We’ve all had days when everything seems to go wrong.
Maybe we’ve had years when we think everything goes wrong.
And when it does, maybe we constantly cry, or grumble, or act like toddlers–because what else can we do? We can’t change it.
Maybe we can’t change it. Many times that’s true. But can we change our ways of looking at it? Absolutely!
If we are going to try to view our situation differently, that means something deep within us will need to change first.
And that something is our faith.
First: Realize that every situation on earth is temporary– our joys and our pain.
Second: Realize we are not alone. As the song says, Everybody Hurts.In fact each one of us on earth is meant to feel another’s pain. (pardon the political expression) We do that with empathy, or compassion. Some people, of course, have more compassion than others, but we need to try to think of others as we would think of ourselves.
Third: Place our faith in someone much bigger than us–God. And then, give our pain to Him.
Here’s what God says about that:
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze. –Isaiah 43:2
Aren’t you amazed at the brilliance of people around us? Smart people who push advances along in science, technology, medicine, physics, and a multitude of so much more.
But are these people necessarily wise?
Intelligence is not the same as wisdom.
Think of someone you consider wise. A parent, or grandparent? A counselor or teacher? A spiritual leader? Do you think they became wise because of their brilliant minds? Or is there something else that makes a person truly wise?
A person may be born with genes of high intelligence. But we are not born with wisdom. We discover wisdom for ourselves, usually after a journey through something dire, a path which must be our own–no one can take it for us.
Is there a better teacher of compassion than one’s own experience of hard times? Is there a better way to learn humility than to make a mistake?
When we face an adverse situation, such as illness or the death of a loved one, we often think about what LIFE actually means.
Of course, not ALL people grow wise from hard times–some grow mean, bitter, and revengeful. So what is the difference?
Could it be spiritual grounding, our belief in God who loves us, who shows us the way, and graces us with strength enough to cope with, and conquer, difficult circumstances?
Today, there may be loads of brilliant people, and surely we have many more advancements in all fields, but in our long history as human beings, it is only wisdom, coming by way of spiritual grounding, that allows us to advance through our struggles.
The following is a very old song, written in 1851 by Stephen Foster, who is known as “The Father of American Music.”
There are times when we go through anguish in our lives. We may feel abandoned and alone.
We may have lost a loved one. We may have lost a job. We may have ruined ourselves in addiction, or in anger or jealousy, destroyed a relationship. We may have a child or parent or spouse who is sick, and we are the caretakers. Or we may be ill ourselves with a disease that has changed our lives forever.
We may drop to our knees and shout for God to help us, but see no change in our situation. All seems hopeless.
And then…..
A voice tells us, “I love you.” A hand we didn’t expect reaches out for us, holds us, dries our tears.
In the lives we live as human beings–all of us will experience pain in some way. The important thing to remember is we are loved by God.
The remedy for our troubles will come from our Trust in God.
And then….
“He will come to us like the rain, like spring rain that waters the earth.” Hosea 6:3
Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday! And congratulations to those of you who are mothers, and to the mothers you had.
If you are a mother, you know that Love–as in “Mama’s Love”–is not a noun with a possessive adjective preceding it. It’s an action, one that lasts a lifetime. I know this from loving my own children. But I also know it from the love of my mother.
I was a shy child, always I wanted my hand in the hand of my mother. And her hand was always there. Sometimes not physically–after all, I had to grow up, be courageous, lose my timidity. She helped me do that. She saw that I loved to draw and gave me art lessons. Everything I drew or painted, she was proud of and showed it off–especially to her Bridge Club, a group of ladies who ended up playing bridge together, once a week for fifty years!
But still, the idea of her hand in mine, and the knowledge she would be there for me, no matter what, was pasted into my thoughts. It gave me security. SHE gave me security. She gave me confidence in myself.
And she prayed for me, and for our family and friends. I remember kneeling around her bed at night for the rosary. Many times I wanted to do something else. For those who are not Catholic, the five decades of the rosary usually end with a prayer to the Blessed Mother, “Hail Holy Queen.” But not for my mother! She went on, with prayers to St. Jude for the sick and hopeless, prayers to St. Michael for our protection, prayers to the Holy Spirit that we might have courage, and on and on. And me? I used to pray for the phone to ring!
My mother was a beautiful woman—really. She received many compliments for that, but she knew people, too. She knew when words were just show, and when they were sincere. “People will sometimes tell you what they think you want to hear. Use your head to determine the truth.” Not to be taken in by everything I read or heard was another thing she passed to me.
