Did You Read the Fine Print?

"In sickness and in health..."

Did you read the fine print in that contract? There must have been something else in those marriage vows that said we wouldn't have to deal with this particular clause just yet. After all, the sickness part is supposed to come when you're old and gray and cripple and incontinent. Not when you're young and still brunette and coincidentally limping and, well, incontinent. Too much information? Sorry. But it's the truth.

But those words that we spoke in our wedding vows in 1998 hold more meaning these days than ever before. Who knew Tony and I would experience "in sickness" so soon? That is something I've resented for quite some time now, but thankfully, he hasn't. He has always had the attitude that God gave us this struggle for a reason and, thankfully, God also gave us the people and resources in our lives to be able to deal with such a struggle. Financial security, flexible jobs, good work support, loving and helpful family and friends, excellent health insurance, knowledgeable doctors...we've got all of those. And we have God to thank. But still, I keep praying for health. For healing. It's what I want...and it's what I probably won't get. I keep searching for methods of acceptance and I'm getting there slowly but surely. But if you know me, you know I'm impatient.

So imagine my surprise when I was instructed to meditate upon the following paragraph for an Ignatian Bible Study that I'm part of with a group called Mary's Moms at church:
"...Acting accordingly, for our part, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short one, and so in all things we should desire and choose only those things which will best help us attain the end for which we are created."

In my journal, I wrote one word...

WHAT???

I was baffled. Dumbfounded. At a loss for words. And I'm rarely at a loss for words. I was downright upset. How is this so? I should NOT prefer health to sickness? So I should want to be sick? That's not right. That can't be right. I've been praying for health. Everyone around me has been praying for me to feel better. I just want my life back! My old life! My old normal! Why shouldn't I? I would be crazy not to prefer health to sickness, my old life to my new one. How can this be?

I was so bent out of shape after reading this I almost had to stop and take a Xanax. But then I thought about my most recent meditation on Mary, which is what I was planning to blog about today, and I realized that she couldn't pop a Xanax every time Jesus stressed her out so I wouldn't either. Meditate, not medicate, I guess. So I took a deep breath.

What are you trying to say, God? I went back in my prayer journal and did some reading. A few pages before I had written something about LISTENING and BEING STILL.

"The Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still." Ex 14:4
"The Lord came and revealed His presence, calling out as before, 'Samuel, Samuel!' Samuel answered, 'Speak, for your servant is listening'." Sam 3:10
"My thoughts are not your thoughts; nor or your ways my ways. As high as the heavens are above the Earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts." Is 55:8-9

I was doing my usual...over-thinking it. I wasn't listening. I was trying to draw my own conclusions.

When I stopped to LISTEN, here is what I heard. I wrote this in my journal.

No one wants to be sick. We don't want to live in poverty or dishonor. We all want to live long lives with our families. So why should we not prefer health, riches, honor? St. Ignatius is referring partially to our WILL and SURRENDER. We should simply prefer whatever God wills for us because what He wills for us is what will bring us closer to Him. He loves us. He chose us. He made us. He will look with favor upon us. He will have mercy on us. Perhaps this is in the same vein as giving us struggles to bring us closer to Him. Not that we WANT struggles, and not that God WANTS us to experience pain of any kind, but that our acceptance of our struggles are a way of uniting us with Christ's passion on the cross. By seizing this opportunity to bring us closer to God, we are helping to ensure our own salvation. It is a gift. We must pray that we learn to use our sufferings (sickness, poverty, etc) to bring us closer to God, to help us SURRENDER.

Now, to be fair, the paragraph I freaked out over was part of a larger Ignatian Principle and Foundation, and we were instructed to meditate on it both in pieces and in its entirety. Once I did the final meditation on it in its entirety, along with the corresponding scripture verses, it all began to make perfect sense. Here is the entire Ignatian principle as it was presented to us:

"Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him fulfill the end for which he is created. From this it follows that man is to use these things to the extent that they will help him to attain his end. Likewise, he must rid himself of them in so far as they prevent him from attaining it.

