Is it totally bad that I consider my discernment process a carnival fun house?? I feel like I have been down hallways full of wrong ways, opened doors expecting to find Jesus, only to bump into brick walls and feel I have a very distorted view of reality when it comes to my future. Needless to say, I am frustrated... and a little scared.
Today is one year exactly to the day that I left with Mary Clare for Africa. I had planned to stay there for one year. This very day would have been the day I returned to Buffalo after my year there. God had other plans. And although I know and understand that, even though I say and feel that I am in God's hands, it still hurts. Not a single day has gone by since February that I have not thought of those children in Ghana with love and longing. And yet I know that I am not supposed to be there. It is a very confusing and painful. Today was a sorrowful day for me.
Sorrow and pain are a part of life, this life anyways. Joy and happiness are too. I am remembering a song we used to sing in church at weekday masses in elementary school. I don't remember all of the words, but the point of the song was that without pain the joy in life won't show. You can't really know true happiness and joy until you have experienced true sorrow and pain. The lives of the saints are filled with sorrow, pain, confusion, wrong turns, distorted views and road blocks. But the reason they became saints is because they allowed God to enter into their beings and guide them home to heaven, to the joy that lasts eternally.
For years my parents had a painting of Jesus in their bedroom. In the painting, Jesus was standing at a door and knocking on it. The only problem was there was no doorknob, so He couldn't enter. The painting suggests that Jesus wants to enter into our lives, but as we have free will, we have to be the ones to open the door to Him and let Him in. He wants in... He wants to love and guide us, if only we choose to let Him.
I have let Jesus into my life, into my heart... but 100%... apparently not. That is why I am figuratively standing in front of another door afraid that when I open it there will be another brick wall and I will get hurt...again.
The following is a meditation written by Cardinal Newman given to me by a very good friend. It is really meaningful and has been helpful to me. I hope it may be for you or someone you know too. No matter what is thrown in my path He is in control and loves me enough not to let me suffer in vain. This is what it means to trust God 100%. I'm not there yet, but I hope to be.
A Meditation
God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. i have my mission - - I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for nothing. I shall do good, I shall do His work.
Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am. I cannot be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me - - still He knows what He is about.
Cardinal Newman
xxoo
