Freed from the Mire

 “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped” Jer. 20:7.

That scripture, those thoughts, that idea, was being seared into my mind, and deep within my being. Again, and again and again. The evil one wanted me to agree, accept and own that truth…except it wasn’t truth. It was a downright lie! Jesus warned us about the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” Jn.8:44-45.

ALL WILL BE WELL

   “But there are some things that you cannot be sure of. You must take a chance. If you wait for perfect weather, you will never plant your seeds. If you are afraid that every cloud will bring rain, you will never harvest your crops. You don’t know where the wind blows.” Ecclesiates 11:4

     It’s been three years since my husband, and I went on our pilgrimage to France. 

     My dream was to go to Lisieux to visit the sites of St. Therese, my love, while Jonathan’s was to encounter Normandy Beach. Neither happened. Quite unexpectedly, only twenty-four hours after we landed, my husband experienced a very serious medical issue, which landed him in the hospital for the remaining time of our pilgrimage, minus one day. Although we were both very disappointed, we were just happy to get home alive. I remember kissing the ground when we landed.

Trust Me, Receive and Be Satisfied.

 

       “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.”

 

     We were already into the second week of Lent, and I was a failure!

God's Will: A Treasure Unearthed

      “Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals to us what is alive in us. The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know. Thus, writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves: I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write. Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. Once we dare to ‘give away’ on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath these thoughts and gradually come in touch with our own riches.”                                                                                                                                                            Henri Nouwen

    For some time, I have avoided the urge to write. I did not feel as though I’d be “gradually coming in touch with my riches.” 

     It is true that in writing, we do discover what lives in us. There are times when admitting to “that life within,” is not something we want to reveal to ourselves, let alone to others.

     But the call to write and mine the findings became stronger than my reluctance. I had to be true to my calling from God and begin the journey.

A Babe in Mary's Womb

     I sat at my computer, one day in mid-April, scrolling through my emails. There were so many each day, that I did my best to go through them daily, reading those I judged valuable and deleting the others.  

      A women’s apostolate, whose blog I read on occasion, was inviting its followers to make a consecration to our Lady. 

     I quickly deleted the email because I had made several consecrations to Mary and did not feel called to do another one. Good, I thought, no need to put something else on my plate. Besides, I have a wonderful relationship with Mama Mary, and I do not see the need to even entertain the thought. 

     Delete. Done. Finished! 

Come Out from Behind the Chair

      “God’s love calls us to move beyond fear. We ask God for the courage to abandon ourselves unreservedly, so that we may be molded by God’s grace, even as we cannot see where the path may lead us.”                                                                                                                      St. Ignatius of Loyola                            

      “During my quiet prayer time, an image began to play out in my mind’s eye. I came to full attention because it was rare for something like this to happen to me.

Be A Pilgrim--Not A Tourist

       “The human heart plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps." Proverbs 16: 9

    It was almost 9 years ago, that I experienced my first group pilgrimage. Sometime before we left, we met as a group with the priest who would be leading us on our journey. I was very excited and couldn’t wait to hear all the details about our trip.

I Surrender!!!

      “Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come! For see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning the vines has come, and the song of the dove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance. Arise, My beloved, My beautiful one, and come!”                Song of Songs 2: 10b – 13

     God was calling me to be with Him. To go and take a break from the difficult 6 months that were now behind me.

     I felt weary. I felt tired. I felt spent! Like a closed stuffy room, I needed to cast open the windows and allow some fresh air to blow through me. I longed for the Spirit of God, to breathe new life in me. I was still reeling with the effects of everything I’d been through, and Papa was well aware of it.

Trust--We Know the One Who Knows

      “Trust in the Lord with all you heart, on your own understanding rely not.” Proverbs 3:5

     As I awoke on New Years Day, 2024, a spirit of fear was threatening to take away my peace and acceptance.

Relying on the Rock

     “Only in God be at rest my soul, for from Him comes my hope. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.”                                         Psalm 62: 7

     I wanted so to pray that psalm in truth but could not. I was far from feeling peace…in fact, I was downright full of fear! I had experienced something traumatic, and the image was emblazed in my mind. It was haunting me! The scenario kept playing itself over and over in my memory, filling me with fear.

TRUST ME

     “Do you believe that I am the Son of God? And do you believe that I died for all men and women and that I rose from the dead? Then why do you continue to be distracted and anxious about your loved ones? Do they not also belong to me? Would I refuse to work in their lives just as I work in yours? I have not put you in charge of saving them. Your task is to love, to forgive, to pray for them and to turn them over to Me. Come closer to Me yourself and I will do the rest. TRUST  Me!"                      Author Unknown

     As I entered our adoration chapel, I saw a dear friend. We hadn’t seen one another for a little while because she’d been away, visiting family. No one but Jesus was in the chapel, so I bent down to give her a long overdue hug and welcomed her back.