My mother had an ability to read people. And sometimes I thought she read them a little too harshly. She was honestly compassionate, but occasionally, she dug her heels in when it came to who I was allowed to be around, or date. My mother had standards, and in her mind, people would either accept her principles, or –should I say?–depart from her company—because she changed her deepest principles for no one. One more characteristic she set into me.
As far as her Faith–it was simple. Simple, yet astounding at times. She grew up Catholic in the Protestant South, one of only three or four Catholics in her high school. She never denied it. She never shrank from it around her Protestant, and Jewish, friends–and she had many, caring about each one. But it was her church she loved and was faithful to, the same little white church I grew up in. One more precious gift–my Faith. So, thank you, Mama. You were and always will be, my Rock.
When people say, “You can’t stop a river from flowing to the sea,” they are usually talking about a force beyond their control–Time.
One definition of Time: A measure in which events are ordered. All of us experience this measuring because we all have a past, we live in the present, and will continue to our future. The certainty of time is that we will grow older, our children will grow older, along with our houses, cars, clothes, the food we buy.
Time is also the measure of durations of events and the intervals between them, such as a day at work or school, a football game, a movie or a play. Sometimes we experience moments when we would like to stop time, especially if our team is winning and we don’t want the other to get ahead.
But only when we die does the time of our life on earth stop. The one certainty in human life is that one day it will end. Except some of us live recklessly, as if it won’t.
By recklessly, I mean we haven’t taken the time to think about why we are here in this span of time, or why we are here at all. In other words, what is our purpose?
The purpose of everything created is decided on by the one who created it. God created us.
He created us to be alive NOW, and at no other time. And He definitely created us with a purpose in mind.
We are set in this particular span of time to work toward that purpose, which is to love and serve others, because when we do, we are loving and serving God.
Today we live in such a needy world. There is so much we can do to serve those who need us! So, let’s make our time here valuable.
Most people believe in angels, and that God created them, but many don’t believe in the devil. Yet the devil was created by God before God created Man.
Frankly, especially today, I don’t see how it’s possible not to believe in the devil, who is evil itself. We don’t have to go to the Middle East to find Satan in action—because he’s certainly here, too—-but what is happening there surely points a finger at personified evil. Consider the recent beheadings of Americans, the crucifixion of Christian children and the burning out of their eyes, the raping of women, burying people alive, destroying their homes, stealing, torturing, defaming, and on and on!
Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.– 1 Peter, Chapter 5:5-9
The devil hates goodness, and goodness is all about God.
So, what is the nature of Satan’s game?
The devil attacks us in our complacencies, where we are, through what we love. And sometimes the devil has a very attractive face–one that’s hard to resist. He lures us by our addictions, the things we think most about, the things we’ve tied ourselves to. He yanks on the chain of those addictions, leading us further and further away from what is good, to what is evil–until we become his devoted ‘pet.’ Then he’s got us just where he wants us.
No, we don’t want to hear this. We say, “Look, I am who I am, and who I am is okay.”
Well, that depends. Because we weren’t given life on earth in order to fulfill ourselves. Believe it or not, each of us has a greater mission than our own existence. There is a reason for our having been born. God knows our mission even if we haven’t yet discovered it. And it has nothing to do with evil, and everything to do with good.
To determine what is good for us requires an informed conscience—an objective conscience, based on what we know to be true. We have to be able to stand outside of ourselves and look into the mirror of what we are becoming. And then, we have to (pardon the expression but I can’t think of a better word)… ..we have to have balls enough to admit it.
The Devil is a liar, who will use any means to get to us–flattery is one of them. That misguided axiom we hold to–“I’m okay, you’re okay no matter what I do, or what you do” is one of his tools. We see it growing day by day in our present society.
The word Satan comes from the Hebrew verb satan meaning to oppose, to harass someone.The word devil is derived from the Greek diabolos meaning an accuser, a slanderer.The Bible says that in the beginning, God created Satan as a good angel, as a beautiful cherub called Lucifer. Lucifer had a superabundance of spiritual gifts, he was also endowed, as we are, with the gift of free will. God left him free to choose good over evil, and, as we know, he chose evil, rebelling against God and taking one third of the angels (now referred to as demons) with him into rebellion.
And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. —Revelation 12:7-9
These angels irrevocably chose through their free will to rebel against God and not to serve Him. When we do the same in our lives, Satan would be the tempter, the one to bring out the fallen nature in ourselves, the one to assist us in tripping and falling, the one to turn us from God.
How can we say he’s not real? And how can we honestly say that we haven’t personally learned a thing or two from him?
