Category: trust in God

105 pages worth reading

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I have just begun a new book from Ignatius Press: Into Your Hands, Father.  Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us by Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen. I think the title tells all.  I’ll tease you with the first paragraph:

A problem many people have today is that they no longer recognize God’s will in everything that happens.  They no longer believe in a Providence that allows all that takes place to work for the good of those who love God (Rom 8.28).  They say all too easily and superficially: “But it is not God’s will that there are wars or that people starve or are persecuted . . . .”  No, it is not God’s will that human beings fight with each other.  He wills that we love one another.  But when evil people who are opposed to his will hate and murder others, he allows this to become part of his plan for them. We must distinguish between the actual deed of someone who, for example, slanders us and the situation that comes to us as a result of the deed, which was not God’s will.  God did not will the sinful act, but from all eternity he has taken into account the consequences of it in our lives.  He wills that we grow through those very things that others do to us that are difficult and painful.

I think this will be 105 pages that will be well worth reading.

The greater the reason we have to trust in God

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

One more from Francis de Sales:

The more miserable we are, the more we ought to trust in God’s goodness and mercy.  Had God not created man, God would always have been good, but he would not have been actually merciful, since he would not have shown mercy to anyone; for to whom can mercy be shown except to the wretched?

You see, then, that the more we recognize ourselves as miserable, the greater the reason we have to trust in God, since there is absolutely nothing in us in which we could put our confidence.

How to manage

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Some more excerpts from Deb Herbeck’s book, Safely Through the Storm:

I will not mistrust [God], thought I feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome by fear . . . .I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.  (St. Thomas More)

Go and find him when your patience and strength give out and you feel alone and helpless.  Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel.  Say to him, “Jesus, you know exactly what is going on.  You are all that I have, and you know all.  Come to my help.”  And then go, and don’t worry about how you are going to manage.  That you have told God about it is enough.  He has a good memory.  (St. Jeanne Jugan)

All things fail, but You, O Lord of them all, never fail. . . . You seem, O Lord, to give extreme tests to those who love You, but only that, in the extremity of their trials, they may learn the greater extremity of Your love.  (St. Teresa of Avila)

Not in control

Sr. Dorcee, beloved6 Comments

Years ago after I arrived home one day, I asked one of our sisters who was the cook for the day if she had everything under control.  She replied, “I hope not.”  I’ve never forgotten her response.  God was the One who needed to be in control, not her.  I’ve been thinking a lot about that recently because a lot has been going on that is beyond my control.  Because of stress in my life, I had to cancel some of my obligations over the past couple of weeks, including speaking engagements at our parish women’s retreat.  Not the kind of thing I like to do.  My comfort this morning has been reading the psalms, especially those which speak of God being in control.  (Hmmmmm. Aren’t they all about that?)  Or take Isaiah 54:10 “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”

May you have a day not in your own control.  🙂

Even there

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Written by a missionary in Communist China in the early 1950’s, with only 15 cents left in his pocket, a terrible toothache, no fuel and a tiny daughter with scarlet fever.  The beginning reference is to Acts 27:27-32.

In Adria’s tempest-tossed wastes,
My barque through the dark deeps is driv’n;
The canvas all torn from my masts,
My timbers by stormy waves riv’n.
Yet there faith’s assurance rings clear,
E’en there will I trust, EVEN THERE.

All hope for deliverance had gone,
Despair’s chilly gloom shrouded all;
No sun’s ray through threat’ning cloud shone
To brighten the future’s dark pall.
Yet there should my heart quake with fear,
E’en there will I trust, EVEN THERE.

My brook’s daily waters had dried,
All replenishing springs scorched bare;
Resourceless in sore need I cried
To a God who seemed not to care.
Though trembling, triumphant I bow
E’en now will I trust, EVEN NOW.

The barrel of meal empties fast,
The tempter crowds close with his lies;
“Can God?” Ah! He’s failed you at last,
“In wilderness find fresh supplies.”
Perish doubts!  Though I know not how,
E’en now will I trust, EVEN NOW.

~Arthur Mathews

If

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I have been reading quite a bit of the writings of Isobel Kuhn, a protestant missionary to China right before Communism took over.  The excerpt below is from a book about a married couple and child who were trapped in China at the onset of Communism and not allowed to leave for quite awhile.  Isobel focuses in on the question that can tempt us all at various times in our lives: “If only . . .”  The woman she is writing about is the wife and mother in the family.

“If only that letter had not come, inviting us here.”  What about the “if”?  She got them [a tract she had on “If”] and read:

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” [Jn 11.32b]”  And He could have been there; He was not far away.  He knew all about it, and He let him die.  I think it was very hard for that woman . . . It is something God could  have made different, if He had chosen, because He has all power; and He has allowed that “if” to be there.

