do you trust Me?

In my heart of hearts I know Jesus asks me that question every single day...multiple times a day.  The easy, nearly automatic answer is "yes, of course."  But when I'm really honest with myself, I think that's just the answer I know He wants to hear.  Last night I realized that the truth is that I don't fully trust Him.  I trust Him with this thing or that thing, but not with every thing.  I was spazzing out a bit over my latest hang-up in life: finances.  There was something deep within me that kept reminding me that everything, in the end, would be okay, and yet, I wanted some reassurance.  So I turned to something that I've recently forgotten: the Bible.  Sure, I pull it out for youth group planning sessions and occasional other things, but I don't really pray with it.  So I pulled out the first Catholic Bible I ever got (the one from the Church when I was in classes for Confirmation). 

Now, before I tell you what I found you should have an understanding of what this Bible has been through.  Its the only Bible that gets a case (if you'll remember I was a theology major in college and now I'm a youth minister...I have at least seven Catholic bibles), and it gets a case because it is literally falling apart.  I'm about to lose most of Proverbs and the binding is about to split this cherished Bible into a few different sections.  I love my other Bibles and I use each of them for different things, but this Bible and I have been through a lot together.  I've written notes in the margins, highlighted, re-highlighted passages, dog-tagged the pages, bookmarked sections, paperclipped things on certain pages and loads of other things.  I once read a sign that said, "a Bible that is falling apart belongs to a person who is not."  Brilliant.  Over the years I've marked different passages so when I open it again I'm never quite sure which passages I marked last time, which is why last night's expedition into the Word of God was so...divine.  I opened this Bible because its my personal Bible, the one I always open when I feel down and out or lost and confused and it always opens to just what I need to read.  I love this Bible (not that I don't love the other ones, but my relationship with them is different).  I had a passage in mind and, lo and behold, it was already marked in my Bible:
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into the barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not you more important than they?  Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?  Why are you anxious about clothes?  Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.  They do not work or spin.  But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them.  If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?  So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?'  all these things the pagans seek.  Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.  Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil." - Matthew 16: 25-34

It is a passage I've read more times than I'll ever know.  Its been highlighted more times than I can count.  I've put stars around the verses that I bolded, I've underlined it and had it written down in more places than I can count.  And yet every time I read it, it strikes me, hits me upside the head and shows me just how much I need to trust God...and how much I've failed to trust him.  "O you of little faith" makes me want to sit in a corner in time-out because God knows just how much I've failed to place my complete trust in Him.  Still, I find hope in this passage because even though I feel like I deserve a long time-out from God, the passage tells us, encourages us to move on...to seek first the kingdom of God, not to worry about tomorrow...God will take care of tomorrow.  And the day after that.  And the day after that.  And the day after that.  And they day after that.  And...even the day after that.

Then I spent some time just flipping through my beloved Bible, reading over other verses I've highlighted...and there are a lot of them.  I've read this Bible cover to cover a few times so there are multiple highlighter colors throughout.  I even went through that "sparkly-glittery pen" phase in this Bible.  Then I came to the ONLY other passage I had bookmarked.  How fitting that the only two passages I have bookmarked are about trust...
"Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.  He is like a barren bush in the desert that enjoys no change of season, But stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.  Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the lord.  He is like a tree planted besides the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: It fears not the heat when it comes, its leaves stay green; In the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.  More torturous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?  I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart." - Jeremiah 17:5-10
This verse always takes me to one of my favorite places in the world (that I've actually been to), and my favorite place to watch a sunset: Mepkin Abbey.  Its this tiny little Trappist monastery in Moncks Corner, SC with some of the coolest monks I've ever met (with the obvious exception of the Benedictine monks at Belmont Abbey, where I went to college).  Its the most peaceful place on earth I've ever been to and anytime I'm in the Carolinas I do all that I can to visit, even if only for an hour.  This place is my "happy place" where I close my eyes and travel to often.  I can't say enough about how much I love Mepkin Abbey.  This place literally calms my soul.

That picture hardly does it justice...but one time when I was on retreat at Mepkin in college I meditated on this verse the whole weekend and fell in love with this tree. 

What's my point in all these ramblings about my tattered Bible and these extended passages about trust?  I don't trust God fully...not yet.  I want to be like that tree, planted beside the waters of God's love, certain that no matter how bad the drought may be, His love will nourish me.  I want to be certain that tomorrow will take care of itself, that I don't have to worry, and the only way to do that is to surrender, to move myself, my life, my hopes, my fears and my dreams and plant them beside the waters and stretch my roots out to the streams of His loving goodness.  I want to be that tree...every time I go back it gets bigger and more beautiful - it, unlike me, remains rooted by the water.  It continues to grow because it doesn't move away from the water (yes, I know trees can't actually move, but go with the metaphor).  By our own free will, we can, and often do, move away - sometimes consicously, other times unconsciously - from the waters of His love.  I took that picture nearly three years ago and every time I'm there I take nearly a hundred pictures of THAT tree.  Why?  It inspires me, it reminds me of that passage in Jeremiah and it moves me to trust.  So thanks, trusty, old, falling-apart Bible for reminding me of that tree.

