Category: trials

When the thread snaps

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

If you feel things are out of control in your life (and even if you don’t), this is for you:

Hanging By A Thread

 A week ago, I thought I had things under control.  My blog post was up on Monday and I’d jotted down thoughts for another two; my upcoming classes with senior executives were planned; my beard was trimmed.
On Tuesday, I ate lunch with a friend I’ve been out of contact with for a while.  He gave me inscribed copies of his two most recent books, which I started reading that day.  Then, it all changed.
We brought our eight year old, Jopa, to the MD’s office that afternoon.  She’d been showing signs of what we thought was an infection.  We were wrong.  It was Type I diabetes.
One day her pancreas was producing insulin.  The next it was not.  Her life, and ours, changed forever with the mysterious shutting down of her relevant cells.
She and my wife went to the hospital, where they remained for three days.  And, that was the least of it.  She’ll be pinpricking her finger and giving herself shots for as long as she lives.
Something similar happened to a parishioner who was healthy and living a normal life on Friday.  Saturday, he slipped on the ubiquitous ice, cracked his skull, and underwent emergency brain surgery.  He is in critical condition, fighting for his life.
Read the rest here.

Trials of trust

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

This is for you who are going through times of great darkness and/or suffering:

“Hope and trust grow and increase only by trial, suffering, danger, sorrow, and even if it comes, horror.  For this reason, darkness is an essential part of the spiritual journey–darkness of many kinds.”

“Some have called this trust the greatest act of worship we can perform, because it unites us in a more realistic way with the mystery of Christ.” (Fr. Benedict Groeschel)

I thank all of you, on behalf of the Church, all of you who are offering the trials, dangers, even horrors to God as an act of worship.  May God sustain you and give you hope.

The temptation of temptations

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

“So go forth very bravely with perfect trust in the goodness of him who calls you to this holy task.  When has anyone ever hoped in the Lord and been disappointed?  Mistrust of your own powers is good as long as it is the groundwork of confidence in God’s power; but if you are ever in any way discouraged, anxious, sad, or melancholy I entreat you to cast this away as the temptation of temptations; and never allow your spirit to argue or reply in any way to any anxiety or downheartedness to which you may feel inclined.  Remember this simple truth which is beyond all doubt: God allows many difficulties to beset those who want to serve him but he never lets them sink beneath the burden as long as they trust in him.  This, in a few words, is a complete summary of what you most need: never under any pretext whatsoever to yield to the temptation of discouragement, not even on the plausible pretext of humility.”  (St. Francis de Sales)

Our appointed lot

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I’m on an Amy Carmichael role, can you tell?

1 Thess 3.3. (Weymouth): That none of you might be unnerved by your present trials: for you yourselves know that they are our appointed lot.

Have you difficulties?  They are our appointed lot.  Have you trials?  They are our appointed lot. 

Those five words were written to people who might any day find themselves in prison, tortured, lonely, oppressed.  Her if we have to have a tooth out, we have an injection.  There was no injection for the Christians of Thessalonica.  Let us not forget that when we are tempted to fuss over trifles, and call things trials which are mere nothings.

Still, there are trials sometimes, and they may look very big.  But they are our appointed lot–we were never promised ease.  The early Christians were not taught to expect it.  Don’t let us slip into the expectation of the easy.  It isn’t our appointed lot.

But for us there is always another word (2 Cor 12.9): My grace is sufficient for you.

“Never, never did He not hear.”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I just had to dig Amy Carmichael out today to look for something of hers to share.  She just has such a wonderful way of saying things and hitting the nail right on the head.

Ps 116.1 I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications.

As we look back on past years,  they are full of memories of great sorrows and great joys also.  If I were asked to give the sum of the years in a sentence I would write this: I love the Lord because He has heard my voice and my supplications.  Never, never did He not hear.  Never was He far away.

It will be the same with you.  Just now you are in the midst of the pressure of life.  One thing follows another so closely that you have hardly time to think, hardly time to realize how much you are being helped.  But looking back, it will be different.  If there have been sorrows, you will see how marvelous His lovingkindness was.  If there have been joys, it will be the same.  If the time held just one steady round of service it will still be the same.  Every day, every hour will seem to you than as if these words were written across it: I love the Lord because He has heard.

So love Him now, rejoice in Him now, however things are because it is true today–He hears your voice and your supplications.