Do you care about me God?

The spiritual journey never ends in this world, every day I must continue to allow God to shape me into a better version of myself.  Some days I feel anti-productive as if instead of moving forward in holiness I take steps back in sin, fear and doubt.  Sin and fear separate us from God and create burning doubts with the main question being:  “do you care about me God?” I pray, I try to be obedient, but sometimes my immature faith, my problems, unanswered prayers bring rise to the unbeliever in me.  This struggle is common amongst believers and it’s perfectly ok to have these negative feelings and to wonder whether God is really listening, but what we do during this inner fight is infinitely more important.  Jesus is my friend, that's something that I learned in my protestant past, and I talk to him with the same easiness that I would any close friend.  The problem is that when I reduce him to just any friend his power and might also get reduced.  So, it’s important to be friends with Jesus to have that trust and accessibility that you would with any special friend, but to remember that he is Lord.  That he’s the greatest superhero known to man- he is God.  Yesterday, after work I drove to a parish near my office and went to the chapel to pray.  I had never been inside this particular chapel and when I went inside as I knelt to pray my eyes fell upon a painting of the Divine Mercy underneath the feet of Jesus was the common message: “Jesus, I trust in you.”  Immediately and ever so clearly I knew God was asking me to trust Him.

My favorite form of worship is adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. I love kneeling in the presence of my Lord and to relieve myself of everything that does not belong to Jesus.  I often close my eyes and imagine placing my head on His lap and He stroking my hair while I let it all out.  Many times I don’t need His words, I just need to feel Him close to me.  Sometimes when I am so lost in my thoughts and my hurts- I am unable to hear His reassuring voice, but after I calm down enough His voice echoes in my being. Later last night while I was doing some spiritual reading- I came over the words never lose hope in the mercy of God, God simply wants us to keep trying (failure and all, pain and all) because the God of Mercy knows what we are and revels in our weakness.  Wow!  The outcome is not the Christian objective the goal is to trust God above all and to never be afraid to try again.  Maya Angelou once said, “You might encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.”

I wrote a post earlier today- that I deleted because it was too brutally honest and mean- and I don’t want to hurt others as a way of payback.  The word of God tells us to “not do injury to anyone, but bear injuries patiently.”  Yet the flesh is weak and when we hurt we want to retaliate- I know that my initial response to injury is never godly.  Thus, I need to seek God when I am troubled so that I can respond with kindness and peace.  Sometimes I go quiet so that I won’t be mean- silence is golden as longs as we don’t use it as a passive-aggressive, insensitive response to conflict.  My parents taught us that anger must never be stronger than our familial love.  Thus, though I get angry usually within a day I am back to my peaceful self.  Yet, I need a few hours sometimes more to process the hurt feelings and eventually to let go.  I also need a lot of God.  Today I listened to a chat on fear by Mother Angelica- she’s such a funny lady (must be making the angels laugh in heaven) and she encouraged me.  Gosh, I want to be like her always joyful in my faith in God.  I guess what I am discovering is that our thoughts really affect our prospect of life and our relationship with God.  As an introvert who loves to ponder things, to understand others and ideas I am quite entertained by my own thoughts.  This at times can be a curse, when negative ideas fester in my mind for a while.  Yet, at times like these I always seek God more, through more: prayer, spiritual reading, spending time at his feet in adoration, service or speaking with a close friend.  Life is hard, some days a bit harder than others, but ultimately it's our decision whether to confront it with joy or distress.

Be still and know that I AM GOD.