It really amazes me that it still amazes me how God answers prayers! I mean, for four years now, almost 5, I've been going on missions, relying mostly on the Divine Providence of God, hoping with all that is in me that He hears my prayers, and He always does...perhaps not in the way I was thinking, sometimes it takes a while which helps me to work on my patience, but always He hears me. Which is why I'm wondering now when I will cease to be amazed at God's unending help to me... well, maybe it is better to always be filled with awe at the loving hand of God instead of taking for granted His generous care. Perhaps I'm on the right path after all!!
Anyways, I know I've written before about ways in which the Lord hears my prayers, but I just can't help but want to share my experiences so that you too can realize the love God has for each of us and His desire to answer all our needs if only we give Him the opportunity to do it. So, here's my story:
Every morning we go to mass at 6am and it is always in Waray Waray, the dialect spoken here in Borongan. I have come to know and understand the mass in this dialect, to be able to participate in the mass and sing the songs, thanks be to God! But I always try to read the readings before going to mass so that during the Liturgy of the Word, when the readings are read, I can more fully understand and hear God speaking to me at that time. On Wednesday, February 20th, the Gospel was about Jesus curing a blind man. (Mark 8:22-26) The people of the village brought the man to Jesus and Jesus took him out of the village to put mud on his eyes and cure him. Jesus had to do this twice to the man to fully cure him, and then, after the man could see again, Jesus told him to go home, but "Do not even go into the village."
Now, upon reading the last line, I was so confused. Why would Jesus tell him to go home, but not return to his village...isn't that the same thing? Is Jesus giving a contradiction? Did He make a mistake or did the author of the Gospel or the translator goof up?? I was wondering about that all during mass, really thinking about it during the reading of it during mass, trying to hear if the priest would give an explanation in his homily, but he did not. After mass, we kneel down and say a prayer of thanks to God for the mass and during my prayer, I asked God to help me to understand this Gospel. That was my prayer, my cry out to God. Simple...not important at all in the face of what most people cry out to God for each day...but I just trusted God, that He would help me to understand, that He cared for me enough to help me, even in this simple request.
One of our priests here in Borongan, Fr. Berto, often gives the Sisters books that have the mass readings and meditations for each day. The book is called The Anawim Way, anawim means poor. We haven't been given these books in a while, much to my dismay, because they are really great. Now it is the middle of Ordinary Time, Lent starts in less than a month, so I was not expecting to receive a book at this time. But on this day, even though Fr. Berto was not the priest who said mass, he came out of the rectory after mass to say hello to us, and he handed Sister Minerva 5 Anawim books, one of which was given to me. Upon returning to our home, I quickly went to my room to read the meditation of the day, and there was the very answer I was crying out to God for. This is what it said:
"What can we learn from this story of the gradual healing of the blind man? He represents us. In our fallen nature, we are blinded by sin, unable to see rightly. We need the grace of Jesus. But in order to receive His grace and experience His power, we need to allow Him to lead us out of our worldly way of life and into a new way of life with God. This does not happen all at once. We can see, but not perfectly. We need to come back to Jesus again and again and allow Him to touch us with His healing grace. Jesus' counsel to the man not to go back into the village is also an instruction for us. Once we have experienced the grace of conversion and healing which Jesus gives us, we must not return to the darkness of our former way of life. Like the blind man, we put our trust in Jesus, allowing Him to lead us out of our worldly 'village' and we rejoice as he gradually opens our eyes to see life truly."
So, the formerly blind man must find a new home, but with new eyes open to new life in Christ, he can clearly see where to go to live in unity with his new-found faith. And so it is with each of us. For me, what I found in this experience was a renewed faith in God that He hears my prayers, even the simplest ones, and He answers them always according to His will.
Since Wednesday when this happened, it has been on my mind to write about it, so perhaps there is someone who needs to read this, to know that God has heard your prayer and will answer it...rest in the peace of knowing God loves you and is faithful to His promise to hear our prayers. Cry out to Him, trust in Him for He will always be there for you, as is always is for me!!
xoxo