When you prepare for an action, how do you gear yourself up? We could learn a lot about preparing from Bumble Bees.
At rest a bumblebee’s body temperature will fall to that of its surroundings. If it wants to fly the temperature of its flight muscles must be raised high enough to enable it. What does the bumblebee do? It shivers. Sort of like we do when we are cold. This shivering can easily be seen in a grounded bee when her abdomen pumps to ventilate the flight muscles. And then she’s up!
If we want to succeed in something, we need to prepare ourselves. If we are involved in sports, we train hard. If we want a good job, we educate ourselves. If we want to go on a great vacation, we plan it. If we want to be successful parents, we learn patience. And if we want to play a musical instrument, we have to practice. (Can’t wait for you to see the video below!)
But above all the training, education, planning, patience, and practice, there is an even greater preparation, and that is the sincere trust that God will lead us in our endeavors, all of our endeavors no matter how big, or small. We can achieve this through prayer.
We don’t have to be on our knees to pray. We can pray anytime, anywhere, in any circumstance. Our prayer does not have to be rote, or long, or complicated. A sincere “Jesus help me,” or “Lord lead me,” or any heartfelt words that link us to God, is enough. So when you want to do something beyond yourself, and are shivering like the Bumblebee, PRAY.
I simply couldn’t do anything without prayer–I mean that literally. I know many of you feel that way. But for those who haven’t tried it, I have one word. DO. And keep doing it. Why? Because prayer is a conversation that opens, and then continues, our relationship with a God who loves us and wants us to love him back.
For me prayer is a surge of the heart, it is a simple look towards Heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. – Saint Therese of Lisieux
In ‘The House of Self,’ where does our moral center lie? Are we all about what’s good for ME only?
What is our motivation when we build ‘The House of Our Self?’ And we do, you know. We build our own house, over and over again. Sometimes it’s an honorable house, sometimes a dishonorable one.
We have been given the perfect tools to build our house. God’s grace offers us love and mercy, but often we reject God’s tools, and instead use flawed tools and build a defective dwelling place for ourselves.
In a post on The Catholic Imagination, I talk about finding God’s love and mercy in the direst of circumstances, and amid the worst actions of people. I am in the last stages of another novel and it, too, shows the availability of those tools God uses. But since it isn’t yet complete, I’m using example from my first novel, A Hunger in the Heart.
In that novel, each of the characters, at one time or another, chooses either the tool of God’s love, or the malfunctioning tool of a saturated self-love. Here is a comparison between the choices of two of those characters; Fig and Clayton.
Both Fig and Clayton are Christians, both believe in God. Clayton’s belief is a ploy, a tool to prosper himself. But Fig’s belief is an authentic expression of love. He acts–which is what legitimate love is—and his action is for another’s benefit because he allows himself to be spurred by the tool of grace.
EXCERPT FROM A Hunger in the Heart. FIG and C.P. Bridgeman are speaking:
“But Boss wasn’t here. He was down at the doctor’s, where Fig had driven him an hour earlier. “You keep my business to yourself,” C.P. had said, huffing up the back steps to theclinic, so he wouldn’t be seen and thought to be afflicted.
Boss hadn’t wanted to go. Fig made the appointment for him after one too many nights of sweats and vomiting and pain in his chest when he woke Fig to sit with him, when he gripped the sheets and sometimes Fig’s hand until the pain subsided. It was then that he wanted Fig to retell the stories about Mama Nem’s good virtues. Just today, the old man wanted to hear how his wife had forgiven his unfaithfulness.
“You sure she said that?” C.P. asked in a halted breath that yanked at the center of Fig’s own chest.
Waiting now until it was time to pick up his boss, Fig rubbed an olive-colored circle into the dust on the hood of the Jeep and saw his reflection there. “Are you good stuff?” he asked the image. And the image clearly answered him. “Well sure, Fig. Ain’t I always behind you?”
Now, quoting from a Goodreads Review of A Hunger in the Heart by Mike Sullivan of The Southern Literary Trail.
Mike says this about CLAYTON JACKSON:
“In Clayton, evil is a palpable force. For Clayton, Jesus is an entity with whom he can bargain. Escaping from prison, he carries with him, a Madonna he had stolen from Putt, the man who saved his life. “‘Remember how you saved me once? Okay, okay. So I fell out of your boat and got sent up the river again. You don’t want me to spend another ten years in that prison do you?’ Then he remembered the statue and felt for it in his pocket. See here? I got your mama. I’m gonna take care of her too, if you just come on, Jesus’ and save me.'”
