PLEASE SAVE ME FROM MYSELF!!!!!

      “Mary’s childlike trust consists in giving a full yes to God – without knowing everything this yes implies. This complete yes is full of trust, not of detailed knowledge of what is to come. In his encyclical on Mary, Pope St. John Paul II captured this dimension of her faith: ‘To believe means ‘to abandon oneself’ to the truth of the word of the living God, knowing and humbly recognizing ‘how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways’ (Rom. 11:33)’ (Redemptoris Mater, no. 14). Mary teaches us how to say yes, too, with her childlike simplicity and trust, even when the full truth often lies in darkness.”                                                                                                                                                                                                 Icon of Trust – Fr Slawomir Szkredka

     Unlike our Mother Mary, I have been struggling with giving my full yes to God.    

     I feel like I have been living under “the cloud of unknowing” for the last year and a half. I wrestle with God Who asks for my full and complete trust.

     If this seems to be a recurring theme in my blogs, it’s because it’s been my reality for some time now. I thought I had some control. But if I’m being completely honest with myself, I’ve never had control of the happenings of my life. At times, it has felt as though I did. 

     Although I realize it was an illusion, when I felt confident of orchestrating things, I was very happy and secure in this world of fantasy. 

      I cannot avoid this untruth any longer, if I want to be true in my relationship with Papa. I have decided to bring it out into the light and expose the lie: I want to know. I want to understand and have a detailed knowledge of what is to come. Like our mother Eve, I too want to eat of the tree of knowledge and hesitate in giving my complete yes to God to the unknown that still lies in darkness.

     God help me!!!!! Please, save me from myself!!!!!

     Intellectually, I know that I don’t really want to have the detailed knowledge of what is to come. As I look back on so many incidents in my life, I am grateful to have been shielded from the information of future events. God gave me the grace and strength to deal with whatever it was and that hasn’t changed. Those difficult experiences in life did help me to grow and stretch in ways like nothing else could. So why do I fear? Why do I hesitate to say yes? Why do I doubt God’s plan for me?  I guess it’s because I want life to be easy, predictable, and the way I’d like it to be. I want my husband and I to grow old together, go back to France, and all my children, their spouses and our grandchildren be happy, healthy and faith filled. You might say I want heaven on earth. Skip the suffering part of life and be canonized without all that purification and dying to my will. I chuckle as I write this, but wouldn’t it be great if it were true?

     Then I hear my favorite saint Therese say, “Jesus points out to me the only way which leads to Love’s furnace – that way is self-surrender – it is the confidence of a little child who sleeps without fear in its father’s arms.”

     St. Therese gave her complete yes to God, and her life was at times, very difficult. I want to be that little child who falls asleep without fear in its father’s arms. I want to grow in trust and be led to Love’s furnace – to the heart of the Father!

     In the story of the Soul, Therese’s autobiography, she says, “It is true, I am not always faithful, but I never lack courage. I leave myself in the Arms of Our Lord. We must abandon the future to Him.”

     Maybe I lack courage?! Maybe that is what I need to pray to receive.

     In “The Wisdom of St. Patrick,” Greg Tobin, the author states, “Courage is not the opposite of fear. We all live with fear, day in and day out in virtually every aspect of our lives. Courage is the ability to accept fear and turn it into an asset; courage operates hand in hand with faith. God would not bring me this far in the journey to drop me into the abyss, to abandon me to my enemies (real and imagined). Courage is a lightener of the spirit. Courage means that not only has God not abandoned me, but I have not abandoned God.”

     I know that in my times of travail, God did not abandon me. I must not abandon Him now by doubting in His love and goodness; by withholding my complete and full yes!

     I must turn to our Mother Mary, given to us by her Son Jesus from the cross, and “ask that she form in me her heart with her trust, docility, readiness to be surprised by God, ability to remember Gods acts, willingness to become collaborators in God’s plan of salvation, and finally her faithfulness at the darkest hour” (Icon of Trust by Fr. Szkredka)

     We all need to beg our good Mother to help us to stand steadfast with God, and trust in the darkest moments of our lives, when everything within us want to run! We must be courageous and “turn fear into an asset”, as the muscles of our faith are strengthened, and we imitate our Lady saying yes to the unknown.

     If we can do this, we may just hear her say, as she did to St. Juan Diego, “Listen, put it into your heart, youngest and dearest son, that thing that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing. Do not let your countenance, your heart be disturbed. Do not fear this sickness of your uncle or any other sickness, nor anything that is sharp or hurtful. Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more?”

     Dearest Mother Mary, we your children come before you, to ask for the special grace to remember that you are holding us in the crossing of your arms. With that in mind, help us to remain undisturbed with life’s unexpected detours, as we navigate through dark and uncertain times. Keep us in the hollow of your mantle and under your shadow and protection. May you always be the source of our joy and comfort. May we become like you and imitate your childlike trust, enabling us to always give God our full and complete yes. Amen.