Lord, I don't fully trust you yet.  Help me, help us all to be like that tree, planted beside Your streams, Your ocean of unending love.  Help us to not worry about tomorrow, rather, help us to trust in Your plan.  Jonah didn't trust...he was swallowed by a whale.  Grant us a servant's heart that we would follow You, like Daniel, into the lion's den, knowing You will guard us always.
"Heal me, Lord, that I may be healed; save me, that I may be saved, for it is you whom I praise." - Jeremiah 17:14 
AMEN.

just not Yet.

I always want to give a preface to the excuse of the week but since I explain things so much in the bulk of the blog, I don't really know that I need a preface.  Now...moving on from my random ramblings to the excuse of the week:

Break up excuse: I'm just not ready for a (serious) relationship yet.

Why it sucks in human relationships: Because chances are that your heart is already falling and invested in the relationship by time the other person figures out they aren't ready.  I've never heard of this reason being used and someone not getting hurt...the affairs of the heart are a tricky thing and all too often its too late by time someone figures this out, hearts are bound to be bruised if not broken completely.  It also sucks because it leaves that "dot dot dot", the unfinished break-up.  The "yet" implies that someday (and who ever the broken-up-with is hopes that it is someday soon) that person will be ready for a relationship.  The "yet" says I'm just not there today, but please sit around and daydream about me coming back for you on a white horse.  Go ahead, wait for the day I wake up and realize that I do want a serious relationship and that I want it with you.  ...and so the broken-up-with is left with half of a break-up because there is still that lingering hope of that person coming back around when they are ready to settle down.

Why is sucks when using it with God: Because He is ready.  He has been waiting for eternity (and, by a love that I can't even begin to fathom, He will wait for eternity) for us to be ready.  He, after all, created us and longs to be in relationship with us, in a serious, eternal, life-changing relationship with us.  All that He asks of us is to open our hearts completely to Him.  As scary as that notion may be, it really is what He longs for, so when we tell Him that we aren't ready just yet it is about as laughable as Saint Augustine's prayer, "Lord, make me chaste...just not yet."  If not now, then when?  It is a half-hearted prayer that boils down to this, "Lord, I love You and want to live for You...eventually.  But I'm not done disappointing myself, my family and perhaps even You yet.  So...thanks for the future grace, I'm just not ready for Your love yet."

Why this excuse doesn't work on God: Because He will keep waiting.  He, unlike us humans, has the patient ability to wait in love for our hearts to turn towards Him...no matter how long it takes.  He truly is like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, He is always looking and waiting for us to come home to Him.

How to move on: Life is short.  You may think that life is long or that you've got time or that someday you'll be ready to hand your life over to God.  That may all even be true...but why not start now?  [This serious relationship with God is VERY different in this sense from a serious romantic relationship...it is my belief that one MUST come before the other, and I'll bet you can figure out which one needs to come first, and why.]  Why not start living a life after the heart of God?  No one said it would be easy, but He does tell us that it will be worth it.  You've fallen short lately?  Today?  You've failed?  Are you disappointed in yourself?  Want to keep sinning and falling so you want to hold off on the "God" thing for the time being?  Stop making excuses.  Do you want to know the truth?  Even after you commit to a serious relationship with God you are going to be disappointed in yourself, you are going to fall short, you are going to keep sinning.  Would you rather do that on your own or with a loving God there to pick you and up and dry your tears?  I've tried both ways and let me tell you that living life, even in my own short comings, is far better with God there.  He picks me up, wraps His loving arms around me and dries my tears.  He holds me and tells me that He loves me no matter where I've been or what I've done.  What are you waiting for?  More disappointment, more pain, more sin and debauchery?  My bet is that deep down you are waiting for love, so you want to hold out on God until you find that love...but you keep trying in vain.  God is love.  Stop waiting, open the eyes of your heart to see what has been available to you since the beginning of time: unending, unconditional, unfathomable love from the God who created you.

Lord, help us to not hold out on you.  Maybe we don't think we are ready or worthy of a relationship with You just yet...whisper into the depths of our hearts that we are.  We are made for You, we long for You, grant us the grace to seek Your love above all else that this world tries to offer us.  AMEN.

the reality of it All.

If you've been reading this blog for any amount of time prior to the end of August (or if you've ever talked to me in real life), you'll know that I talk/blog a lot about love, about what we are called to, what a real man is, what a real woman looks like (inside, not outside), etc, etc, etc.  Deep down I knew someday this blog would come, and the truth is that it will probably come out a few more times in the coming...weeks, months, years?  Who knows how long I'll be blogging for, but that's not the point.  The point is that I've spent months talking about the theory of love, the romance of it all, the dream, the fairytale my heart longs for...and how I hope to reciprocate that love when my soulmate finally arrived.  I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between my theories, my dreams and the reality that I'm living.  So what is the difference?  I'm glad you asked...

No one on the face of the earth can take away your theories or your dreams.  You, as a free individual, are free (and in most cases encouraged) to think whatever you like about anything you like.  Those thoughts may not at all be true, but you are free to think them nonetheless.  The same is true about my own theories about love...they may have been completely wrong, but they were mine to think about (and blog about) all the same.  Reality, however, can be taken away, altered, changed.  Mr. Irish, as I shall now refer to him, could walk away at any given moment and take this fairytale with him as he walked away.  The reality depends on other people.  The reality of applying those wonderful theories is sometimes much harder than anyone who simply theorizes can imagine.  I could talk about love and how to love and what we are called to all day, but what's the point if I can't actually live out that love I've been droning on about for months?