Therefore we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in so far as it is left to the choice of our free will and is not forbidden. Acting accordingly, for our part, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short one, and so in all things we should desire and choose only those things which will best help us attain the end for which we are created."

Moving on to Psalm 63 "When I think of you upon my bed, through the night watches I will recall that you indeed are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to you; your right hand upholds me!"

And Isaiah 55:1-3
"All you who are thirsty, come to the water!
You who have no money,
come receive grain and eat;
Come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread;
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare.
Come to me heedfully,
listen that you may have life.
I will renew with you the everlasting covenant,
the benefits assured to David."

And now Oprah enters the scene because I had an AHA! moment! It all makes sense now!!!
It doesn't matter what we ask for...HE provides what WE need! Why? Because He loves us. He knows us. He wants ONLY what is best for us. Even suffering, illness, poverty, is an act of love, a blessing, because it is an opportunity to bring us closer to Him! It all makes sense. If we suffer a loss....in my case, a loss of health and the life we knew, it is for a reason. Tony and I may not understand it, but one day it will make perfect sense. Our ultimate goal in our earthly life is to get to a heavenly life. So maybe the path we were on was not going to get us there. Maybe this suffering was for a reason. Maybe letting go of our old life was a blessing, a form of surrender. We just have to listen and be willing to do what He asks. Tony has been doing that all along...now I need to.

So what do we do now?  We pray.  How do we pray?

We "Lay 'Em Down." I hope you do too.

(Enjoy this song...one of my favorites. "Lay 'Em Down" by NeedToBreathe)

Dancing With the Devil in the Pale Moonlight

I can hear Jack Nicholson's Joker asking Batman "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" And since I can't really answer "yes" to that question exactly, I'm going to suggest a revision...

"Have you ever spent the day with the devil on the couch at home, in your pajamas, with unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth, watching trash TV all day?"

Now that's a question I can answer with a resounding YES. I did that just yesterday.

My date with the devil. 
That's the only way I can describe my sheer desire to waste a complete day of my life. It was storming. No, not outside. Inside. I was in a rainstorm. A downpour. A deluge. This icky weather we have today reached me sometime Sunday afternoon when my body decided to spasm up from head to toe following a day of "Who Dat-ing" (which was well worth it, I might add.) But with those spasms came debilitating pain which caused me to miss Sunday night Mass and all of my renewal and rejuvenation from last week was replaced with clouds and rain. Not the best way to start my week. So Monday came and I decided to throw a pity party and have the devil as my only guest. Only I didn't even know I had invited him. I didn't even know he was here. Sneaky little fellow. In fact, he didn't even make his presence known until this morning, when my Date with the Devil was replaced by Coffee with Christ. Here's how that happened.

I was pouring my first cup of coffee this morning while the kids were getting ready for school and Tony was getting ready for work. As I was stirring the cream into my steaming cup, a thought entered my mind...why didn't I pray yesterday? I was so down. I had admitted that I was in a funk. I had thought about praying, about reading my bible and inspirational readings. I had thought about blogging. But I consciously let the hours tick by because I didn't want to pray. I wanted to be lazy. I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I wanted to be upset, angry, tired, down, sad, defeated, nervous, yada, yada, yada. And I got to thinking... could it be the work of the DEVIL? Could the devil be the one who was pulling so strongly to undo all that Christ had done in my life this last week? So as I was drinking my coffee I asked God to please help me to find the will to do SOMETHING with my day today. Anything. And then I continued with my morning routine with the kids. As soon as they left the house, I looked at the TV and considered watching the Today show just for a little while. But somehow I knew if I sat on that couch, I'd have another one of those nothing days.

I sat down at my table with my second (and then third!) cup of coffee and got to reading. As usual, I started with today's "Magnificat" and it put me exactly where I needed to be. I'm going to quote some of it verbatim and it will be kind of long. So please be patient with this post...I think it's all worth sharing.

