NOW is the Present Moment!

     “The present moment is like an ambassador who declares the will of God. The heart must ever answer, ‘Let it be so.’ Then the soul will go steadily on by all means towards its target and goal—never pausing in its course, spreading its sails to all winds. All routes and methods advance it equally in its journey toward the great sea, the infinite. Everything becomes an instrument of sanctification. The soul always finds the ‘one thing needful’ in the present moment.

     It is no longer a matter of prayer or silence, privacy or conversation with others, reading or writing, thinking or abandonment of thought, seeking spirituality or avoiding overconcern with it, abundance or want, illness or health, life or death; the one thing needful is simply what comes to the soul each moment by the will of God. This includes the stripping, the self-denial, the renunciation of earthly things, in order that the soul may be nothing in itself or live for itself, but may live wholly by God’s will, and at His good pleasure content itself with the duty of the present moment, as though that were the one thing in the whole world.”                                                                                                                                                                                            Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade


     I had prayed and asked God for guidance in choosing a book to read this Lent; One which would strengthen my walk with Him.

      To my surprise, The Joy of Full Surrender by Jean-Pierre de Caussade, an adaptation of Abandonment to Divine Providence, was the book that kept coming into my mind. I had read it many years ago and it had had a great impact on me. “It must be the time to re-read this again, due to certain situations in my life.”

The Agony of Defiance!

     Lent could not come fast enough for me this year! Life was not as I liked, therefore, an inner restlessness and lack of peace once again, invaded my being. Due to this restlessness, an inordinate attachment, with which I have struggled, on and off again for years, was rearing its ugly head and becoming my unwelcomed guest.

     I had the misguided idea, that with the arrival of Ash Wednesday, I would miraculously be able to overcome myself and “just say no!” I truly believed that Lent would be the vehicle God would use to help me regain my self-control.

     Boy was I wrong!

The Lord's Direction

     It’s been over 10 months since my last post on Avia Joy.

     At the time, I wondered if it would be my last. Papa had not revealed that to me. I only knew that out of obedience, I was to stop blogging, until inspired to do otherwise.