Harm

I've been pondering this question for several hours, days, months, years... I, clearly, have an issue with believing in God's love FOR me. I believe in His capacity to love all of us and I have experienced the joys and fulfillment that I experience by just being obedient and trusting in His love. My stumbling block comes from waiting for this amazing sense of calm (accompanied by angelic voices and harps)to pass over me when I finally believe that God can and does love ME! I remember reading how Mother Theresa never felt that deep seeded bond with God but she believed anyway. I do not claim to be Mother Theresa, for obvious reasons, but I wonder if I am capable of believing it anyway.

I do not want to harm my relationship with Christ even one iota yet is my lack of faith in His immense love for me preventing me from true union with Him? I shared my faith journey with a lovely group of women last night and I talked about the stupid tapes that run through my head. You know the ones; "Not good enough"; "Unlovable"; "Forgettable"... But, I kept on repeating how much I love God. I do love Him with all of my heart! At Mass, this evening, I spent some time just wondering if I was doing all that I could to squash these tapes running through my head. Has it become, unwittingly, a crutch that I use to keep from delving deeper into my relationship with Christ? I can't believe that would be true! I also can't believe that I could be that lazy!!

I'd like to think that I have the faith of a child. I don't always feel warm and fuzzy from prayer or from the Eucharist but I do it. I attend Mass and I pray daily because I want that relationship with God even if I don't get the butterflies on my end. There are times, however, that I have gotten the butterflies and the warm and fuzzies but they aren't really what have sustained me. It is the constant knowledge that merely having faith in God without all of the yummy feelings is enough. Is it? I pray fervently that it is enough.

Here we go: "What would a husband think who, when asking his wife 'Do you love me?' received the response 'I have a great desire to love you; I shall work toward it; I hope one day to achieve it by dint of my efforts and generosity and sacrifice.' You are right to smile. But is this not the spiritual disposition many excellent souls adopt toward Jesus?" And: "We have all had this temptation at one time or another. 'I have promised Him so much, I have made so many resolutions, and I always fall again; it is impossible that He does not get tired of it.' It is a kind of blasphemy to say that, because it is to limit a mercy which has no limit. It is to doubt the patience, the indulgence, the untiring clemency of Jesus. It is not He who grows weary of us; it is we who grow weary of looking at our ugliness." All of this is found in I Believe in Love - my favorite book! I think, perhaps, it merits another read!

Thanks for letting me vent!