St. Catherine of Siena (today's Magnificat meditation)
"I am begging you, since it is so delightful, never let any trouble or temptation the devil might give you make you look back; never let your soul give in to sadness or discouragement, for the devil would like nothing better. He likes to give us lots of annoyances and different sorts of struggles, and suggest false judgments against what we are commanded in obedience. He doesn't do this thinking we will fall at the first stroke, but only to lead us to unreasonable sadness and spiritual discouragement. For once he has brought us to sadness and discouragement we become frustrated with ourselves and abandon our spiritual practices, thinking God must not be pleased or satisfied with what we have been doing, since we are experiencing so much darkness and coldheartedness. We seem to have lost the warmth of charity and so we think it better to let go of these practices than to keep them up. Then the devil is happy, because he sees we are ready to be led into despair -- and this is the one way he can get us..."

Yeah, I think I was supposed to read that today.

So that took me back to reading more on Divine Providence (remember, "Because I Said So"?) Two quotes I've come across:
"While the good, though they may suffer for a time, are comforted by God."
"And suffering He uses as an instrument whereby to train men up as a father traineth up his children."
This is all for a reason. We are supposed to be challenged. It is a spiritual battle that the Father, through the life of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit, has been training us for. We have what it takes. We just have to use it. But if only it were that easy...being lazy is easier.

Which brings me to the Garden of Gethsemane. The passages in the bible referring to Jesus' Agony in the Garden are some of my favorite. One day I'll write a post just on that. But for today, I just want to share this...

In the Garden, Jesus was human. He was afraid. He did not want to face his fate. But he knew that he had to. Instead of giving into the temptation of complacency, he prayed. He asked for what he wanted, but acknowledged that the Father's will be done. However, he did ask for one other thing...He asked for Peter, James and John to stay awake and pray with him just a few steps away. Did they? NO. In fact, He gave them THREE chances to straighten up and fly right. But they were lazy. They fell asleep. They were watching trash TV with the devil in their pajamas and their hair was greasy.

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Matt. 36:41

 When I cross referenced the above passage, I came across a word I never read before: Acedia -- "a state of restlessness and inability either to work or to pray." It is compared to depression and is seen by some as being the precursor to sloth, which is one of the seven deadly sins. (Yikes!) And that's where I was yesterday.

The more I read, the more I realized that the tendency to lean towards acedia is the difference between God and man. In the Garden, Jesus was able to move past the temptation to seek pity and was able to pray. The apostles, however, were not. They succumbed to fatigue, depression, sadness. Their vigilance decreased. They were careless. Their flesh was weak. They were discouraged. They failed. They gave in to the temptation. They were watching Toddlers and Tiaras and eating Wendy's.
 Even though they KNEW they shouldn't.


Why is prayer so hard when it is what we need most? That's what confuses me. It seems to me that if prayer is what we KNOW will help us, then it should be easy. A no-brainer. But then again, we know Rob's Donuts aren't good for us, but we eat them anyway. Go figure. But I digress.

Like any diet, prayer takes vigilance. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So this week I am going to work on making my flesh as strong as my spirit. While it's still raining, I will focus on praying THROUGH the rain. I will pray DESPITE the storm. And I'll leave you with a little Casting Crowns...
Praise You In This Storm--Casting Crowns

Because I SAID SO!!!

So, let's face it. If you are a parent, you know what I'm talking about. How many times have you said those words to your kids as an answer to their question "WHY?" I know I say it occasionally. Well, I guess I should be honest. I say it daily. I say it MULTIPLE times daily. And the response I get from my kids is usually one of the following:
1. Turning on their heels and storming off in the other direction.
2. Whining "but moooommmmmm! Please!"
3. A retort of "who made you boss?" or "I'm going ask daddy. Hmph."
4. Tears and "you never give me what I want!!!!!"
And of course, I remind myself that I said "No" and used "Because I said so" as my justification because I can. I am the parent. I know what's best for my children. I expect them to trust my judgment. Let my will be done. As far as parenting goes anyway....

