Psalm 16

Today's psalm is one about trusting in God. Gosh, there's that theme again. Trust in God. In this particular instance, it's about resting secure in God's protection and love. Can I be honest? I still struggle with this one. The last couple of days have been hard for me as my seemingly ever-constant companion depression has reared its ugly head. Whenever that happens, it makes it difficult to feel so secure and loved by God.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. (verses 5-6)

This is about the most true part of this psalm for me. I have chosen the Lord and the place where I dwell is pleasant inasmuch as I know the love of family and friends. I am also deeply grateful for the heritage I have from my upbringing and the faith of my ancestors who guarded and passed down the flame of faith to each successive generation. Because I have chosen the Lord, I know He will provide for me and my family and there is -- despite my struggles -- security in that.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure. For You do not give me up to Sheol, or let Your faithful one see the Pit. You show me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy; in Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (verses 7-11)

I have to admit that the past three years have made this part of the psalm harder for me. I've been plodding my way along the path, trying to remain obedient and faithful, but depression clouds my ability to hear His counsel and the nightmares definitely keep me from resting secure. The struggles with these illnesses also tend to make it harder to stand firm and not be moved.

The hardest of all, when it comes to depression and the practice of faith, is that last verse. When the darkness drags you down so low that you just want it to go ahead and swallow you whole, it makes it even harder to experience what the psalmist seems to experience so easily -- joy. I'll be honest and say that for me, joy in the Lord is something that I haven't experienced in a very long time. Even with all the spiritual healing that has taken place, joy is elusive and appears absent. Perhaps one day I will experience that joy again. I suppose I just need to trust in God and His timing.

Until next time...

Pax Christi!

Psalm 15

There are quite a few psalms that echo one another and this is one such psalm. When I first read it, a worship song called "Who Will Ascend" from my years in the Vineyard movement came almost immediately into my head. That particular song is based on Psalm 24, but as I looked at the cross reference notes, I discovered that Psalm 24 is, in part, an echo of Psalm 15:

O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander with their tongue, and do no evil to their friends, nor take up a reproach against their neighbors; in whose eyes the wicked are despised, but who honor those who fear the Lord; who stand by their oath even to their hurt; who do not lend money at interest,  and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved. - Psalm 15

The psalmist is most certainly referring to the Temple of the Lord on earth and is writing about the kind of behaviour which is expected of those who present themselves to the Lord in His Temple. Obviously, this can also be seen as a metaphor for heaven. God is, of course, omnipresent, but we are bound by our humanity to one place at a time during this life. Once we die, we exist outside of time as God does and if we have died in His friendship, then we will dwell on His "holy hill" -- that is to say, heaven -- for all eternity.

That said, looking at this list of things, it seems a bit daunting. To walk blamelessly is to live completely righteously. How on earth do we manage that one? I know I'm not nearly as righteous as I want or need to be. To do what is right is another thing the psalmist lists. Do you happen to do the right thing absolutely all the time? I know I don't. To speak the truth, not slander others, to despise wickedness (that is, sin), and to honour holiness are all part of the list and I can honestly say that I have done the exact opposite of those on numerous occasions.

So how do we get to a place where we can be blameless before the Lord when we die? The easy answer is that we must put our faith in Jesus and do everything He commands us to do in His word. The two biggest commands are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Neither of those is easy, but both are required. We simply cannot neglect them.

But no one is perfect and while we ought to aim for being perfect as the Father is perfect, we will fall short of that mark. When we fail Him, we must confess our failings, repent from our sin, and make a firm amendment to sin no more. As Pope Francis said, the name of God is mercy and when we come to Him, He is faithful to forgive us because of His great mercy. No matter how many times we fall off the wagon, we must turn back to Him again and again and seek His mercy. He, like the father of the prodigal son, sees us when we are far off and comes running to meet us, arms thrown wide to embrace us, forgive us, and celebrate that we are home once more.

To reach God's holy hill is a journey and one where we must daily put our faith in Him anew, confess our faults, and receive His mercy. That daily confession of our faith in Him and making amends for when we stumble is how we learn to see His face more clearly and eventually, with perseverance to the end, receive the prize for which we are striving.

Until next time...

Pax Christi!

Catching Up and Psalm 14

It's been quite a few days since my last Psalm post. I had intended to do one post each day as a part of my promise to God to read through the Psalms, write meditations on them, and post them here on my blog. If you've been following along and reading, my apologies for not keeping up better. Last week was Holy Week and with all the activity on top of the regular day to day stuff, writing these meditations kinda got shunted down toward the bottom of my priority list in favour of being able to rest properly. So, I'm back at it again, trying to do one each day. Here's my thoughts on Psalm 14.

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Psalm 14

Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on human kind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no not one. (Psalm 14:1-3)

"There is no one who does good." Wow. That's a kind of heavy statement. No one? All have gone astray? It paints a rather bleak picture of humanity. And as bleak as it is, I have to admit that the psalmist has it right. All of us are kinda messed up. I know I am.

I don't mean messed up in the sense of having issues or problems, but rather as in being prone to sin rather than virtue. I will echo St. Paul here: "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am the foremost." (1 Timothy 1:15) In other words, I suck and I know it. It's part of the lovely human condition that we inherited from Adam and Eve: original sin. We are washed free of the stain of that original sin in our baptism, but our concupiscence -- that is to say our basest appetites which often run contrary to what reason tells us we ought to do -- remains. It is this temptation to ignore what we know is the right thing to do that leads us into sin. It's why all of us go astray in one way or another.

Obviously the psalmist is speaking about a specific group of people he sees who are foolish enough to deny God and turn away from Him or do evil against the righteous, but I think it's particularly interesting that St. Paul references this Psalm in Romans 3. He begins that chapter talking about the Jews' special status that is promised to them by God's fidelity despite the various infidelities committed by the Jewish people throughout history. Then he goes on to say that we are all under the bondage of sin (Romans 3:9) and then references this Psalm in verses 10-12 to emphasize the point.

As I said, it sounds like a pretty bleak kind of thing to say that no one is good or does good, but it's true that we are a messed up bunch of sinners. So why try to do the right thing? Why not give ourselves over to total debauchery and depravity if nothing we do is good?

Because despite our sinfulness and inability to totally resist the temptation to sin, we who are in Christ have the gift of grace and that grace is what saves us. It is what helps us overcome temptation and choose to do good. It helps us grow in holiness on this earth so that one day, when we stand before Christ, He will judge our deeds as righteousness and say to us, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master."