It is the same with God.

We could sit here and talk about God all day, we could talk about theology and our theories about what He is like.  We could dream about Him, dream about Heaven, dream until our little hearts burst, but what's the point if we don't live like there actually exists this God that we've been talking about?  With our faith, we know the stories, we've heard them all time and time before...the great Bible stories, the stories of the great faith of the saints that have gone before us, and all of that is wonderful. 

It is the same with love.

We know or we've heard all of these wonderful fairytale romances and great proposals in adoration chapels or at Cana (where Christ's first miracle was performed) or at the site where Jesus died.  We've heard or been to these amazing weddings where love is professed, tears are cried, and two lives are joined as one.  We know it.  But the question remains: do we believe it?

Enter faith.

Both God and love take faith.  It takes faith to jump from the stories, from the theology, from the Scripture, from the saints to actually beliving in God.  It takes faith to jump from the fairytale romances, the beautiful proposals, the elegant weddings to actually believing in love in your own life.  Talk theory and dreams all you want, I'll take the reality of faith (though at times difficult), of believing in a God who loves me unconditionally over the theories anyday.  Sure, I use the theories to grow my faith...at times I even need the theology to reassure me of my faith, but at the end of the day, I'll take that leap of faith, knowing that reality with God is far better than my own simple theories about Him alone...my faith makes those theories real.  It takes faith to trust that God isn't going to leave me.  In a similar, though not identical way, it takes faith to love.  I could blog about love for the rest of my life, but it takes faith to actually live that out.  It takes faith and grace to choose to love, day after day, moment after moment.  Because, let's face it, we aren't going to spend the rest of our lives in some star-struck love...unless you've been drugged.  We have to choose to love, and that choice takes faith (both in God and in the other person) and grace.  It takes faith to trust that He put those theories on my heart so that I would someday be able to live them out, to love another as He calls me to love them (in some way, we are called to love everyone like this, not just our soulmates).  It takes faith to trust that Mr. Irish won't just walk out of my life.  It takes faith to believe in God, it takes faith to believe in and live out love, it takes faith to enter into reality and live out all of our theories.  Perhaps it takes even more faith to continue living when our theories, when our thoughts about God, about life, about love turn out to be imperfect.  It takes faith to be willing to change our own theories and be enlightened by His Truth. 

The reality of it all is that it all takes faith.  Theories are a great starting place, but just like faith without works is dead, theory without practice becomes nothing more than empty words.  Or, as Paul said, "if I speak in human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal" (1 Corinthians 13:1).  Don't be a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.  Join the orchestra (or the band if you prefer).  Espouse Love Himself...espouse love.

Lord, help us to know the limits of our theories and once we see those limits, help us to have the faith to trust You, to trust that You give us Truth.  Help us to know that Your plans for us are for good, not for harm (Jeremiah 29:11), and that You long to shower us with Your Love, if only we would open our hearts to You.  AMEN.

all the right Qualities

It's that time again...time for another crappy break-up excuse that we also use on God, foolishly thinking we can break up with the God of the Universe.  Without further ado, the excuse of the week:

Break up excuse: You have all the qualities I'm looking for in a future spouse...you're just not my future spouse.

Why it sucks in human relationships: The first time I heard this used on a friend of mine I thought the guy was crazy.  Then, a few years later, someone told this very line to me.  I was quite honestly dumb-founded.  If I have all of the qualities you are looking for in a wife, then why the heck am I not your future wife?  This excuse sucks in human relationships because quite honestly it fails to make any sense to a sane person.  Furthermore, it has an unspoken undercurrect that whispers "you still aren't enough."  [Side note: do you realize why that undercurrent is there?  Because who ever is using this line isn't yet filled by God and whether they realize it or not they are trying to fill the God-shaped whole in their hearts with you, so of course you aren't enough.]

Why it sucks when using it with God: We are afraid to think of God as "spouse" (especially for women) because we fear that means a religious vocation and therefore giving up our dreams of a big wedding, a life together, kids, a family, a white picket fence, etc.  Plus, when we use this excuse with God we are filling ourselves with pride in some sense by essentially telling God, "You have everything I'm looking for...but in some way, shape, or form You aren't good enough."  HA.  God's not good enough?  Good luck finding anything better.

Why this excuse doesn't work on God: We are already married to Him.  He is the first and truest lover of our hearts, and perhaps we haven't been called to become a nun, a sister, a priest or a brother, but our hearts should always be married to Him first.  You can't un-marry God, just like you can't break up with Him.  There is a line in "Eternal" by Sanctus Real that goes like this, "in this marriage of our hearts, there is no death do us part, for You are eternal, and I am eternally Yours."  If death can't part our hearts from God, then certainly some silly break up excuse can't part them either.  After all, He is eternal, and we are eternally His, nothing could ever change that reality, that Truth.

How to move on: In order to move on, you have to come to some acceptance of the fact that your heart is married, is linked eternally with the God who created it.  A few years ago I was on a retreat when I realized just how beautifully we are linked to Christ.  You see, in the days when Christ walked the earth, when a man wanted to propose to a woman, he didn't buy her a ring and get down on one knee.  Instead, he offered her a cup of wine.  This wine was a sign or a symbol of his life, of his blood.  If she accepted, she took the cup from him, drank the wine, drank his very life into hers and returned the cup to him.  Then, he too would drink from the cup which now symbolized her life and her blood.  Sound at all familiar?  Communion.  Every single time we receive communion Christ is proposing to us, to each of us individually.  He already loves you and no matter where you've been, He is always waiting to propose to you again, and again, and again...eternally.