But what about when the shoe is on the other foot? When I was diagnosed with MS, it messed up my plans. If you know me, you know I am a planner to a fault. I was at my prime. Volunteering umpteen hours a week at school. Going places with friends. Having fun on the weekends. Traveling. Buying whatever we wanted whenever we wanted to. Working full time. Contemplating a PhD. Life was good. And I was busy. Never ever stopped. And then it happened...on my way to Mass, of all places. I fell. My leg gave out, just like that. No big deal, right? Little did I know, it was God's way to stop me in my tracks.

As time went on, the stress of being "sick" took its toll. Doctor to doctor, with no diagnosis, and I just thought my worst fear was coming true...I was losing control and losing my mind at the same time. I thought I had just plum gone nuts. So I prayed and prayed for a diagnosis. Then I got one. Then I asked God to take it back. I didn't like it. Yeah, that didn't quite work out. So I watched my "Life Plan" go out the window. I was forced to scale back, to slow down.

WHY? WHY GOD? WHY ME?

And the answer was very simple...

BECAUSE I SAID SO.

I started today reading about something called "divine providence". According to the Catechism of the Catholic Faith, divine providence is "the disposition by which God guides us, his creatures, with wisdom and love to His ultimate end: our perfection. Basically, it refers to God's will. Divine providence is meant to bring us happiness -- eventually. But there is only one way to reach the happiness after the trial--SURRENDER!


In this month's issue of Magnificat, it is written ""at every moment God produces what is needed for the task at hand, and the simple soul, instructed by faith, finds everything as it should be and wants neither more nor less than what it has." This is fortified by what we read in the Catechism "...all are open and laid bare to his eyes, even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of the creatures."

So here is what I've learned today. If we look at God as our Father, and we place ourselves in the position of the child, we need to accept "Because I said so" as an acceptable answer to the question "WHY?" We all have our "Why Me?" moments. And it's OK to question those. And we can respond much like our children do. We can...
1. Turn on our heels and storm off to our rooms. But what good will that do? He can still see us.
2. Whine "but come on God! Pllllleeeeeaaaasssseeee!!!!!" But it won't change anything.
3. Retort and say "who made you boss?" But I'm pretty sure that won't get you anywhere.
4. Tears and say "this is not what I want!!!" This would be acceptable. Even Jesus cried in the Garden of Gethsemane. (More on this to come later this week)

But after we are done pouting and stomping our feet and whining about it, we should try to remember that no matter how much we fight his will, the end result will be the same. And the decisions He has made are always for our greater good. Just look at Mary. I'm pretty sure she thought about telling him NO...and what would have happened to us if she had?

So we have to just try to SURRENDER. Because "what if the trials of this life are his mercies in disguise." --Blessings by Laura Story
 
Now it's almost homework time in our house....I feel some "Because I said so's" coming!

Sometimes Blessings Come Through Raindrops

"What if your blessings come through raindrops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know you're near? What if trials of this life are your mercies in disguise?" -- lyrics from "Blessings" by Laura Story (based on 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

After being sick for almost 3 years and trying to redefine my life, I lost myself. This year, I am on a mission to find myself again and rediscover God's purpose for my life. As a trained journalist and educator, I have always used writing as my preferred method of self-expression. This blog will be a chronicle of my journey through self-discovery. I am not sure what form it will take. But I do know that it will focus on three things:
1. Renewal of Spirit
2. Renewal of Body
3. Renewal of Mind

It will all be within a biblical and Christian context, with Renewal of Spirit coming first. I am a firm believer that once the spirit is renewed, everything else will fall into place.

I choose to believe that God sends us all raindrops -- and sometimes rainstorms -- in our lives in order to help us go through this process of renewal. If that's the case, I am using this 3-year downpour I've been experiencing to bring about new growth. It is in this way that I am taking my Raindrops to Renewal.