That's the goal -- to get to heaven. Part of getting to heaven is to do everything that He commands of us (Matthew 28:20) and that means cooperating with God's grace to resist sin, to do good works, and to persevere in faith until the end.

Is it easy? No, definitely not. Is it worth it? Without a doubt.

Until next time...

Pax Christi!

Psalm 9

Today's psalm is the longest one I've read thus far in this little exercise, but I know it's not the longest to come yet (Psalm 119 may have to be spread over a few days!). Given its length, I decided to take a slightly different tactic for this meditation. As I always do, I read the psalm in my Bible and then left it for a little bit. More specifically, I went and took a shower. I don't know about y'all, but I do some of my best thinking in the shower. Well, wouldn't you know it, I didn't think much about it at all. Instead, my brain went a thousand other directions. As I was coming back to it, I decided that instead of focusing on the entire psalm, I was only going to focus on a single passage from it. In this case, it's a couple of verses.

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know Your name put their trust in You, for You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You. (verses 9-10)

This particular passage kinda jumped out at me because of the word "oppressed." As I said in one of my previous posts, I've been seeing all the red flags that would normally indicate demonic oppression for well over a year. Gray has said several times in the last three years that he believes that the severity and lengthiness of this episode of depression is due to some kind of attack by the enemy. Any other time I would have agreed with him, but when you're struggling amidst such heavy darkness, it's hard to see light or anything -- much less actually discern spirits.

I think another reason that he probably arrived at that conclusion was because of the drastic change in my spiritual life. It's not that I suddenly stopped going to Mass or doing the base level required stuff, but I lost my ability to connect to it, to find joy in it, and most of all, began to struggle with even wanting to do the basics. I found Mass to be emotionally tortuous at times and an especially agonising challenge most of the rest of the time. For a good portion of the last three years, I participated as a cantor (someone who sings the Psalms and Gospel Acclamation for Mass) and soloist as well as being a regular chorister. I felt like I had an obligation and that people were counting on me, so I stayed and I was honestly miserable. It got to a point where I not only dreaded Sunday mornings, but found that I had no desire to go at all. At some point, I began to feel a kind of revulsion at the idea of attending Mass and even told my big brother Chez that I just didn't want anything to do with anything of faith anymore.

Still, I pushed forward. I went through the motions week after week, month after month. I began to despair that I would never find any peace with my faith or with my relationship to God ever again. At one point, I began to question whether everything I'd always believed was really true or was just something someone made up. That was the lowest point. In that dark valley, apathy set in and the only thing that made me get up and go to Mass on Sundays or pray blessings at meal times and bedtime prayers with my children was my love for my children and my desire to be a good example of them. I wanted them to see me as someone who was struggling, but still continuing to practice her faith, so that some day when life hits them with something that causes them to be angry at God or question their faith, they'll maybe recall my example.

I don't remember what pulled me out of that low point exactly, but I know whatever it was, grace was behind it. A little less than year ago, I began seeing Fr. B for spiritual direction. That was when my faith began to change. It wasn't overnight or even after a few months. It took a good six months before I noticed anything at all. It had been happening gradually, but one Sunday evening when we'd gone to Mass, I realised that I hadn't felt so annoyed and angry. At some point after that, I had several bad weeks in a row with my depression. Given how bad things had become, Fr. B and I stepped up our meetings to every week instead of every 2-3 weeks.

I knew when I walked into the first of those weekly meetings and saw Father's purple stole, holy oil, holy water, a small hand sized Benedictine crucifix, Father's Bible, and a very worn looking small leather book that things were about to get serious. It was about to go down spiritually. That day Father heard my confession, anointed me with the Oil of the Sick for healing, and prayed prayers of deliverance over me. To say that it was intense is an understatement. As he prayed, he blessed me several times with the holy water and touched the crucifix to my head. I started bawling at some point and just kept crying and crying and crying. After he was done, I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. I wasn't sure if I felt different, but I knew that I was actually looking forward to spending some time with Jesus once Father and I parted ways.

We walked over to the church and he gave me the Eucharist and then left me to pray. I spent the next hour and a half praying, crying, praying some more, crying a lot more, and then I did something I hadn't done of my own volition in a long time -- I sang. It was just a simple Latin chant that I know and that was all I sang, but I sang. Don't get me wrong, I didn't feel great paroxysms of joy, but I sang. It was kind of a big deal. When I left, I felt emotionally lighter.

It didn't last though. That's the thing about experiencing spiritual attack or oppression. It's rarely over and vanquished in one go. I think that's because demons are kinda persistent. It's not much consolation at the time, especially if you've been suffering as long as I have, but you have to ignore that it sucks and be more persistent than the demons. So I went back the next week and the next and the next and the next. Before I knew it, Christmas was approaching and both my schedule and Father's got very busy. Then we went out of town for the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year's to visit Gray's family.

After Christmas, I set up another meeting with Father, but we didn't resume at our weekly pace. It was back to every 2-ish weeks. Then February hit and my mood took a serious nosedive. We stepped up our meetings again and Father continued to pray both deliverance and other prayers over me, hear my confession, anoint me, and give me the Eucharist. I continued to spend an hour or so after meeting with him to pray and talk to Jesus. Somewhere toward the end of the month, something significant happened. I didn't see it at the time, but Father did. He had told me earlier in that meeting that he really believed that my depression had both psychological and spiritual causes. I halfheartedly agreed with him in the moment, but was still clinging to not wanting to see oppression where it was clearly present.

After that meeting, my mood improved and I found I had more energy emotionally and physically. I found that I was actually enjoying some things, laughing more often, being less grouchy with my children, and that I was looking forward to things in the future in a way I hadn't before. It took another week for me to make the connection between how I was feeling and the spiritual side of my depression.

It's been about three weeks since that happened and although I've had some bad days, my mood has been more or less at the same level. I'm not joyful or what I'd call happy, but this feels different. I told Gray today that I'm starting to feel more like myself. I've been wondering in the last couple of weeks if how I'm feeling means that I'm turning a corner with the depression. I've been very nervous about even thinking that because I've experienced such disappointment in the past when I thought things might be getting better, but today, I found a kind of peace about it. Whether or not this is a harbinger of good things to come, I don't know, but I'm accepting it for what it is for right now.