Lord, open our hearts to the love that You desire to wash us clean with.  Help us to see, know and believe that our hearts are married to You, their maker, and that nothing can ever separate our hearts from Yours.  AMEN.

love, wind and Fire.

People say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.  People who say that are people I normally would like to punch.  Even if the saying is true does that really make absence fun or enjoyable?  I think not.  So rather than punch those people who say that cliche, I prefer to think of absence in the following way:

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great." - Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

I like fire.  Not as much as some people I know...but I like fire, the bigger, the better.  Why would I want love to be any different?  I like fire, but I love love.  As I've been thinking about this quote lately, I've been thinking about it in two different, though similar ways.  (1) Absence could refer to the time before you actually meet your soulmate.  (2) [And probably the scenario most people think of] Time spent apart from each other once you've met your soulmate.  In this instance, I'm not talking about your boyfriend or girlfriend necessarily, but about the truest love of your life, your soulmate, the one and only that God made for you and you for them.  There's a depth to this love, this longing that cannot be put into words (though I try to in the urge for a Husband blog).  I would contend that most of us have been in a relationship at one point or another and felt that ache, that urge for our soulmate, perhaps when the relationship was going down the tank or after a big fight.  The point is that we all have that longing for our soulmate, and in the absence of that person we find ourselves wondering either where the heck they are, or why we can't be with them every second of every day.

As a side note...I feel like this is one of those blogs where I shall soon (and probably repetatively) eat my own words.  The last couple weeks I've blogged about my issues with patience and my lack of that virtue, this blog is no exception to that running theme in my life.

(1) Absence in the time before you meet your soulmate.
Some (ok, most) people say that I'm young and I can't tell you how tiring it got when people would continuously tell me that I had "time" to find my husband.  After all, when you're young, you've seemingly got all of the time in the world to find him, or for him to find you.  In my head, I always had a few not-so-charitable responses to them.  They, whoever they were, had already found true love, so it was easy for them to sit there with their lovey-dovey eyes and wedding planning and tell me that I had time...they were already living the dream.  Now, I sit, in a way, on the other side of that fence and I wonder what I would tell single me, or a "young" single person.  I've had the above quote saved for a while, but I've never really contemplated its meaning to a single person before now. 

The time before you meet your beloved, your soulmate, is, in fact, a time of absence.  Most single women I know have this deep ache in their hearts (and I'm not trying to make my single friends out to be lonely, desperate saps because they are not) to find their soulmates.  More often than not, that's what single women talk about...where is he?  Where have all the good men gone?  When is it my turn to live the fairytale, to fall in love, to be whisked away on a white horse by a knight in shining armor?  But this absence, if you choose to use is this way, can be a good thing.  I know in my single times I didn't always appreciate the time that God was giving me to grow as a person, to fall deeper in love with Him.  Instead, I scouted out cute boys everywhere I went - youth group, Mass, the mall, school, driving down the freeway...any and everywhere I went I was checking out guys.  It took time (and loads of prayer and some awesome books...i.e. "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris) for me to realize that during my single years, God was calling me to not only fall deeper in love with Him, but to open my heart to the love that I would one day be able to share with my soulmate.  Over time (and oddly enough, even in other relationships) God took the love in my heart that I was beginning to store for my soulmate and He gave that small fire of love in my heart wind.  By the grace of God that small fire of love in my heart didn't blow out, but because of my love for God, it grew...and it continues to grow.  I know that I am only beginning to see how God used (and for that matter, is still using) my time of single-ness to enkindle the fire of love that I have for my soulmate.  Not only did God grow my love for Him, but all the while He was lighting my heart on fire with love for the man I will spend the rest of my life with.

(2) Time spent apart.
Good golly, I'm not sure which absence is better or easier to deal with.  Not knowing who your soulmate is or when he/she will show up can be quite agonizing...and it can be quite exciting as you wait in hopeful anticipation for the love of your life.  And then, one fine day, that person enters your life...and then, if your story is like mine (and somewhere deep down I knew long ago my story would be this way)...years later you realize that is the person you are supposed to be with.  I've heard quite a few stories like this...boy meets girl and then years and years later they suddenly look at each other and what they were so oblivious to before wonderfully becomes to clearly obvious: that they were made for each other.  Hooray!  Sound the trumpets, get a ring and a white dress and spend the rest of your lives together in endless bliss!  If only it were that easy.  Even once we've found someone, the someone, we will still have to spend time apart (even if its only to go to the bathroom).  This absence isn't just true when you are dating or courting, its true when you are engaged and even when you are married...and after one of you dies.  My married friends spend time apart when one of them is at work and the other is home raising the family, or the husband has to take a business trip and the wife still has to be at work and can't go with her husband.  For my grandparents and older folks I know, many of them are living on this earth without their spouse...an ache I can't even imagine.  No matter what stage in the relationship we are at, we will be and are called to spend time apart.  How much time is something that no book, rubric or guideline can prescribe for you...its something the two of you must decide together.  Just as time apart was necessary before you met (see not Myself), time apart is necessary after you meet.  Don't think you are perfect just because you found each other, you still have growing to do, both individually and as a couple.  John Eldredge says it beautifully, "there is a rhythm to life together.  We first to to God, alone, so that we have something to bring back to the community"...or to our soulmates.  If we are constantly with each other, even if some of that time is spent in prayer or in Mass together, then what time to do we have to be fed by God?  The truths that God will speak to you as a couple are different from the truths that He longs to speak to your heart as a man or a woman of God.  We need that time apart to allow God to speak those truths to us, and then we can share those truths, those moments of clarity and revelation with our soulmates.  We take time apart, however painful that ache in our heart becomes to spend every waking moment with our soulmate, we take time apart to reconnect with God, to remember what He taught us in our time of single-ness, and to learn from Him.  Life is a journey and we aren't done learning until we get to Heaven and receive the fullness of Truth as we spend eternity with Jesus.  We take time apart so that God can continue to set our hearts on fire with love for Him and for our soulmates.

