A Grace-filled Life

As I have dealt with health problems over the years and difficult, complicated pregnancies, one thing the Lord has had to keep reminding me is that his grace is sufficient for me. He even told me once that the only difference between me and someone without these issues is I just need to rely on more of his grace.

This has made me wonder how to best do that. Often I have felt inadequate and like I must be doing something wrong because I often have not felt I had the strength and ability to do all the things I believed I needed to do. In my mind grace equaled strength.

I have come to realize however that grace does not always look the way I think it should look. Sometimes grace comes in the form of my children getting along and playing nicely with each other so I can lie down and rest. Sometimes grace comes in the form of a friend helping me with something I am not able to do by myself.

There have been times when I have been down on myself, feeling like I should be doing more with my children and I haven't done enough to teach them about the Faith. Grace in that situation is that my children are still passionate about following Christ even though I was often lacking. I am actually getting teary-eyed as I am writing this, thinking about how blessed I am. My oldest daughter is in college and I am so proud of her! Not only is she doing well academically and being responsible living on her own, but she has gotten involved in the Catholic campus ministry at UCF and plans to attend the March for Life in January. My 16 year old daughter, who still lives at home is experiencing a call to become a religious sister and desires to join a certain order when she turns 21. The only credit I can take for any of this is that I have always surrendered them over to the heart of Jesus. When they were little, there were often days I was too weak to get off the couch. I could barely take care of their basic needs and I let them watch cartoons to keep them out of trouble. Since I didn't have the strength at the time to do the things I thought needed to be done, I didn't think I was tapping into God's grace but now I realize his grace is that he has always made up for my own weaknesses and where I have been lacking.

God's grace truly is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Cor.12:9).

God's Judgement or His Mercy?

I once had a professor in college that would say God's judgement wasn't usually in the form of natural disasters and such. Sometimes God's judgement is when he steps back and lets us have what we want. I am wondering however if we ever really receive God's wrath. Everything he does and everything he allows stems from his great love and mercy. I think of the song by the David Crowder Band, "How He Loves". God has a jealous love for his people and will do whatever it takes to help us follow him more closely. It seems to be a fact that people do have a tendency to cling more closely to the Lord during times of turmoil. Whatever happens in life however, we can know that God is still in control and he will ultimately use tribulations for his glory and to bring about good.

One reason I am wondering if we are coming into hard times is because several months back I had a vision of a big, black dragon swooping down and crushing grapes with it's talons. I believe the grapes represent the Body of Christ, the Church. I had the sense that God was going to allow persecution so we can be poured out like wine for the salvation of others.

On a more uplifting note, around the same time I also had a word come to me:  "It is coming! It is coming! It is coming! A great harvest of souls is coming! Now is the time to get ready! I am raising up a Royal priesthood, a Holy and chosen generation! Now is the time to get ready!" When this word came to me, I had the sense that people were going to be flocking to the Church like we have never seen before. He is preparing us for this now. Now is the time to get ready!!!

The Storms of Life

I get the impression that some Christians judge whether they are in God's will or not based on how happy they are. If they are happy with a certain number of children, then that must mean they are not supposed to have more. If they are not happy in their marriage, it must mean they are supposed to get out. I do not think it is a good idea to use happiness as a barometer for discerning the will of God in one's life. I also think this type of attitude is a direct result of the "health, wealth, and prosperity gospel" being proclaimed in many churches today. In order to increase attendance and offerings in churches, it is widely preached, "come to Jesus and he will fulfill all your needs." This is really tragic and really not biblical.

Recently a Facebook friend of mine posted that she was starting to doubt the existence of God because of all the bad things that were happening in her life. I believe this is a direct result of buying into this type of gospel. If this is the type of "gospel" people are fed then as soon as the storms of life come, their faith will crumble. It is like building your house on sand instead of solid ground (Matt. 7:24-27).

In my last blog entry, I also talked about "cheap grace". Some people do not think obedience is all that important to the Lord because no matter what they do, God will still love them. It is true that God will still love them but obedience is very important to the Lord and the bible is full of examples of that. There are many who want the promises of Christ but without the cross. What they do not realize is that it is only through the cross of Christ that we can have true joy. Joy is different than happiness (I will save that one for a different blog).