So why the long story? Because at some point in all this mess, I realized in a very palpable way that I was definitely being oppressed and that motivated me to put my trust ever more firmly in the Lord. In some ways, I think my insistence on not believing that it was oppression protected me in a way. I needed to find my way back to God, to have some healing take place in that relationship, to let go of a lot of the anger before I could be in a place where I could call my God my stronghold and actually believe that He wouldn't forsake me in my time of trouble.

The other thing that I realized as I read this verse is that despite my anger, despite how far from Him I ran, I was still looking back over my shoulder at Him and trusting Him on a certain level. My stronghold was in Him all the time, but I just didn't know it. That obedience and that desire to have my children see some better example about faith in me, that was my trusting in Him to not abandon me (even though I felt abandoned). The reality is that He didn't and He won't and that is what I must cling to when all seems lost.

Until tomorrow....

Pax Christi!

Psalm 3

This psalm really hits me where I live. There's so much that speaks to me in it that I could honestly write two or three blog posts on it with no problem at all. Of course when I say that it hits me where I live, I'm talking about depression -- more specifically, the depressive episode I've been struggling through in the last three years.

O Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me; many are saying to me, "There is no help for you in God." (verses 1-2)

Recently, on a couple of different occasions, Fr. B has said to me that he thinks that I've been dealing with not only the psychological part of depression but a definite spiritual part too. I've struggled mightily with my faith for most of this episode and still struggle with it even now at times. Gray has posited on many occasions that he believes I'm being spiritually attacked or oppressed. I'll admit, I've been reluctant to believe that. What I've been seeing are all along are all the signs of spiritual oppression and I've been ignoring them because I didn't want to believe that there was anything demonic going on.

Part of this is that I used to go to a church before I became Catholic where there were some people who saw demons under every rock and attributed demonic influence or attack to nearly any problem. Prayers for deliverance were pretty standard. I even went through prayers for deliverance from depression back then and when nothing happened, I grew very bitter toward the practice. What changed was that I trust Fr. B and his discernment. He's not the sort to see demons everywhere, so when he senses that there's something going on, he is serious. I had been very resistant to any kind of deliverance prayers or ministry until he and I started meeting for spiritual direction. My trust in him allowed me to put my hesitancy aside and let him pray prayers of deliverance over me. And this time, little by little, the various things that had kept me at odds with my faith started dissolving.

Despite this, I still resisted the idea until I had a very powerful experience of being spiritually attacked that frightened me so much that I could no longer ignore all the signs. The next time Fr. B and I met and I told him that, he prayed deliverance over me again and as I wept, he said he sensed something happening with me. I didn't feel any change, but over the next week I had a realization: I have been feeling less anger toward God, less animosity toward my faith, and there has been an increase in my desire to move toward God in the last several months. In short, there has been a very slow, steady healing of faith happening right under my nose and that is due in large part to my having been delivered of some of the spiritual oppression I've been experiencing. My foes have been many, rising up against me and whispering the lies that God will not help me. I had been drowning in the tide of these attacks and had believed the lies, but all of that has been changing.

But You, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head. I cry aloud to the Lord, and He answers me from His holy hill. (verses 3-4)

I know that despite being so attacked, God has protected me. He has protected me as He has from the day of my conception with the presence of my guardian angel. He has protected me through the interventions of my husband Gray, my therapist Pendragon, and my friends who have saved me from myself. He has lifted up my head through the encouragement of dear friends and family. He has heard my cries in the night, in the day, in my bed, in my car, and lying prostrate before Him present in the tabernacle. For a long time, the last part of verse 4 didn't resonate with me at all. I was under such a heavy oppression that I was unable to see Him or hear any kind of answers. To be honest, I still struggle to see Him and hear Him. The difference these days is that I've grown more able to bear what seems like His silence and absence.

I lie down and sleep; I wake again for the Lord sustains me. (verse 5)

Oh this verse! This verse! I'm getting a bit emotional just reading those words. You see I've been absolutely dreaming of being able to lie down and sleep. Sleep doesn't come easily for me. I struggle with horrific insomnia that is brought on by anxiety about lying down and closing my eyes. This is because of the nightmares that I have which take me back to my trauma again and again and again. When I finally do sleep, I don't want to wake because I'm so very tired from fighting nightmares. I don't feel sustained. Of all the verses in this psalm, this is the one I have the hardest time swallowing. It's the one that causes me to want to stop reading and close my Bible. Maybe one day it won't be so hard. Or maybe it always will be. Crosses and such, you know?

I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around. (verse 6)

What a bold statement! In my case, I'm not surrounded by ten thousands of people, but I know there are likely quite a few darker forces at work who have definitely set themselves against me and do their best to not only surround me, but envelop me. Am I afraid? Honestly? Yeah, a bit. I'd like to be as bold as this, but I'm just not there yet. It's a process and one that I'm still muddling through.

Rise up, O Lord! Deliver me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked. (verse 7)

Obviously, this is a prayer of the psalmist for help. I don't normally ask for my enemies cheeks to be struck or their teeth broken, but I do ask for God's protection from evil. I also ask the saints to pray with me against any evil that might beset me. St. Michael the Archangel is an especially powerful intercessor against evil because of his special status as the warrior angel who leads the heavenly army in the fight against Satan and his army in chapter 12 of Revelation.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord; may your blessing be on your people. (verse 8)

In the end, I cannot find my way out of any kind of oppression on my own. I need the help of the Lord which comes through prayers of deliverance prayed over me by Fr. B, frequent reception of the Sacraments, and remaining obedient to what is required of me by God. Being so vulnerable and trusting when it comes to this process doesn't come easily for me. I still wrestle with a great many doubts, fears, and a real lack of genuine hope. I still have difficulty with what seems to me to be God's silence and absence. I'd love to say that I'm becoming more mature in my faith through all of this, but I still have so many days when I'm sure that God looks at me and sees a whiny, ill-humoured, petulant child. I want that deliverance now, not tomorrow or next year or when I'm 50 years old. But just as my deliverance itself belongs to God, so does its timing. As impatient and immature as I am, there's nothing for it but to keep pressing on and to keep asking for His blessing and His mercy while I wait on Him.

Psalm 1

Psalm 1 is one of the shorter Psalms. It's so short that I remember my mom telling me as a child that she had committed it to memory when she was a child herself. The overall gist of it is to encourage the reader toward the way of the righteous and away from the way of the wicked. I think in a way, it really sets the tone for the rest of the Psalms which -- although they vary in topic and style -- are all about what it is to be righteous versus wicked and the rewards of righteousness versus the punishments of the wicked.

