A Day of Battle

Whew. I'm spent. I feel like I've battled all day. I have, actually. More on that in a bit.

A lot going on in my head and heart today.

Today is the celebration of All Saints' Day in the Catholic Church: http://www.wf-f.org/AllSaints.html. So in my devotion time this morning, I ran across this statement......"The saints are true realists; they take seriously the hopelessness of man as it is and do not seek a refuge from the present in the future. They get on with the job in spite of everything and hope against hope."

What does the author mean by "a refuge from the present in the future?" When I think of the future as a refuge, I think of the hope of heaven. But the way this author is using it, he seems to be saying that it is not a good thing to take refuge in the future....so he can't be talking about heaven. Any ideas? I guess the gist of what he is trying to say is that the saints were present with people in their difficulties, in the moment of their difficulties.

That "in the moment" theme again. My theme for 2007. And and probably for 2008.

Now for the battle. I've struggled with self all day today. But it didn't feel like the usual struggles. It felt like a continuous unrelenting onslaught all day long, where I needed to consciously throughout the day forcefully change the direction and content of my thoughts. They came unsolicited, and I fought them off, some more quickly than others. Arrrggh.

Are there ever days where you feel you are a focused target of the enemy? Where it feels like his mission for that day is to throw so many things your way that at times it almost seems easier to give in than to keep fighting? That was my day. And of course when that happens, you hear his voice saying things like, "See? You are sinful. Why even bother trying?" and "Just give up. You know I'm going to win in the end."

So then you add in the fight against the deceitful messages on top of the rest of the battle and sometimes it makes one just want to retreat.

With that in the background, I made a hospice visit at the end of the day. This particular woman is declining. I would be surprised if she was still living in a couple of weeks. And she is a dear. I feel like I've made a friend in the few short weeks I've been visiting her. Today she slept through most of my visit so I talked with her family.

I grabbed her hand to wake her to tell her I was leaving. Her eyes flew wide open, she grabbed my hand in a death grip and said, "You can't leave me." Now she has been feisty and known to have a sense of humor, so to lighten what I saw in her face to be a very serious statement, I asked with a smile, "You want me to stay with you ALL of the time?" And still very serious, she responded, "yes, I do."

Well I told her I couldn't do that.....not that I didn't WANT to (genuinely). I said even though I couldn't stay with her physically through the weekend, I told her I would be with her constantly through my prayers. I asked her what she wanted me to pray for. "That it be over soon."

With assurances looking intently into her brown eyes that I would be back on Monday, I pryed her hands from mine finally and walked out the door.

And I cried. Sad to be losing a new friend so soon. Sad for her struggles and uncertainties. Sad that I couldn't just move in with her for the weekend.

I found a quiet spot to park and pray for her. And I was infuriated that the enemy had not called a cease-fire and continued to assault me--during my prayers! And then the messages came like "You can't even focus to pray for this dying woman." I finished my prayers, albeit exhausted.

Hopefully tomorrow I will be stronger in battle.

Weeding My Life

I weeded my flower garden today.....half of it, anyway. There were lots of weeds. Between them and the cutting back of plants for the fall, I filled 5 wheelbarrows full of yard waste, and spent 5 hours working. It was satisfying work. And it's work that I can see the result of right away. Things went from chaos to order in that short time period.

So I was talking to God about this as I weeded. I wondered why the sin in my life couldn't be more like the easy weeds that come out smoothly. Unfortunately, it is more like the huge weeds. Even though I make sure to gather all of the branches in one bunch, I pull and heave and heave and pull and nothing happens.

So I take the hand held pointy hoe and hack at the tap root. I hack and hack and hack and loosen dirt. Then I heave and pull. And back I fall onto my butt with the tap root still in the ground, leaving a promise of a return of the weed. Grrrr.

God, you are the master gardener. Why does it have to be such a long process? Why do you leave the tap root in my heart so that the sin isn't completely gone?

I'm not patient......another "weed" for God to work on. I can't do it.

Sacrifice

We all get discouraged when we fail. I've been more disgusted with myself lately. I just asked God the other day, "God, how is it that my focus goes from outward to inward in an instant?....not knowing it has happened until the retrospect?"

This is what I am constantly submitting to God through prayer, through fasting, through self-discipline and self-denial. It will take a lifetime to kill the selfish nature in me. I cannot wait until heaven for this reason. The effort is exhausting and sometimes overwhelming.

I read some things this morning that encouraged me. St. Therese of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) was talking with St. Therese of Lisieux (who died in 1897) about what it meant to be the greatest. St. Therese of the Child Jesus said:

"To be little is not attributing to oneself the virtues that one practices, believing oneself capable of anything, but to recognize that God places this treasure in the hands of his little child to be used when necessary; but it remains always God's treasure. Finally, it is not to become discouraged over one's faults, for children fall often, but they are too little to hurt themselves very much."

I can easily fall into the trap of discouragement and focusing on my failures. But by God's grace and mercy I get up and continue on.....knowing I will fall again but not wanting to. Any good in me is only because of God. Because I know I cannot do it myself. I'm reminded of that over and over again.

The other thing I read was about how love is nourished only by sacrifices. This makes sense, doesn't it, in light of the cross? Consider these statements:

"Love is nourished only by sacrifices...If one is completely dedicated to loving, one must expect to be sacrificed unreservedly. I have no other means of proving my love for you, O Lord, other than not allowing one little sacrifice to escape, not one look, one word, profiting by the smallest things, and doing them through love...In suffering and combat one can enjoy a moment of happiness that surpasses all the joys of this earth." (St. Therese of Lisieux)

and

"Human existence is a consuming of oneself 'for' something. This is the human being's greatness. Happiness comes through sacrifice. And the more one accepts this, the more one experiences a greater completeness already in this world." (Msgr. Luigi Giussani)

Sigh. It's a constant ideal to strive for, falling far short every day. But God, that's what I want to be like.

How long will it take? Have I made ANY progress at all?