The truth is, God does not promise us happiness in this life. I do not even know if it is possible to be completely happy in this life because we were made for heaven. He also does not promise us that we will not become broken. A few years back I had an image come to me of duct tape on a window. Some people put duct tape on their windows when a hurricane is coming so when the window breaks, it will not shatter. I felt like the Lord was telling me that he does not promise that in this life we will not become broken. What he does promise us however is that if we put our trust in him, then when the storms of life come, he will hold us together and our lives will not shatter. Non-believers do not have this promise. When they encounter the storms of life, often their lives fall apart.

Let us put our trust in Christ and trust that no matter what trials come our way, he will see us through.

The grass isn't always greener

Some people might find it surprising to learn that Tom and I were away from the Catholic Church for 10 years. My own 16 year old daughter questions how we could have ever left the Eucharist, especially after I witnessed a Eucharistic miracle first hand and started a household devoted to the Eucharist. I don't have an easy explanation for that. The only thing I can think of is that we did not fully grasp the infinite level of intimacy available to us by receiving Jesus' body and blood. When I was in my early 20's, we were more about doing and being involved in ministry. We did not have an understanding about resting in the Lord and allowing him to transform us from the inside out. Since we were all about doing ministry, it was easy to become frustrated as we kept running into brick walls. The parishes we were involved in had much different views of ministry than we did.

One thing I always loved was Eucharistic adoration. I even tried to start up perpetual adoration at a parish we attended to no avail. I think for me, it was all about experiencing God's presence which I definitely experienced when I went to adoration. I think it takes a little more contemplation of the mystery when we receive Jesus at Mass and unless we are able to contemplate this mystery, we may not experience his presence. Since, for me it was all about experiencing his presence, well I could do that while worshiping with my Protestant brothers and sisters.

Tom and I were also longing for community and to be around other like minded young adults like we had at the Franciscan University. This was hard for us to find at the parishes we were involved in. We were able to find this however at a local Protestant church. Our original plan however was to get involved with the Protestant church but also attend Mass on Sunday. After a while it became too hard to keep doing both so we stopped going to Mass.

I ended up having a pretty profound dream after being away for about a year. I did not realize the full meaning of the dream however until nine years later when we were praying about going back.

The dream started with me walking down a hallway. I came to the end of the hallway and there was a door. I opened the door that led to the outdoors and a platform. I walked out on the platform. I saw Jesus sitting against the outside wall talking to a guy. I then proceeded to walk to the edge of the platform that was also surrounded by a 3 foot wall. I looked over the wall and there was a florescent green river in a valley and it had thousands of flamingos wading in it. I knew I needed to get to the land that was on the other side of the river and the only way I saw to be able to do that was to cross the river with all the flamingos. I proceeded to climb over the wall of the platform so I could cross the river and as I did many flamingos started coming up over the wall and attacking me. I realized that was not the way I should go and I climbed back over, onto the platform. I then walked back over to the door and tried to open it, however it was locked. Jesus then stood up and he had a key so he unlocked it for me. He then led me back through the hallway in which I had come. He also led me to another door and opened it for me. We walked through the door and there was a beautiful redwood forest. He said to me, "This is the way you should go."

Tom and I did a pastoral internship at two different non-denominational, evangelical churches. We also ended up starting a house church that we pastored for 4 years. Everything was going pretty well. Our church was growing and we were able to branch off and form a second house church. The local paper even did an article about us and it was on the front page of the paper on Easter Sunday.

We never had any doctrinal problems with the Catholic Church so a lot of what we did at our church was very "Catholic". We baptized babies and even had weekly communion. We thought if we had the faith, Jesus would be just as present in our communion but it was different. We began to really miss the Eucharist and a sense of the sacred. We began to pray about whether we should return back to the Catholic Church. When I was praying about it, the flamingo dream came to my mind and the interpretation hit me like a ton of bricks. It suddenly became very clear.