You see it again and again throughout the book. The righteous man praises God, repents when he sins, vanquishes his foes, receives strength and shelter from God, and dwells with God forever. The wicked man turns away from God, revels in his sinfulness, is defeated by the righteous, receives destruction in this life, and spends eternity separated from God.

This isn't to say that this earthly existence is all sunshine and roses for the righteous man and bitter gnashing of teeth for the wicked man. Not at all! In fact, several of the Psalms reflect the hardships that the righteous suffer and the wealth, power, and prosperity of the wicked. In this way, the entirety of the Psalms is very applicable to our modern world. Those who strive to follow God and walk the path of righteousness often find themselves struggling and suffering in this life while those whose lives are overflowing with all manner of sin are sitting on Easy Street. The fallen world we live in virtually guarantees that this will happen. Jesus definitely guarantees that suffering is part of our lot (John 16:33)!

But look at Psalm 1:6 --

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish

The way of the wicked will perish. When everything is said and done and the last day is finally here, the way of the wicked will perish and the way of the righteous will not only survive, but lead to eternal life with God. In the end, that eternal life is the goal. That is what makes it ALL worth it. All the heartache and suffering ends and the righteous inherit their just reward to be with God for all of time!

This sliver of hope is what keeps my obedient heart beating and pushing me forward even when I have nothing else left and no desire to keep existing. In my darkest moments, when I am unable to find anything light to hold onto, something deep in my very bones sends out this tiny, thin, gleaming thread for me to cling to until I find a stronger foothold. Sometimes I need others to help me find it within myself (which is where God's protection steps in), but it is there despite my despair.

And I am very grateful.

Ashes to Ashes: Entering the Desert

"The desert represents a stripping away of our attachments, so as to make the fundamental things appear. In the desert, there are no distractions or diversions or secondary matters. Everything is basic, necessary, and simple. Either one survives or one doesn’t. One finds in the desert strengths and weaknesses he never knew he had." 

~ Bishop Robert Barron

I have been living in the desert for a long time. As of this month, it's been three years.

Don't get me wrong. I don't actually live in a real physical desert. I live in a suburb in a house a good 1000 miles from the closest desert. The desert I've been living in is the desert of depression. The quote above comes from the first of Bishop Barron's daily Lenten email meditations. In it, he talks about how our Lenten journey of 40 days is a reflection of Christ's sojourn through the desert just prior to His earthly ministry. Having never been in an actual physical desert myself, I can only imagine what that feels like to your body to endure that kind of extreme climate. Emotionally though, I know exactly what it feels like. 

For me, depression takes a toll like that of the desert wilderness. I've struggled with depression for some 27 years now, but none of my sojourns through the desert have ever lasted more than a few months. When this current episode of depression began, it was in February of 2013 and I had no idea what lay in store for me. I had no reason to think that it would be any different from any episode before it.

What I didn't know is that my journey would take me into the darkest, most barren, most wild parts of the desert of depression. Those called apathy, anguish, betrayal, abandonment, heartbreak, numbness, bitterness, rage, despondence, despair, and death. I just had no clue at all that it would be so painful and go on for so long. 

Pain and suffering do, as Bishop Barron says, strip away everything else. You can't focus on anything but the most basic of things -- eating, sleeping, bathing, and sometimes, just the act of breathing in and out. When you're in this desert, it's not about looking at the scenery or making some great discovery, it's about finding your way from one oasis to the next so that you can survive. You may have come into the desert loaded down with many great concerns, but very quickly those fall away and you begin to realise what truly matters. You come to understand that your focus must be on survival. And the longer you journey through this desert, you do begin to see your strengths and your weaknesses. The desolation and difficulty starkly reveal everything in a way that is clearer and more refined than it would be in the normal world.

So what have I learned in the desert?

Well, one lesson I've been learning of late is that I need to stop telling myself that I must be strong and that hiding when I'm in pain -- rather than being vulnerable with others -- makes things easier for me and for others around me. The reality is that trying to be strong when I lack the capacity to do so and hiding from others when I'm hurting only makes things worse. For me, this is a weakness that the desert has revealed. I struggle with really trusting others because I've had my trust betrayed and violated so many times. That struggle with trust causes me to tell myself that it's better for me to just grit my teeth, be strong, just white knuckle it and hide until the darkest darkness is lighter. It's taken me most of this time to realise that this is a weakness, although thanks to Pendragon's help, I've been working on getting better at being vulnerable and telling others when I need help. 

I've also learned that one of my strengths is obedience, in particular, obedience to God. I would have never thought this about myself. It's not that I'm the rebellious sort or some kind of wild and crazy person who has no concern for rules or anything like that. It's just that I've never really thought of myself as "obedient." To be honest, this is the first year since this desert of depression began that I've even considered giving up or doing anything for Lent at all. For the last three Lents I've told myself, "I'm already giving up a lot with this depression. It's hard enough without having to give up or add something to my already really difficult life. Surely this is penitential enough." Part of the reason I felt like I was rebelling though was because I was angry at God. I still have some anger toward Him that I am trying to work out, but it's much better than it was just a year ago. But anger and even disinterest aren't the same thing as rebellion and I'm apparently much more obedient to Him and His will than I've ever given myself credit for being because I'm still here and I'm still following Him. I'm also trying to add the task this year of doing something spiritual each day. I think Bishop Barron's email meditations may be part of that, but I might do something else if the Holy Spirit nudges me.

The other thing that the desert has revealed to me is that when it comes to faith, feelings are no barometer of reality. To put it more simply, feelings are fickle and do not indicate in any way the presence (or lack thereof) of God in a person's life. In some ways, having an intense emotional experience of faith can give us a false sense of reality when it comes to who God is and whether or not He is present. When we "feel" God's presence or have a "sense" of Him being near, it can be an intense shock to the system spiritually when the circumstances of life or the actions of others blind those senses to a point where we can no longer connect with Him on an emotional level. We are left in the darkness of the desert, seemingly alone. But as scripture tells us in many places, He is always with us. That promise can be hard to swallow if the whole of your experience has been some kind of emotional connection to God and you are suddenly devoid of that connection. It may seem like a cruel kind of joke to be seemingly left all alone with your pain and suffering, but this desolation of the spirit is when we learn to connect to God in new ways, to find Him in the desert amidst the rubble of our pain, to see the tracks of His footsteps and the traces of His fingerprints etched in the aridness of our suffering and ache. 

