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Many times, I think, the standard we set for ourselves of what we think God wants us to be or become is not, in reality what He’s really concerned about.  We fret about not measuring up here or there and then get discouraged because of our failure.  A word of wisdom from Caryll Houselander:

I often think that the ideal of our perfection that we set up, and often go through torture to achieve, may not be God’s idea of how He wants us to be at all.  That may be something quite different that we never would have thought of, and what seems like a failure to us may really be something bringing us closer to His will for us.

So . . . try to be a little bit freer to let go of what may not be His expectations for you and just abandon to His love. …

Do you ever find yourself often afraid of that which could be the best for you?  You fight against the very one who would be your biggest help.  Today’s Sunday-poem addresses that very thing.

The Voice

I am afraid of silence.  I am afraid
Of my own soul.  I am afraid of hearing
A voice–one voice above all voices–made
Clear in the silence.  I shall grow old fearing
This silence that goes with me wherever I go.
I cannot keep it in or bar it out.
Always within, around, above, below,
It beats upon me.  I am hedged about
Most utterly.  Surrounded.  Yet I raise
Even now a futile barrier of sound
Against the voice in silence I dispraise,
Against the voice I dread that hems me round;
To which, did I but listen, I should be
Afraid of nothing.  Nothing could frighten me.

Sr. Maris Stella

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. …