The first thing I did in the dream was walk through a hallway and walk through another door. I believe this represents walking away from the Catholic Church and going over to the Protestant side. It is interesting to note that Jesus was still there. In my dream, he was hanging out on the platform, I believe mentoring a guy. I looked over the platform and felt I needed to get to the land that was on the other side of the river. I think this represents our desire to do ministry and believing the way to be able to do that was to cross over to a particular denomination that we ended up joining. In the river were flamingos. Flamingos are pink which is a white-washed red. Red stands for the blood of Jesus, the passion, the cross. If it is watered down, white-washed, I believe it represents a cheapened form of the cross or what Dietrich Bonhoeffer described as "cheap grace" which is grace without the need for repentance and change.  In his book, "The Cost of Discipleship" he says, "Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate." This pretty much sums up what we encountered at the churches we participated in. There seemed to be a lot of talk about grace and even grace extended to people involved in serious sin however, there wasn't a whole lot of grace extended to your average person in the pew. This explains how in my dream I was being attacked by the flamingos. Although we did have some good experiences and encounters with the Lord, being attacked by the flamingos sums up my experience at the evangelical churches we attended. It should be interesting to note however that Bonhoeffer was not Catholic and I do not believe that all Protestant churches give into cheap grace and being seeker sensitive.

Another fact about flamingos is they stand on one foot. I believe this stands for Protestants holding to Sola Scriptura (scripture alone) whereas Catholics are grounded in Scripture and Tradition. If you hold to Sola Scriptura, you only have one leg to stand on and it may not be as well balanced. Flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp. Shrimp eat the scraps off the bottom of the ocean. They were also wading in florescent green water. Green stands for life. The green the flamingos were standing in was a florescent green which I believe stands for it not being real. There is a better way, a more real way and that is to eat from the tree of life which is Jesus himself in the Eucharist. He is the bread of life, real food and real drink for our souls (John 6:35).

I then decided in my dream to go back through the door in which I came from but it was locked. Jesus had a key. It is only by his grace and mercy that we came back. He then led me to another door that led to a beautiful redwood forest. The redwoods are the most ancient of trees. They have stood the test of time.There are some very interesting facts about the redwoods. For instance, they have some unique survival tactics. Their bark is up to a foot thick in some places and when exposed to fire forms a heat shield that protects the main part of the tree. Redwoods  have a chemical composition that is distasteful to termites and ants. Redwoods are also very resistant to water rot. There are many more interesting facts that you can read about redwoods here.

When we were praying about whether we should return to the Catholic Church, suddenly it became obvious to me, the correlation between the  Catholic Church and redwoods. Like the redwoods, the Catholic Church has also stood the test of time. She is ancient, founded by Christ over 2,000 years ago. Despite many trials, tests and sinful people, the teaching and doctrine of the Church has survived and has been unwavering.

It feels very safe to me that the bar is set pretty high in the Catholic Church. There is still sin but the Church makes it clear that it is sin. When you lower the bar and allow anything to go, it does not feel very safe. Churches that are being "seeker sensitive" and watering down the gospel in order to win souls are not really doing anyone a favor. If people are coming to Jesus under a "gospel" that says, "Come to Jesus and all your needs will be met." or "Come to Jesus just as you are and you don't have to change" are really doing people a disservice. As soon as these people encounter trials or the storms of life, which they will, they could easily lose faith. 

I am very happy to be back in the Catholic Church. It is not perfect. There is still sin and I am still longing for more of a "sense of the sacred" but I know that Jesus is there and is present in the Sacraments and in the Eucharist. That gives me comfort and peace and I couldn't imagine ever leaving again. 

The Road Less Traveled

I've kind of fallen behind in blogging. I am in the thick of being pregnant and miserable. Fortunately some of the nausea has let up but now I am dealing with constant headaches. When I am pregnant, sometimes I think it would be better if I just crawled into a hole for nine months and didn't see anyone. I feel like even if I am not complaining in words, misery is written all over my face and I do not want to be a downer to anyone. The Lord reminded me that when he walked Calvary, he wasn't smiling. Actually that would have been pretty weird if he would have been. Also, the image of Veronica's veil came to my mind. According to Christian tradition, there was a woman named Veronica who was deeply devoted to Christ. She followed him on the road to Calvary and wiped his bloody face with her veil. The image of Christ's face was transferred onto the veil. There are documents of this as far back as the early 300's. I felt like the Lord was telling me that when we choose the road of suffering (which could just mean doing His will instead of our own) and join our suffering to his, we cannot help but leave an imprint on the lives of others.