This sojourn through the desert -- when we are forced to discard the unnecessary, have our weaknesses laid bare and our strengths revealed through fire, and scrabble to survive -- is a gift. If we are willing to see it, a gift that promises a greater strength of will, a greater understanding of ourselves, and a more mature, deeper faith in Christ. With that in mind, each year on Ash Wednesday, we enter into the desert with Christ to pray, to fast, to give of ourselves to others, and to allow the desert to reveal in us that which needs to be discarded so that we can survive and more closely follow Him.

Meditating on Advent -- Day 2

Today's Gospel: Matthew 4:18-22

"As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen."

Today is the Feast Day of St. Andrew the Apostle*, so we get a reading about his call to follow Jesus in today's Gospel. It's a short passage and doesn't tell us much about Andrew except that he was a fisherman and that, along with his brother Peter, he left his nets at once and followed Christ.

At once. I think that's really amazing. Can you imagine if you were just going about your day to day life, hard at work at your job and Jesus suddenly walks in the door and says, "Follow me"? I think most of us, if we're being honest, would say that we'd be shocked initially and then after a moment or two, we'd ask Jesus for a few minutes or hours or days to get our lives squared away before coming with Him. I'm a stay at home mom of three girls who need me to supervise them and help them with things all the time while my husband is away at work. If Jesus walked in and suddenly wanted me to come with, I think it would be awfully hard to go "at once" and not want to take some time to call someone to look after my kids, pack a bag, and get all the hugs and kisses I could before I left.

But that's what we're called to do, isn't it? Go when He calls us. He calls all of us in one way or another. My vocation -- or calling -- is to the married life and motherhood. Jesus called me to that when I was a small child. But just because I have accepted that calling and I've followed Him into it by marrying and having children doesn't mean that He ceases to call me. He continues to call me in my day to day life to die to myself and to love others more like He does. That's a hard one for me sometimes. He has also put in my heart a new calling in the past year and that's to educate others about mental illness and suicide prevention. To become an advocate for those who struggle to advocate for themselves and who don't know how to get the help they need. That calling has been a very hard one for me to accept and follow, but I'm doing my best.

I think a good thing to do as we go through this Advent season is ask Him anew to reveal to us how and where He is calling us, to look again at our current calling and seek ways we can better fulfill those callings in obedience to Him. In doing this, we continue the process of readying our hearts for the celebration of Christmas and we better prepare ourselves to be ready when He comes again.

How is He calling you to come and follow Him?

*Since today is St. Andrew's Feast day, I thought I'd include this little prayer for Advent that is often referred to as the Saint Andrew Christmas Novena. It's a prayer that is meant to focus our hearts on the coming of Christ at Christmas and to ask God to grant a particular request in honour of the birth of His Blessed Son. If you're interested in more information, click the link.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.

The Greatest of These Is Love

After the kids are long since tucked in bed, Gray and I quite often spend time together just talking about one thing or another. Sometimes it's housekeeping sorts of things like, "Don't forget that I have an appointment tomorrow evening with Pendragon.." or "Honey, if you go out tomorrow, we're about out of milk and cat litter." Other times it's conversations about the kids and what is going on with them or something between us that we wanted to discuss in greater detail in private. A lot of times though, we talk about theology, politics, and the state of the world. Those last topics are some of my favourite conversations.

A topic that we go back to again and again and that we talked about earlier tonight is that of Christian charity. What prompted it was the fact that today on Facebook I ran across two rather disturbing instances where someone who was professing Christ was behaving in a way that was less than charitable.

Both of these situations broke my heart.

You might find that a bit of an overreaction, but it's the truth. Whenever I find Christians speaking to their fellow Christians or nonbelievers in a way that is hateful, angry, spiteful, or just rude, it hurts my heart. You see, I love people. I am a big lover of people from way back. I'm a hugger and kisser and an "Oh bless your heart!" and "How can I help?" and an "I love you, my friend!" kind of person. I don't know why exactly, but I've always been this way. My base instinct is to see the good in others and, if they will allow me, help them see it in themselves. All of that is born out of a desire to love others as God loves me. Even when I was a small child, I was this way. When I gave my heart to Jesus at age 6, it became even more important to me to love on others in the way that He loved me. It's just who I am and, for the most part, comes easily to me.

This isn't to say that I've never been uncharitable or that I lack the capacity for such things. Quite the reverse is true. I know there have been times in my life when I have been less than kind and loving. I also know that there have been many, many times when I have nearly bitten my tongue (or sat on my hands as it were) to hold back a snarky or nasty retort and then have let it all spill out of my mouth later on to an understanding friend. I say all of this because I don't want you to think I'm some kind of saint or angel. I'm not. I definitely aspire to be a saint, but I fall short of the mark quite a lot.

So what was our conversation about tonight? Well, it was me recounting the two incidents I'd witnessed and my frustration at the people involved who were so hateful. I told Gray that I just couldn't understand why they would say those things, why they couldn't seem to see how rude and unkind they were being. Without giving you all the details, one of the people was basically bashing an atheist friend of mine over the head with his beliefs about the state of her soul and the other was a group of people who were name-calling over the issue of their belief that the way they worship Jesus is better, more holy, and more perfect than the way another group of Christians worship Jesus. In each scenario, the victims of these attacks responded with great charity and grace and that was thrown back in their face as though they had replied with vindictiveness and vitriol.

I just don't understand that at all. It seems abundantly clear to me that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable for someone who professes the name of Christ. Look at Matthew 22:34-40:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. How hard is this to understand? It's really not rocket science and yet, I run across many more people than I care to count who seem to forget this when they are engaged in a discussion about faith with someone with whom they disagree. They seem to get so caught up in the whole "love God" that they forget the second half of it which Jesus says is like it -- love of neighbour.

Why is the second commandment like the first? That's pretty simple too. It is a manifestation of the first commandment. If you love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, then the natural outpouring of all that love for God is love for your neighbour. It is an active thing that involves good works like feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, clothing the naked, etc. It is also something that involves submitting our hearts, minds, and flesh to His grace to be molded into His will and transformed into the model of neighbourly charity to all we meet. That means being loving, kind, generous, humble in spirit, willing to admit when we are wrong, and choosing our words carefully when we are faced with disagreements with those around us.

