when bills are stacking up - and yet Christ is the only truth - the only power that is righteous and with us always.

In Lent we are faced with the desert of ourselves - the voids we try to fill with placebos - be it addictions, worry, anxiety, fear, sensual pleasures...the list goes on...for me I worry about money all the time - not material desire for wealth but a fear that I will not be provided for and cannot provide for myself - for basic needs and a sense of unworthiness of having solvency.  This is where we have to wrestle with God and sometimes he might not answer the way we want Him too but he always gives us what we need.  God wants to help the soul so that we can have to ability of perception of hope that this life is more than bread and water - life is truly in Christ...even death cannot take that away from us.

In Lent we must take our hearts to the well of Christ and learn from HIM and be filled by HIS Spirit - to lay down our pride and anxiety and rest in HIM.  

I have been doing a devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus and one of the readings discusses Christ's face reflecting the intimate pains of His soul and suffering and love of His heart.  It made me think about how much Christ suffered.  We tend to only focus at times on Jesus as divine and in some ways immune to the pain He was dealt - easily able to conquer it - and yet Christ felt the pain more than we ever could - because Christ is fully alive in love and to bear the rejection of those He loves - is harsh and is a desert only love's power of forgiveness can lead us out of.

Jesus felt every blow of the pain of scourging and being crowned with thorns - he endured the heartache of Judas's kiss and Peter's denial and the excruciating walk carrying His own cross to Calvary only to be crucified...In remembering the pain Christ endured we learn lessons of our own struggles, shining light of hope into doubt.

Christ was able to succeed by the Spirit of love for the Father and trust in the father even when every fiber of His human flesh would feel the condemnation of being forsaken...in the world we are forsaken, rejected and left powerless - and yet Christ did not walk by trust in human steps but turned His faith towards the Father; yes He knew the Father's plan of glory but this was more than just trusting a plan for salvation...I think Christ trusted God, the Father because he knows His true nature is love and love searches for reconciliation and light in darkness.  Love cannot be forsaken by God because God is love...love is mercy and love yields grace.  

I think it is important to remember that we are not blind to God's plan - God promises redemption and salvation and eternal life and warns us of struggles - but promises we will reach HIS heavenly kingdom - yet how often to we feel forsaken by God in times of struggle...that is why we have to look to the cross - to remember God is at work and He does have an everlasting plan for us - a plan of salvation and hope.

In trial we can clutch anger, hold the banner of victimization, hopelessness and fear or we can sow hope in the surety that God is on our side and continually praise His love and actively petition Him for everything with trust...and sometimes trust means admitting our doubts, our frustrations to God.  The key is when we petition our frustration we must give God the key to our hearts and quiet our soul enough from the worry to trust God is at work and to allow the Spirit to guide us.  When the Spirit seems silent we continue to pray, to praise and to seek God - even if it means waiting on His Word.

This Lent let God fill the void of worry and rejection - allow Christ to console your heart and learn from His struggles and triumph in His resurrection - allow God to breath in new life into you - for Christ is love and love yields grace and in grace we find God's mercy and in His mercy we are redeemed and as heirs of the kingdom we too must give mercy for it is in the giving we receive.

When we seek God first we are turning our focus away from self-pity, shame, fear and doubt and opening our eyes to life and light of heaven - and stepping onto the sure foundation - this does not exempt us from storms and trials, but helps us to be free from the slavery of sin which separates us from God and chains us to fear - and the ways of the world seek to reject life - seeking God we see life in all things and seek to restore life through love and Christ is love.