Lord, no matter what stage in life we are at, let our hearts be set on fire with love for You, first and foremost.  Then, if it is Your will, send a mighty wind upon our hearts and stir up, enkindle a love for our soulmates that never dies out, but only grows larger as our love for You consumes our hearts.  AMEN.

its Me.

So...after much debating I've decided to change up the "song of the week" series for a bit, meaning that until further notice that series is going on a vacation (to some place tropical, I imagine!).  For the time being, in its place I'll be starting a new series on Wednesdays (since that seems to have become my "series" day).  Though I don't yet have a catchy name for the series (I'm thinking the Break Up series...) the premise behind it is this: the same lame, crappy and cheap excuses in relationships (especially in break ups, hence the name) are the same lame, crappy and cheap excuses we use with God.  Got a crappy break up line or reason?  Send it to me and I'll work on including it in this series!  In this series I'll talk about the line and why it is lame, crappy and/or cheap and why it doesn't really work on God...and, hopefully, how to move on once you've tried to break up with God.  [Besides, I think deep down we all know that you only ever try to break up with God...He, thank goodness, never breaks up with us.]

Break up excuse: Its not You, it me.

Why it sucks in human relationships:  I'd quite frankly like to go back in time and punch any guy that ever used this on a girl.  Its a cop out.  Man up and be a better man.  On the one hand, good for you for actually admitting your short-comings, but on the other hand you probably should have worked those out before entering a relationship where you could possibly (and probably) break a girl's heart.  I could go on, but at the end of the day using this line to end a relationship is about a big a cop out as they come.

Why it sucks when using it with God:  Because its true.  Its still a cop out, but its still true.  God is perfect, and we are not.  Its probably the easiest line to use with God.  "God, You are perfect, loving and merciful.  Its not You, its my imperfection that keeps me from a relationship with You."  It is as if we are trying not to break God's heart.  His heart is perfect, His heart is love itself...love as infinite, good and perfect as His can't be broken. 

Why this excuse doesn't work on God:  It sucks because its true, but do you really think that means that God loves you any less?  No way.  He, after all, created you and He knows your imperfections and your short-comings far better than you do.  Which, by the way, is a bit scary, no, a LOT scarier...we think that we are SO aware of our sins and yet there is a God who is more aware of them?  But wait, He loves us anyway?  Wow.  This excuse doesn't work on God because He loves us more than our imperfections, He loves us in spite of them and He invites us to a perfect relationship with Him in Heaven one day and on earth now, despite our imperfections. 

Sometimes we don't realize we use these excuses with God, sometimes we do, but the fact remains that whether or not we realize it, we all use excuses with God.  We are afraid to trust Him, we are unsure that He loves us just as much as He says He does, we don't have the eyes to see yet, or the heart to trust that everything, every single thing He says is true.  Sure, some of it is true and we can believe that...but everything?  Surely He must have been telling a tall tale some of the time.  Wrong.  We tell Him, "its not You, its me" because its easier to believe that we aren't worthy, that we aren't perfect, that we aren't holy and that we can get out.  Its scary to admit that someone loves you completely and totally for exactly who you are at this moment, because if that love existed we would be challenged and invited to love back, to return vulnerability for vulnerability.  Even when He makes the first move, when He lays His heart on the line (or the Cross), we fear being that open with Him...what if He realizes how crazy we are and decides not to love us?  Its easier for us to be at fault, to walk away, than to stay and risk being hurt or let down.  But guess what?  God doesn't leave.  Jesus doesn't get down from the Cross.  The Holy Spirit never leaves His children.

How to move on: You can't break up with God.  You can try (He knows I have), but He never leaves.  I was watching a documentary on the life of Blessed Pope John Paul II and when the media was questioning whether or not he should step down from the papacy near the end of his life a Vatican official said, "we have a saying in the Vatican...you don't get off the cross."  With the obvious exceptions of Mary and Jesus, no one is perfect, and yet we are all called to stay on the Cross.  We know our imperfections...God knows them better and loves us anyway.  Won't you open your heart to His?  It was literally pierced for us as He hung on the cross.  He's not asking to pierce our hearts...He's only asking that we open our hearts to His.