Is it easy? Sometimes. But then again, sometimes it's ridiculously hard. That's when God is giving us the opportunity to practice. A lot of times that practice is uncomfortable and frankly, hurts. But you know what? Change often hurts -- especially the kind that takes practice -- but it's what we're called to. We are called to be changed so dramatically that when those around us look at us, they see He who is Perfect Love and Absolute Truth staring back at them. When we are working toward this transformation with sincere hearts and effort, then we fully understand the first commandment. It is then when we fully understand what it means to love God so completely.

I don't know about you, but I want that. I want to be so fiercely in love with God, so conformed to who He is, that this whole "love your neighbour" thing is as easy as breathing. There is something that I feel deep inside me that is hungry for this transformation, for this infusion of grace that changes men and moves mountains. I've pursued this for nearly my entire life because it is who He made me to be and the bottom line is that I love Him and I know by virtue of my creation that He loves me.

I'll admit that sometimes I struggle with feeling His love and sometimes I wonder if I actually do love Him because of the anger I feel at times. I have felt abandoned and lonely and alone and so heartbroken and hurt by His silence that I have wondered if I should turn away from Him and go my own way. But the imprint of His love, given to me by virtue of my humanity, that imprint so long tended, polished, and lovingly cherished, hidden away in the very depths of my being is what kept me trying to love Him despite the lack of everything that I felt and the darkness of my thoughts toward Him. That imprint of Perfect Love made manifest in the Eucharist, the holy oils of Anointing, the words of absolution in Confession, and in the sacramental love shared with Gray is what has saved me from walking away. It is what has saved me from myself in those dark moments when I have used life to inhale death. That Perfect Love is what has continued to draw me forward toward Him despite not wanting anything to do with faith or God or any of it.

I haven't done it on my own though. I've had an abundance of love from the neighbours all around me. In fact, when I suddenly couldn't feel God's love in a direct way (something I still don't really feel), it was the love of neighbours -- Gray, Sif, Fr. B, Chez, Rikert, Tara, and in his professional way, Pendragon -- that touched my heart, encouraged me to keep breathing and moving forward in obedience, and kept me from killing myself on more than one occasion. I have been blessed to have the love of many neighbours, especially online (shout out to all my awesome Board friends -- love y'all!!!) and many of whom did nothing more than pray for me in my hour of need, knowing nothing more than what Chez posted as a prayer request on his blog (Love you, big brother!) You see, I have been the recipent of that "love your neighbour as yourself" love from those around me in such a profound way that it made that Perfect Love of God manifest to me when I was unable to see Him or find Him on my own.

So you see, love of God is important -- the most important thing we can do -- because He is deserving of ALL our love and that includes the gift we give the rest of His creation when we......wait for it.......

.....love our neighbour.

That's all I've got. Peace be with you!

Five Minute Friday: Ten

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here

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1. Over 2000 years of history, tradition, and Apostolic Authority -- The Catholic Church is the oldest Christian church in the world and is the one founded by Christ Himself on the rock of St. Peter who was the first leader, or pope, of the Church (Matthew 16:13-20)

2. The gift of Holy Scripture -- the Bible was compiled by the Catholic Church and its canon closed by Pope Damasus I at the Council of Rome in 382. This canon includes all 73 books as well as longer versions of the books of Esther and Daniel. This is still the canon used by the Catholic Church today.

3. The Holy Eucharist -- this is the gift of Jesus to the world. It is His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity and we get to take Him into our own bodies as nourishment for our souls! See #10 for more about this :)

4. The Communion of Saints -- which includes both those who are officially canonized, those are not, and those who are still living and striving to live lives of holiness and obedience to God on earth. I love that we have these heavenly friends to turn to in addition to our earthly friends!

5. Mary -- Yes, I know that every Christian church recognizes her in some way, but we as Catholics call her our Mother because she is the mother of Jesus and because He gave her to us as our mother from the cross when He gave her into the care of the beloved disciple John. I love that my girls have not just me, but Mary too! I also love having Mary as my mother too.

6. The priesthood -- a tradition that really dates back to the Jewish priesthood in that these are men who are set apart for God's service. I am SO grateful for the service of our priests. I know they're not perfect, but then again, neither am I!

7. The consecrated religious life -- I love that our faith tradition has a particular way for those who are called to God's service (men and women) to consecrate themselves and devote themselves totally to God. I also love that there's a religious order for just about every personality -- Franciscan, Domenican, Jesuit, Carmelite, Benedictine, Claretians, etc. and within those orders, there are various groups devoted to different callings -- teaching, preaching, nursing, missionary work, and contemplative prayer. Some are cloistered and some are in the community. Some live on farms, some live in urban areas. All are called to follow God and serve Him with the whole of their lives.

8. The Rosary -- some people think it is just a prayer to Mary, but it is really a meditation on the life of Christ. It is one of my favourite devotions and I could write a whole blog post about it. Maybe I will one day!

9. Easter Vigil -- The most gorgeous Mass of the entire year when there are baptisms, confirmations, and First Holy Communions all in one night -- lots of candles, incense, TONS of Scripture reading, and of course, the Holy Eucharist! It's my favourite Mass of the year!

10. The Mass -- I really have no adequate words to express how much I love the Mass. On those rare occasions when we must miss a Sunday because of sickness, I start feeling a bit spiritually weak from not having received the Eucharist. There is a hunger in me to be present at Mass each week that resides deep within me in a place even I do not fully know. I know it must be so because my flesh is weak and there have been many times on a Sunday when I was angry with God and angry with the world and depressed and just didn't want to go. But because of this soul-deep need in me, I went. It was, in part, out of obedience, but I know there must be some love with it too.

There are lots more reasons, but these are just a few that I came up with in five minutes!

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Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up at Kate Motaung's blog!

Where I Live

Today is Day 2 in my week-long series using the prompts from the blogger community Blessed Is She!

Where I live the weather is hot from the end of May until the end of September, but even once the calendar flips forward to October, the temperatures still feel far too warm for autumn. This Indian summer paints the days well into the middle of the month and then slowly cools by All Saints' Day to something that begs us to wear a longer sleeve and trade shorts for jeans.

It was in this less hot, but still too warm weather that my friend Liam and I sat outside, talking one Saturday night. He asked my plans for Sunday and for the first time in my life, I hesitated. Church had always been where I lived outside of school and home, with Sunday being the day I looked forward to most. So why did I hesitate? I was tired of chasing God in the same place. The place where I was living looked pale and watery and as another Sunday came closer, I found a dullness within me where desire had always lived.