The Name of the Game

A while back, during a season when I was going through some very difficult circumstances that I did not want to accept, I had a simple but rather profound dream. In the dream I saw a board game. On the side of the board game was the word, in big bold letters, SURRENDER. I woke up and the thought came to me, "The name of the game is surrender!" 

I was reminded of that dream when I had a similar word I felt led to give this past Friday for our 1st Friday holy hour at church. This was used for our guided meditation:

John 21:1-6 (After the resurrection) Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Like Peter and the disciples we can often work tirelessly from morning till night. We use up all our human effort and strength only to gain nothing. Sometimes it can feel like we are running on a treadmill; working endlessly but not getting anywhere. We can be left feeling discouraged and weary. When we finally come to the place where we realize we can do nothing on our own, we let go and surrender to the Lord, he can take over and we will begin to see the fruit of our labors. Jesus is eagerly waiting for us to come to this place so he can shower us with his abundance of grace and blessings.

I believe the Lord would say to us tonight, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Fall back into my love and mercy. Let go of all your fears and concerns. Fall back into me. I will hold you and I will carry you through. Put your trust in me! Let go and I will replace your worries with my joy and my strength!

Dying to Live

“At times, to choose the will of God over our own is excruciating. We love our flesh and it hurts to have its desires crucified! Never misunderstand pain as permission to forego the will of God.” - Beth Moore.  

I could not have said it better myself! I can definitely relate to that quote these days as I am currently almost 10 weeks pregnant. I am in the thick of all day long morning sickness that will most likely last for 20 weeks, fatigue, congestion, and moodiness. Next trimester I will probably look forward to migraines and pubic symphysis pain and the third trimester, gestational diabetes, constant contractions, preterm labor and bed rest. After the baby is born it will most likely send me into a flare-up with my connective tissue disorder which will cause me to have debilitating joint pain and muscle weakness for 9 months to a year.  I've been thinking lately that people would be right to think I am insane to put myself and my family through a 7th pregnancy. It really was not a very logical decision especially as my oldest daughter is getting ready to go to college in the fall and we are still wondering where all the funds are going to come from. 

I went to Eucharistic adoration last Friday and the Lord helped me have a better attitude. I felt like he told me that yes, I am insane...insanely in love with him! That was a good reminder for me and a very good reason to make the choices I have made. Tom and I really believed the Lord wanted us to have another child and that is the reason we were open and conceived again.  We did not choose this because we selfishly "needed" another child. Don't get me wrong. Human life is precious and sacred and we are very blessed. I just do not have the suffering part of it down yet.

People often say that God will not give us more than we can handle. I think they get that from the scripture that says, "God will not test us beyond our strength." 1 Cor. 10:13  I see this as two separate things. God gives me more than I can handle all the time but isn't that the point. We are supposed to let go, surrender, and learn to find all our strength in him. We need to come to the place where we realize that we can do NOTHING without him. I used to pray for healing and that the Lord would take this condition away from me.  You know what he said to me? "My grace is sufficient for you."

It is ironic. When I was in college, I was discerning the religious life (becoming a nun). I think one reason I decided not to go that route is because I was afraid of losing myself and my identity. By choosing the beautiful path of marriage and family, that is still happening to me. I think however that that is what is supposed to happen. We are supposed to lose ourselves.  We are supposed to lose our lives! It is no longer supposed to be us who lives, but Christ who lives in us (Matt. 16:25). Once I have this baby, I am pretty sure there isn't going to be anything left of ME. I think that might be the point though and I think that might be when the fruit of joy comes in. If there is nothing left of us and all that is left is Christ, wouldn't that ultimately bring complete joy and freedom?!

Sometimes the Lord takes me on adventures. Not because I am anything special but probably because I am able to open up my imagination to him in that way. He has taken me on a hot air balloon ride to China where we talked to an elderly lady who had a lot of wisdom, we have stood on top of a mountain overlooking a river valley at a National park and most recently we watched people skiing in the Alps. One thing I believe the Lord keeps saying to me as he takes me on these adventures is, "Do not feel bad if you do not get to experience everything this world has to offer. What I have prepared for you is greater than ALL this!"

So, I will look forward to losing myself in the hope of gaining more of Christ and I look forward to the day when my joy will be complete!