Lord, help us to love you despite our short-comings, but more importantly, help us to know that You love us even in our sin and our filth.  Help us to feel and know Your unending love more and more with each passing moment.  Every breath we breathe is a gift of love from You.  AMEN.

hold your Horses.

Have you ever been to Mass and had a lector that read the reading so fast you could hardly tell which book the reading was from, much less what was actually being said?  Today, that's what happened to me.  I basically had no idea what the reading was, or the psalm for that matter, until I came home and read the readings online (and the fact that Fr. Brian preached on the reading so he re-read it to us!).  There was a part of me that wanted to hold up a sign for that person and tell them to slow down - don't you know you are reading THE WORD OF GOD?!  Why are you RUSHING through it?

Have you ever been to Mass when the priest rushes through the consecration?  When it is obvious that he is just going through the motions?  Isn't there something in us that wants the priest to slow down, to really mean the words that he is saying as the bread and wine are mystically transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?  In my pride I'd like to go up there and say the words better or slower or with more meaning (thank God I'm a woman because I could never imagine being on the altar saying the words of consecration, even in my most prideful moments).

Have you ever prayed with someone and they prayed so fast that you had no idea what you were actually praying for?  What about the Rosary?  Have you ever prayed this beautiful prayer with someone when they rushed through the Hail Marys without giving you a chance to meditate on each beautiful word (even if you say it 50 times)?  A few weeks ago I was praying the Rosary with the man who is courting me and he pointed out that I rush through the "Hail, Holy Queen" so fast that he could barely catch his breath, much less keep up with me.  Good golly folks, what are we rushing for?  We rush through the Word of God, we rush through Mass (isn't there a football game on...if I had a dime for everytime a priest asked for a football update DURING his homily [and then there is someone who knows because they are checking on it, usually on their cell phones, DURING Mass!?!!?] I would be a rich woman), we rush through our prayers, we rush through our whole lives.

Hold your horses.

Hold the phone.

Back the train up.

Rewind.

Hold on.

Wait up.

Take a breath!

We have so many phrases for slowing down (I just googled "phrases about slowing down" and the first thing that came up was a link called "What does 'slow down' mean?") and yet we hardly listen to any of them.  We rush through the Word of God, we rush through Mass and we rush through prayers because we have been conditioned to.  Last week I blogged about my own impatience (I've joked before that I could be the Queen of Impatientland) and God continues to show me just how impatient I am.  I'm even impatient with people who are impatient (think of the lector at Mass this morning)!  I think my own impatience is why I miss living in the south so much - life just seemed slower.  Perhaps it was because I was in college and didn't have bills to pay and a job to get to and a never-ending list of things to do, but I still believe that life in the Carolinas and in Georgia was just slower.  You can see it in the way people drive, in the way they treat each other, the gentle way they live their lives.  Maybe I'm romanticizing my memories of the south, but maybe I'm not.  Aren't we all called to a slower pace in life? 

How do you imagine Heaven?  Do you think once we get there that we will all be running about like busy bodies, constantly needing to get something, anything done?  Goodness gracious, I hope heaven isn't like that.  Eternal bliss.  Rest.  Finally and eternally being with Jesus, sitting at His feet and learning all that He has to teach us.  We, as people in the world, not of the world (also what the homily at Mass this morning was about) are called to live a life focused on Heaven.  If that is true, then shouldn't we be living life just a little bit slower?  Saint Paul tells us in his letters that we should not be idle as we wait for the coming of the Lord, nor should we be running about as busy bodies.  Our work should have a purpose.  There has to be a happy medium between running about and being lazy.  There has to be a balance between running through the readings, "AreadingfromthefirstletterofSaintPaultotheCorinthians.  Loveispatientloveiskindlovemeansslowlylosingyourmind" (10 points for whoever names that movie reference first!) and making each reading an hour long.  There has to be a balance between rushing through the consecration and making Mass ten hours long.  So, hold your horses.

Perhaps if we took Mass as seriously as we are called to (it is the highest form of prayer that we have) then we would be able to slow down in the rest of our lives as well.  It has to start somewhere, so let us slow our hearts down in Mass, in Scripture readings, in our prayers, in the hopes that we would slow down in our every day lives.  (Even as I'm writing this blog I have four tabs open in the internet and I'm listening to a playlist that I'm working on...no one is perfect!)

Lord, help us to slow down.  Teach us to hold our horses.  Grant us the grace to truly savor Your words in Scripture, the words of the Mass and our time in prayer with You and with others.  May we begin each day to see You more fully as we slow down to appreciate all that You give us.  Open our eyes to see Your beauty in everything.  May we stop to smell the roses even in the dead of winter, may You guide our hearts towards Yours, slow and eternally serene.  AMEN.

if you would come back Home.

Can you believe it?  This is my 50th blog!  I'm so excited and I've been saving this song for such an awesome occasion.  Be forewarned, this blog is going to be epic because not only is this song just that awesome, but its my 50th blog and such a milestone deserves an awesome blog!

Song: If You Would Come Back Home
Artist: William Fitzsimmons
Lyrics:

There's room between your heart
And the chair where I've been sleeping
The place that we called home
Will someday watch you leaving


There's room between today
And the last time that I saw you
The pictures in my brain
Will fade until I lose you


If you would come back home
We could start all over
If you would come back home
I swear it would be better


There's room left in the house
There's food still in the pantry
I could fix you lunch
Or take you out for coffee


If you would come back home
We could start all over
If you would come back home
I swear it would be better

(4x)

Call the surgeon.
Mend the pieces.