Liam sensed my hesitation and said, "Why don't you come to church with me?" I asked where he was going and he mentioned another large Southern Baptist church across town from my childhood home. I wasn't very excited about the prospect, but my sense of duty to God kicked in and I acquiesced and rode along with Liam the next morning. The people at this church were nice and very welcoming, but I felt out of place and swallowed up in their numbers. The preaching and music were good, but the message was no different than anything I'd heard before. As we walked to the car, my heart sank and I was much more quiet on the way back to campus, lost in my thoughts.

The weeks passed and although Liam and I tried quite a few churches, none of them seemed to fit me all that well. I resisted going back to my childhood church, partially because I didn't want to answer the "we've been missing you! where have you been?" questions, but partially because I just didn't want to go back. Eventually though, the choices of Southern Baptist churches were getting slim and Liam wanted to look at other denominations. I was terror struck at the idea of moving house altogether. It was one thing to "move my letter" from one Southern Baptist church to another, but quite a different thing to think of changing denominations. So Liam looked elsewhere and the next Sunday, I grudgingly found myself back at my home church.

It didn't last long, maybe three months or so. I never could get plugged into the college group and even though I could now sing with the adult choir, that felt not quite right either. I had been struggling most of the school year with a severe depressive episode and as the spring semester ended, I found that where I lived spiritually was in the Psalms of lament. Liam's roommate, Wood, knew my struggles were hard and one particularly difficult night gave me a long list of scriptures to encourage me and speak to me in this dark night. As I read through those verses, I stumbled onto a Psalm with a footnote saying it was one of the Psalms of lament and I latched onto it and its fellows for dear life.

My dog-eared Bible ceased to be a book, but instead became a life preserver and my temporary place to call home until a new friend helped me find an isle of respite in the storm.

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Join me tomorrow for the next prompt in this series, "Friend" for the next part of my journey!

Beginning

Today I am beginning a week-long series using the #projectblessed prompts from the blogger community Blessed Is She!

In my beginning has always been The Word -- both in terms of Holy Scripture and in terms of the One who is The Word spoken about in John 1:1. I grew up in a Christian home and the tradition of our family was such that I encountered Jesus at some point before I can really remember. Our family were active churchgoers and every time there was some kind of activity for my age group, my parents gladly ferried me to church to participate. Of course, it goes without saying that we were there every Sunday that rolled unless sickness or being out of town prevented it. We prayed over meals and at bedtime and I was encouraged from a young age to read the Bible, memorize verses of Scripture, worship God through song, and love God above everything else. At age 6, I made the decision to follow Him with my life and got baptized in our big Southern Baptist church.

Little did I know, that was just the beginning...

In college, I set out on my own, looking for a new faith beginning. It wasn't so much that I found fault with the faith of my childhood, but rather that I earnestly wanted more than I felt I was receiving at my childhood church home. As I put it at the time, I felt as though I was no longer being spiritually nourished. To be honest, even at that time -- even as I said those words to those who asked why I left my home church -- I had no real idea what I needed to be nourished.

The beginnings of my feeling spiritually undernourished were in high school. At some point in my 11th grade year, I began to realize that God was calling me to be a missionary and as I accepted that call and professed it in front of my congregation, my hunger for God was increased. I was thirsty for the living water that Jesus promised in John 7. I felt parched and dry and insatiable. I devoured Scripture, devotional books, Christian music, and anything I could get my hands on. Throughout this, I listened attentively to our pastor's sermons, making notes and reading over the verses and passages of Scripture he referenced. I listened with rapt attention to my Sunday School teachers and youth minister when they would talk about God. I went to youth meetings and rallies and retreats.

And despite all of this, I still felt a hunger for something more, something deeper than all of this combined. I began to realize too that these lessons I was hearing at church were the same lessons I'd heard my whole life. I felt like I was being fed the same milk of my beginnings in the faith (1 Corinthians 3:1-2) and that I was ready to graduate to the meat, but there was no meat to be found where I was.

I wouldn't have put two and two together if not for a conversation I had with our youth choir director (who was also the minister of music) in my 12th grade year. Each year before our youth choir went on choir tour, one of the prerequisites was that we had to sign up for an appointment to chat with our director. These appointments were designed to get to know the 9th graders, who were just beginning their tenure in the choir, and to catch up with the older students about what was going on in their lives. This was my fourth and last such appointment and as usual, I was looking forward to it. I admired our director and always enjoyed talking to him. When we met for our appointment, he observed that I had been not quite myself over the past year. We talked about things at home, graduation excitement, and my starting college in the fall, but eventually, he said that he knew something was going on that I wasn't saying. There was no pressure to talk, just a gentle invitation. I opened up and told him that part of it was depression (which was very true) and part of it was feeling like I wasn't being spiritually fed at our church. I further told him that really, choir was about the only thing keeping me at our church.

That last bit was SO hard for me to say, but he didn't get upset or tell me I was wrong. He listened and then said something I've never forgotten, "Perhaps, if that is all that's keeping you here, you need to look for another church where you can be spiritually fed." He went on to give me some encouragement and advice and when he was finished, I had tears in my eyes. I nodded and said thank you. He handed me a tissue and said, "Why don't we pray, okay?" and then led me in a beautiful prayer where he thanked God for my life, for my talents, for our friendship, and asked God to guide me in knowing what He would have me do and where He would have me go. I think I was crying even more at the end of it.

In the weeks and months to come, I reflected many times on that prayer and my choir director's comments and advice. I didn't know it then, but that meeting was the beginning of a journey that would take the next 11 years to complete....

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Read the next part of the story tomorrow with the prompt...."Where I Live"

Five Minute Friday: Hope

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

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I'll be honest, friends.

I don't have any fancy or uplifting words to say this week on this prompt. You see, hope is not my forte these days. It's just not in my box of things to lift me up and make me praise God. I suppose that makes me seem like a really crappy Christian. Honestly, the fact that hope is kind of in absentia makes me feel like I'm worthless as a Christian. I mean, I'm supposed to put my hope in God. Trust in Him because He is the bringer of hope and the uplifter of the hopeless.

Yeah. Just can't do it.

I can't bring myself to say the word "hope" with any kind of meaning behind it these days. My spirit and heart are wounded. They've been wounded for quite a long time. Actually, they've been wounded for two years to this day.

You see, it was on this exact date -- July 10, 2013, that I lost my hope. I was violently traumatized emotionally and the hope that used to reside deep within my spirit was wrenched away in that moment of trauma and I have been unable to find it again.