     I sat next to her, and she asked me about my cares and concerns. When she was away, I had texted her, to ask for prayers: I was experiencing spiritual suffering. She is a mighty intercessor, and I knew her prayers would make a difference. Although I was uniting my suffering for my special concerns with Jesus, it was still very difficult. 

He Must Increase; I Must Decrease

     “So many hours of work and now it is ruined—but it isn’t really so at all. Every stitch was taken for Jesus and was an offering of love to Him, but He wanted so much more. He wanted it all to come to nothing to see if it really was wholly for Him.”        Mother Aloysius of the Blessed Sacrament

     I like to have control. I like to be in control! That’s correct. You’ve heard right. I’ve admitted it. I’ve said it out loud in this vast blogsphere. So, writing a spiritual blog at times for me, is very difficult.

Avoiding Storms

  “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in Thee my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of Thy wings, I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.”                 Psalm 57:1

     For well over a month, I felt like I had one foot in heaven and the other on earth. I was still astonished   over the many blessings I had experienced, and my heart was full of gratitude to God. I was well aware that this would not last, but I never expected just how low I could be brought down.

Let Me Provide

     For well over a year now, God has been hitting me over the head to accept His will in my life, as it is presented to me and to truly trust Him.

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.”

A Time to. . .

     It’s been over four months since I’ve posted anything!

     That wasn’t exactly my plan, and to be quite honest with you, I really don’t know what is happening with Avia Joy.

     She was quite a surprise, no, a shock to me, when God placed her on my mind and heart, five years ago. I didn’t know what a blog was, let alone how to create and operate one. But I trusted God and took one step at a time, and she flourished and grew, and so did I.

     Avia Joy was born at a time in my life, when a door was slammed shut suddenly and unexpectedly! My heart felt crushed by the betrayal I was experiencing. God breathed new life into my heart, when it felt as if it were broken. God used the situation to show me that He would never forget or forsake me, but would use the situation for my good. . . and He did. He sent people into my life that would assist me in giving birth and life to Avia Joy.

     My experience taught me how to wait on the Lord and His timing, for the inspiration to write what my audience, His children, needed to hear.

     It also taught me how to let go of control, something that I still struggle to do, when God is telling me, not yet, not now, the answer is no, and, will you trust Me?

     Avia Joy has ministered to me and taught me so very much on my journey with God. It is my hope and prayer that she had helped you grow to love and trust God in a richer and fuller way.

     I am not sure if this is the end of Avia Joy or not. In my heart, I don’t want it to end. . . Not Now… Not Yet. As scripture tells us: “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot the plant” (Ecc 3:1-2.

     It is uncertain to me, at this time, whether or not I will be posting again. I will remain open to continuing, if it is God’s will for me at this time in my life. He has been keeping me so very busy, and blogging has not been part of the busyness. As time unfolds, it will become evident just want the good Lord is asking of me.

     Until then, let us keep one another in prayer, that we will always accept and recognize the path that God has marked out for us. Although it is not always the road we’d choose ourselves, we must remember, because it is our Papa’s will for us, is it always the path that will lead us to eternal life.

     “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope” (Jer 29: 11).

    

Just Surrender

     “Love will consume us only in the measure of our self-surrender.”
                                                                                   St. Therese of Lisieux


     As I read those words, they pierced my heart with a deep wound!

     Even though I yearn for God’s love to consume me, I am still so very filled with self-will! It is evident in the many areas of my life, where I wrestle with God’s plan because -- I want my own way!   

He Who Makes Us Desire, Grants Our Desire

     “More than ever, I understand that the smallest events of our life are conducted by God; He is the One who makes us desire and who grants our desires.             
                                                                                                 St. Therese of Lisieux

     We all have dreams and desires of our hearts; some we’ve had for a long time, whiles other fairly new: our vocation, children, goals in life, places to visit, a home, spiritual hopes and the such.

     As our lives unfold, our desires are fulfilled or not. Like the seasons, they change and sometimes even fade away, while others come to fruition, grow and blossom.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

     I don’t often pray for fair weather, but in this situation, I felt as though I should.

     We had planned an “end of summer BBQ” and had chosen the day which would work best for us to host.

     Several days before the event, while heading into the chapel, I received a text from one of the guests: Would you consider changing the date because the weather was not going to be nice on Sunday? Monday was going to be sunny and hot. The children would enjoy themselves much more if they could go swimming in the nicer weather.

Total Abandonment

     “To us, weak creatures, the idea of a complete, final surrender often is frightening, but that is because we do not know God well enough. The fact is that God’s will for us is always for our happiness and when we do surrender to it, it is to our own happiness that we are abandoning ourselves.”       
                                                                                  Caryll Houselander


     Complete and final surrender: we run from it! Since our fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, humanity has always wanted to pick and choose for themselves: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abraham and Sarah, and on and on and on. We think we know what is best for us, and at times, become our own little god, by manipulating events in the direction we see fit. We refuse to accept the reality of our lives and instead, sabotage the outcome.