I've been obsessed with this song for weeks now.  In fact, last week I listened to it on repeat for God only knows how many hours.  The way William sings demands that you listen because his voice is only barely above the music and yet its so calming to listen to him.  This is the first song of his I really got into and it is so rich with meaning on so many levels that I'm going to divide my thoughts about it into two parts:

Part One: Humans talking to God.
Let me first begin by telling you the story (as well as I know it) behind this song.  William's wife left him at some point for some reason that I do not know so this song came out of that pain, that time of uncertainty.  However, I think this song also works well as a prayer.  We say (or sing) to God, "there's room between Your heart and the chair where I've been sleeping."  We put ourselves away from God, we remove ourselves from His love by our choices and our sins.  We feel like we are in the doghouse and that we are stuck sleeping in the chair and we feel as though there is so much room between that chair and His heart...sometimes that space feels too big for us to fill.  "The place that we called home will someday watch you leaving..." we call our hearts the home of God, for as John Eldredge says in nearly all of his books that I've read thus far, the heart is the dwelling place of God.  We feel (or maybe just me, but I'm choosing to generalize these feelings) as though we will watch God leave.  Sometimes we feel like we've done something so horrible, so terrible, that God will certainly leave us this time.  We grow so accustomed to people leaving us in their disappointment that we, in turn, expect the same treatment from God, and so we feel that "the place we called home" (our hearts) will someday watch God leave.  We are saddened by this thought but at the same time we don't know how to escape these feelings of worthlessness and shame.

"There's room between today and the last time that I saw You."  Isn't there always room?  Don't we create this space between us and the last time we really connected with God?  Isn't it easier sometimes to push God away because we foolishly think we can handle life on our own?  We lose God because we push Him away.  The pictures in our minds fade until we lose Him...or until we decide to bridge that gap.  There is never a gap between God's heart and ours.  There can be a gap between our heart and God's because we try to distance ourself from a love we all too often feel unworthy of.

Then we pray, we pray in our desperation, we pray in our worthlessness, in our shame, in our sin, "if You would come back home we could start all over.  If You would come back home, I swear it would be better."  If You would come back into my heart, even though I pushed You away, I know we could start all over.  Your love is so amazing that You are willing to forgive me, You were willing to forgive even as You hung on the cross and I know that if You would come back to my heart, to Your home in my heart that we could start all over.  I know that in this starting over things would be better, for You would be alive in me and I would be alive in You.

"There's room left in the house, there's food still in the pantry, I could fix You lunch, or take You out for coffee..."  Don't we all try to small talk God?  We sense (consciously or unconsciously) that He is really trying to stir our hearts, to show us something deep and profound, but we fear such a radical revelation from the Maker of the Universe...so we small talk with God.  There's food in the pantry God...I could make you a meal, we could talk about the weather, we could go out for coffee and just chillax.  But the small talk becomes silly and again we pray that if He would come back home, things would be better.

"Call the surgeon...mend the pieces..."  When you hear this song you basically can't help but get sucked in at this point.  C.S. Lewis once said, "But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless."  God is the surgeon.  In the end we call on God to mend our pieces.  Though the surgery may be quite painful, we trust that if He stopped the pain up to that point would be useless; we trust that the surgery needs to be done in order to save our lives, our hearts, our souls.  Let us call upon the Surgeon who longs to mend our broken pieces.

Part Two: God speaking to humans.

"There's room between your heart and the chair where I've been sleeping."  God sits on high, He sits in heaven on a throne and as I said earlier, we are always the ones that put space between our hearts and God's.  He's sitting there telling us that it is us, that there is space between our hearts and His heavenly throne...and He doesn't want that space there.  "The place that we called home will someday watch you leaving..."  I feel like this could be referring to Eden.  The place that He created humanity for, a perfect paradise in unending communion with Him watched us leave when Adam and Eve fell.  Oh, but dear friends, the story isn't over yet. 

"There's room between today and the last time that I saw you."  Similar to us talking to God, except that He always sees us, but we sometimes like to think that He doesn't.  We want to believe we can hide from God, we want to think that there is time between right now and the last time He saw us.  How foolish we can be.  Saint Augustine has so many great thoughts on what it means to be far away from God..."Your omnipotence is never far from us, even when we are [far] from You...to be far from Your face is to be in the darkness of passion...What could be hidden within me, even if I were unwilling to confess it to You?  I would be hiding You from myself, not myself from You."  And yet this all makes the next verse untrue if God were singing this song to us, "the pictures in my brain will fade until I lose you."  God never, ever loses us.  EVER.

I don't think the chorus could be more glorious, more profound unless we truly heard God whispering it to us in the depths of our hearts, "if you would come back Home, we could start all over, if you would come back Home, I swear it would be better."  I wish I had a dime for everytime someone told me that as Catholic Christians we are in the world but not of the world.  What's the difference?  We are of Heaven, made in Heaven and bound for Heaven.  If our hearts would turn from sin, from pride, from lust, from gluttony, from idolatry and return Home, He would help us start all over.  We can be made whole again (confession anyone?).  If we would come back Home, God promises (I don't really think God swears...that just sounds weird) that things would be better.  Perhaps not easier (life isn't all hearts and rainbows when you fall in love with Jesus), but certainly better with God by your side.