“Ms. Hinckley addresses the issue of whether a life is so without value it is not worth saving. The resounding answer is no. Every life has value because each person has the possibility to change. It’s a matter of choice.
Without any doubt, the moral center of A Hunger in the Heart is “Fig,” a black man taken into the Boss’s home as a child from Aunt Aggie’s. For Fig there is no black and white. He is in a sense color blind, not only to race, but to all human frailty. He is the Boss’s right hand man. He is the purveyor of forgiveness, the moral compass for young Coleman, and the ultimate key to redemption. Fig serves as the perfect foil to Clayton, or “Sarge.” They are respective representatives of good and evil.”
……..
Like Fig, and like Clayton, we are capable of both genuine faith and superficial faith. We are human. We are flawed. Often we use the wrong tools for the wrong reasons. When we take up the tools that will build our own House of Self, shouldn’t we think hard about the eternal repercussions?
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.- Revelation 3:16
What are your convictions? The principles you live by?
If you were asked to list them, could you?
And if you can list them, would they be honestly YOURS?
Or would the list be only the opinions of someone else?
We need to have well-formed, personal convictions that we will stand up for, regardless of danger, embarrassment, or our own timidity .
How do we get that? Oftentimes, our convictions come from our family upbringing. We develop ideas from the ideas of our parents. Of course, many of us discard those convictions as we get older, believing them old-fashioned, or out-of-date in a fast, high-powered world.
Today, many of the principles we once lived by seem to have been thrown out the window and traded-in for popular opinion. We don’t want to appear different from others, so we look at media personalities and take on their personas rather than develop our own.
Why do we do this? Is it because creating convictions requires deep thought and we simply don’t have, or take, time to do that? We have little silence in our world. And the multitude of noises that daily assault us don’t allow for much critical thinking.
Well, we have to make time. Carve it out of our day; it’s that important. Because our thoughts always precede our actions. Our thoughts present us with a choice, and our choice is based on the convictions we hold.
Each of us as an individual is so very important to life itself. We may not think we are, but we are part of a plan in the mind of a God who loves us. He has given us a part to play in this world that He put us in. In this time, in whatever place we are, our convictions are important.
Indeed, the strong convictions of even one person can better the universe in ways we may never suspect or understand.
Let’s think about our convictions. Let’s not be without principles.
Let’s not be afraid to express them, and to act on them.
Let’s not be wishy-washy about what we believe.
People disagree. But God allows for heart-felt belief on every side of any issue. He expects that we will have thought about it though. In fact, I believe He demands us to come up with our own personal, and well-thought out, convictions of the heart.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight
in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes,
always perseveres.
Love perseveres.
Because most of the time loving is difficult.
It may require a patient waiting.
How many times have you set out chairs for your wants and patiently waited for them to be filled?
If you’re like me–not many times, not patiently anyway.
Today’s world is one of instant gratification. We are like toddlers. We don’t want to wait. We want it and we want it NOW.
Sometimes we even become impatient with God when He doesn’t seem to ‘get it,’ and answer our prayers as we’d like Him to. There are some who get tired of waiting, and give up on God altogether–never mind that He might have an even better plan than our own.
But how long has God waited for us–to really grow up, to learn what’s truly important? How long has He waited for us to change our wayward lives?
Am I in a hurry to do that?
Not really. Yet God perseveres. He remains, always there for me, and for you, as if each of us is His favorite child, as if no one matters more to Him. God waits for us with infinite patience. He expects the same from us in our relationships with family and friends.
My five children know that each of them is my favorite. I think they know I’ll always be there for each of them. I hope my grandchildren know it, too.
Since she was an infant, I’ve been helping to raise one of my granddaughters. To say that it requires perseverance and patient love is an understatement. From infancy, through toddler-hood, through three year old tyrant, she and I have been through some times! She is now five, and I haven’t always been as patient as I could have. However, I try to persevere.
I wouldn’t take anything for my experience thus far—not anything for my sixth ( close-up) opportunity to watch a child develop and grow.
Oh yes, sometimes it’s crazy. Sometimes it’s loud, Sometimes there are tears–on both sides. That’s just the way it is with children.
But then comes the warmth of arms, the kisses, the smiles, and most rewarding- –the irreplaceable words: “I love you, Grandmommy.”
…….followed immediately by: “Will you paint my fingernails again?”
“Again?”
Again. What a word!
Again? Yes again. And again. As long as it takes, for as long as I’m here. I will try to be patient and to persevere. I will be there to do what I need to do.
And God will be there, too, waiting for me to do it.
Translating a World on the Edge 