And believe me, I've tried. I have tried to find that hope.

I have looked for it in scripture, in prayer, in worship, and in the healing graces of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (which is for spiritual healing primarily and then physical/emotional healing comes as a secondary benefit) and the other sacraments. What have I found?

Nothing.
Nada.
Zip.

And worst of all -- absolute silence from God.

Because of this, I went a long time where I wouldn't even use the word hope in its more secular sense of something wished for -- aka "I'm hoping for a chocolate cake for my birthday" -- because even that left a sour taste on my tongue. I didn't want to hope for anything because hope could be stolen and destroyed and all without any warning.

I have since resumed using it in its secular sense, but still don't really use it in the spiritual sense. I also don't use it when speaking of my illness because every time I have said that I feel a sense of hope that I'm getting better, I wind up about five steps backward from where I thought I was with my recovery.

I mentioned this prompt on Facebook in small group of women who encourage one another and my comment was: "This week's prompt is HOPE. *facepalm*" One of the ladies in the group who was trying to encourage me said that despite everything that I'm going through that I am "living hope" and that all the things I do to get through each day and deal with this illness are "rooted in hope."

I appreciate the thought, but I think what I'm really doing is living obedience.

A very long time ago, when I was just a little girl of 6 years old, I gave my heart to God. I made a commitment to follow Him with my life. I didn't know what that commitment would entail at age 6, but as I got older, I began to understand that a big part of it was obedience to God's will for me. At first, I thought it was just obedience in things like who to hang out with, who to date, obeying my parents, going to church, etc. As I matured though, I came to realise that it was more than just those sort of big things, but the day to day little things too. At some point in my early adulthood, I realised that He wants my obedience in EVERYTHING.

Living obedience is not always easy in good times, but when life hits us with unexpected stresses, it can be very very hard. So how do you live obedience when you have no hope, feel abandoned by God and feel totally broken and crushed in mind, body, and spirit?

You do as my spiritual director, Fr.B, told me today. Take it one day at a time. When you cannot make yourself remain obedient, you lean on those around you who are faithful to Him to help you. You put one foot in front of the other. You breathe in and breathe out and somehow, you get to another day. 

And I'm not gonna lie. You cry a lot. Seriously, a LOT. You scream at God and beat your fists upon His feet. You cry some more. You consider often just turning your back on God altogether. More crying. You vent your spleen to someone who will listen -- be they friend, family, priest, or therapist. And you cry some more. The crying happens nearly daily when you're in this hopeless place where obedience is the anchor you are clinging to by a thread.

It sucks. It sucks a lot because when you're in this place, it feels as though you will never be doing anything but living obedience. No joy. No meaning. Nothing but monotonous obedience. I wish I could tell you that it gets better. That the hope returns and that the joy is abundant because of the struggle.

But that's not my story.

I'm still living obedience. As I wrestle with myself and my faith amidst all the day to day stresses of married life and motherhood and the overarching noonday demon of depression, I do the little things and big things that He has called me to time and again.

And I cry a lot. But that's okay. Because we have tissues. :) 

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*This was meant to be a 5-minute exercise, but once I FINALLY got started, I had a hard time stopping myself, so I'm more than a little bit over. Just pretend it was 5 minutes, okay? I won't tell if you won't! :)

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up over at Kate Motaung's blog!

Five Minute Friday: Door

Note: This post is my weekly contribution to the Five Minute Friday community that is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Click here for more information about Five Minute Friday and how you can get involved! To link up with all the other entries for today's prompt word, click here.

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I shut the door to the bookstore bathroom and cowered in one of the stalls. Tears were streaming down my face and anger was coursing through my blood. Confused and heartbroken, I stood there for a good fifteen minutes bawling and trying to make sense of the fact that my boyfriend had just broken up with me. After some time (and blowing my nose), I exited the stall and went to wash my hands and face at the sink. I still had some tears to cry but I'd moved through the immediate moment of crying. In this heightened state of emotion, I made a decision. I decided to shut another door. 

I shut the door to marriage.

You see, for several years I had been the recipient of wedding invitations, wedding shower invitations, baby shower invitations, baby announcements, and all of the myriad of things that go along with a life joined to another person as one flesh. I had watched so many friends and acquaintances and even heard about friends of friends who were marrying and having babies and getting on with this stage of life. I had been a spectator in all these moments of joy. My own heart's desire had always been to be a wife and mother, but in this moment of anger and pain, I made the decision that God wasn't going to honour that desire for some reason. I had loved my boyfriend and I thought he loved me. He'd even told me he loved me and that he couldn't imagine a life without me. And then just a couple of weeks after saying that, he changed his tune. He said he only loved me as a friend. I just didn't want male friends any more.  I wanted a husband. I was angry at God for teasing me this way and making me believe that this boyfriend was going to be "the one." 

So I shut the door. I told my mother a few weeks later that I was refusing to go to any more weddings until such a time as it was my own wedding. I didn't care who was getting married. God wasn't providing anyone for me, so I wasn't going to bear witness to the people he was providing for others. 

A year or so later, my friend Sorella invited me to this thing to introduce me to a guy she thought I'd like. I went, although because my door was firmly shut, I didn't have any hope that anything would come of it. I was right. He was nice, but not anyone I was interested in. Then he invited Sorella and me to something the next night at a local Catholic parish -- a young adults' Bible study and "adoration" group. I didn't know what adoration was, but like the idea of other folks my age studying the Bible, so we went. 

I wasn't planning on opening that door. I wasn't planning on meeting anyone. I met Gray that night. I wish I could say that meeting him made me open that door, but it didn't. In fact, something about Gray when we first met made me not even want to really get to know him at all. He seemed nice enough, but he was kind of weird and I just didn't know what to do with that. So I kept that door of my heart shut tight -- even to friendship with a man.

Oh, but friends, the Holy Spirit had other ideas! I don't remember exactly when it was, but I remember having the thought that I didn't even really want to get to know "that guy" (Gray) and almost as suddenly as the thought went through my head, I felt a nudge in my spirit. It was gentle, but firm. Just get to know him. Just be his friend. Not audible words, but a definite sense that the Holy Spirit was trying to direct me in that way. My reply was a grudging sigh and an, "Okay, Lord."

And just like that, the door of my heart was pushed open a crack. 

Gray and I became friends and that crack grew wider and wider until one day, I realised that the door had been pushed wide and love had come pouring in.

Join in the Five Minute Friday fun and link up over at Kate Motaung's blog!