I do not discount the “if” in your life.  No matter what it is . . . Come to the Lord with your “if” and let Him say to you what He said to Martha.  He met her “if” with His “if”!  “Did I not tell you that IF you would believe you would see the glory of God” [Jn 11.40]” The glory of God is to come out of the “if” in your life. . .

Do not be thinking of your “if.”  Make a power out of your “if” for God. . .

Do you know that  light is to fall on your “if” some day?  Then take in the possibilities and say, “Nothing has ever come to me, nothing has ever gone from me, that I shall be better for God by it . . .”

Face the “if” in your life and say, For this I have Jesus.

But there is nothing to be ashamed of if you experience those “ifs” plaguing you, as Isobel Kuhn goes on to write:

[O]ur Lord never scolded Martha for her “if”; nor Mary (who accompanied the same “if” with mute worship, prostrating herself at His feet), but with her, He wept.  Wept at the sorrow which must accompany spiritual growth in our lives: for by suffering He also learned obedience.  (Green Leaf in Drought, p. 36)

Believing God’s goodness

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I have been thinking a bit these past couple of weeks about a number of things.  First: about living selflessly, living for others, living for the Other, Christ, who lived His entire life only for others, and praying for that grace to be released more and more in my own life.  Along with that, I have been pondering the lives of those who, like all those mentioned in Hebrews, did not obtain in this life what was promised.  (Cf. Heb 11)  The priest who said Mass for us this past Saturday–whose homily I hope to soon post–spoke about the European cathedral dwellers who labored on churches whose completion they would never see, cathedrals which would not be finished for hundreds of years.  Their lives were certainly lived in hope, in living for others–the others who would contemplate and be moved by the beauty of the buildings they themselves would never see.

There come times in all our lives where we can’t even see the beginnings of the building, but only see its ruins.  What then?  My friend, Debbie Herbeck, has just written a book called Safely Through the Storm (Servant) in which she collected 120 quotes on hope.  Being a quote “collector” myself, I did not hesitate to get a copy.  The following quote from Fr. Benedict Groeschel (#8 in her book) brings together, I think, all my little threads of reflection:

When things fall apart and all seems to be ruined and when the terrible question “What do you do when nothing makes sense?” comes right home, the answer is that it is the time to believe.  It is the time for faith . . . . One must grab onto God . . . . One must be able to say, “I believe that God’s goodness is going to bring about some greater good by this horror.  It may not be a great good for me in this world, but it will be a great good someplace, somewhere, perhaps for those I love in the next world.” (Arise from Darkness, When Life Doesn’t Make Sense, p. 132)

“Do Thou For Me”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Amy Carmichael’s note on this poem of hers: “Ps 109.21.  A prayer that may be unfathomable comfort to the ill and tired: ‘Do Thou for them, for him, for her, O God the Lord.’  When one cannot pray minutely or powerfully, this prayer suffices.  We need not tell Love what to do; Love knows.”  God knows better than we what is best for those we love.  Here Amy is simply encouraging us to trust Him who knows how to love best.

Do Thou For Me

Do Thou for me, O God the Lord,
Do Thou for me.
I need not toil to find the word
That carefully
Unfolds my prayer and offers it,
My God, to Thee.

It is enough that Thou wilt do,
And wilt not tire,
Wilt lead by cloud, all the night through
By light of fire,
Till Thou has perfected in me
Thy heart’s desire.

For my beloved I will not fear,
Love knows to do
For him, for her, from year to year,
As hitherto.
Whom my heart cherishes are dear
To Thy heart too.

O blessèd be the love that bears
The burden now,
The love that frames our very prayers,
Well knowing how
To coin our gold.  O God the Lord,
Do Thou, Do Thou.

Thy way, not mine, O Lord

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Today’s Sunday-poem:

Thy way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be;
Lead me by thine own hand,
Choose out the path for me.

Smooth let it be or rough,
It will be still the best;
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to thy rest.

I dare not choose my lot;
I would not if I might:
Choose thou for me, my God,
So I shall walk aright.

The Kingdom that I seek
Is thine; so let the way
That leads to it be thine,
Else I must surely stray.

Take thou my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to thee may seem;
Choose thou my good and ill.

Choose thou for me my friends,
My sickness or my health;
Choose thou my cares for me,
My poverty or wealth.

Not mine, not mine, the choice
In things or great or small;
Be thou my guide, my strength,
My wisdom, and my all.

H. Bonar