God lovingly sings to us, "there's room left in the House, there's Food still in the pantry, I could fix you lunch, or take you out for coffee..."  Funny how this sounds like small talk coming from humans, but when God says it, it becomes an open invitation to go deeper, it is but a door by which we enter our true Home.  I'm thinking about Heaven here - there is room still in Heaven, a room He is holding for us if we would turn our hearts back to Him.  There's food in the pantry...Heavenly food, the Eucharist.  The Eucharist is that door by which we enter Heaven.  He could fix us lunch...or perhaps the Last Supper.  Jesus, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Mass?  Way better than coffee.  See what happens when you return to the Sacraments, especially to the feast of Heaven?  He comes home.  He enters your body, He enters your heart...things get better.

And in the end it almost sounds like He is pleading with us..."Call the surgeon...mend the pieces..."  It is as if He is saying, call on me (imagine a little eager school kid with his hand thrust high in the air because he knows the right answer to the teacher's question), I will mend your pieces, I will mend your heart.

So what do we learn from all of this?  I think Saint Augustine sums it up well, so I'll let his words lead the ending prayer to this beautiful song:

"You never go away from us.  Yet we have difficulty in returning to You...Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back, kindle and seize us, be our fire and our sweetness.  Let us love, let us run."  Come home to our hearts that our hearts may come Home to You.  AMEN.

patience is a Virtue...

...that I don't possess.  I've probably said that phrase about a zillion times in my life and I'm only 23.  God only knows how many times I'll say it before I die!  God knows He's been trying to teach me for sometime, but I'm still learning. 

I hate slow drivers.  (I often tell people on the freeway that they don't deserve the left lane...)
I don't like waiting in line at the grocery store.
I get really irritated when people get in the express lane to check out and they have more than the allowed number of items.
I don't even like waiting in line for confession.
And...if you've been following this blog for any amount of time you can probably sense that I don't like waiting for love.  Yes, I'm okay waiting for it to be the right love, but that doesn't mean I've enjoyed waiting.  Granted, God has used that time (and continues to use my time) to teach me things that I needed to learn before entering into a relationship but...waiting has never been my strong suit.

So...now that such a love is in my life you would think I could say, "oh woohoo, this wonderful thing I've been waiting for all of my life is here and now I can calm down for a bit."  If you think that I would think that you are horridly wrong.  Patience is a virtue I don't possess.  I always seem to be waiting for something.  Ask any of my friends from college and they will tell you that I always had a countdown going for something, whether it was the weekend, the next break from school, when I got to come home or graduation, there was ALWAYS at least one countdown going.  So what am I waiting for now?  This love that I've been talking about and writing about for months has, by the grace of God, entered into my heart and lifted me up to a joy I've never known before.  And believe you me, I'm soaking up every minute of it.  So what is there to wait for?  If you are a girl reading this blog I can almost guarantee you know what I'm waiting for.  Ok...the sparkly ring on an all-so-important finger is nice, but I'm waiting for a marriage to begin, a life spent serving one another in holiness, constantly encouraging one another to a great holiness.  Lately I've been really struggling with why we have to wait.  Why does the Catholic Church require 6-12 months (depending on the parish/diocese) for marriage prep?  Yes, it is a Sacrament and God knows I've said the following about the Sacrament of Confirmation at least 100 times, "This is the Catholic Church, we don't hand out Sacraments like candy."  So why wait?  I've taken this to prayer a lot in the recent days and weeks (and continue to) and here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Trust. 
I don't always understand the wisdom of the Church.  I respect it, I just don't always understand it...and not just because of my lack of patience.  However, I'm beginning to realize there is a grace from trusting in 2000 years of teaching, theology and tradition, even if you don't always understand it.  It takes more faith to trust despite my impatience and through that faith, God is giving me opportunities to be patience.  (Someone once told me that even though we pray for patience, God doesn't give us patience, rather, He gives us opportunities to be patient.)

2. Learning.
There is so much to learn in a relationship...you have to learn how to fight, how to make up, how to get along with one another's families, how to drive each other nuts, how to make the bed the way the other wants to make it, how to communicate, how to pray together, how to pray for each other and all these things take time.  We may think we know all that know but in reality I think we are just beginning to see those things...they are all things we continue to learn over time.

3. Everyone else.
I've been wrestling with this one the most.  What happens when the two of you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt in the depths of your soul that you are called to spend the rest of your lives together?  And I'm not just talking about me here, I've had a lot of friends know who they were supposed to marry but the time wasn't right, they had to finish college, they needed to get out of debt, they...had a list of practical reasons to hold off on marriage.  Sometimes I think we have to wait because even though we know it in our hearts it takes others (family, friends, the Catholic Church, etc.) a little bit longer to catch on.  Somedays it would be easy to say, "who cares what they think or feel?  We know, and when you know...you know.  End of story."  But you know what?  There is immense joy that comes from sharing your story with others and watching them, however slowly (remember my lack of patience?) catch on and see the joy that radiates from your hearts. 

God, open our eyes to see the opportunities You give us to be patient.  Then, by Your grace, move our hearts to be patient that we might see the glory You have in store for us.  AMEN!