Abiding in God's Love

Abiding in God's Love is something I am trying to do on a daily basis. It is difficult though because the world comes against me in so many ways and tempts me to sin. I try to stay alert. I try to focus on Jesus. But that little creep from the netherworld tries to give me grief and sometimes I fall into his traps. The answer to this?  Well for me, I'm trying to keep my prayer schedule going and even if I don't feel like praying, I at least go to church and BE in Jesus' presence.

When I was  a kid I lived through a lot of things like being picked on - mercilessly - and being laughed at, among other things that are not relevant to my points here so there is no need to expound on them..... As I became more involved in my Catholic faith, sometimes I would be laughed at or ridiculed for being someone who takes God's word seriously. As a matter of fact, that still happens sometimes.....usually at work, and sometimes from the mouths of fellow Catholics as well. Oh well...such is life. (I will never be ashamed of Jesus and people can get on me all they want. I know the truth.)

Sometimes I wonder why I don't keep my mouth closed and stay silent, but then the Holy Spirit inspires me to speak up and then the little creep delights in trying to slam me down. 

Now, I have to say, that I am truly nothing more than a speck on this earth. I am nobody special, except in God's eyes. I am a normal, ordinary, regular human being. I have so many faults, failings, and weaknesses. I am well aware of them and it really cracks me up when others try and point them out to me because I could run circles around them in regards to listing off my inadequacies. But, I am coming to know that I am a speck that sometimes God uses  to make a difference in someone's life. This is my truth....my experience of how God works in me.

I would love to be a canonized saint someday. I probably have a fat chance to have that happen but I believe in that saying that goes "a saint is a sinner that just kept trying".  So I try. I fail. I try again. 

What I know is that there are some blessings that God gives to people who seriously devote themselves to prayer and they are unique to everyone.  It is not a "high" or anything incredibly outrageous where people claim to levitate and all of that. But there are blessings that are given which are felt deep in the soul. Sometimes there is a quiet, but strong presence of God in the midst of the prayer time.  Sometimes there is just the sense that "I'm in the best place on earth right now, and that is before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament".

Granted, wherever we go we are abiding in God's love, but in today's world, if someone is a true christian, I think that he/she needs to try hard to keep that reality in the midst of everything they do, especially when things come against them.  Things come against me constantly, but the older I get, the more I see that when something evil comes against me, the Holy Spirit is right there to chase it away.

Abiding in God's Love .... the vine and the branches.....my priest recently gave a talk where he talked about the vine and the branches reading from John's Gospel. He reminded us that sometimes the gardener lops off the branches so close to the edge that it might appear that  they are dead, never to grow new life. That can be a painful thing.  He said the gardener does that because it will promote new growth, despite its appearance.  I related to that because about a year and a half ago, or so, I was pruned so far back that there was barely no life that I could see within my soul. There was nothing I could do, but to wonder why the gardener cut me so close to the ground. I had no voice. I was silent. All I could do was feel the pain. All I could do was wait.

After much waiting, new life has begun to sprout. New things are happening within my soul. Things I can't explain. They are not crazy or miraculous (although everything God does is a miracle), but there are things happening.  It seems as if, somehow, this pruning I have gone through has grafted me even tighter and more firmly into the Vine, Jesus Himself.

I don't understand really.....but I suppose it isn't my business to understand. My business is to trust the gardener completely for He knows what He is doing. Still....I can marvel at the tiny growth I see budding from my scared and lopped off parts.... feeling a tiny bit of hope that someday I will be a fruitful soul again..... at church now, with the new Roman Missal, the Mass ends with the priest saying " Go in peace, glorifying God with your life."  That is all I'm trying to do.