Your Will not My Whim

This week in the online retreat that I have been trying to make and stay faithful to over the past weeks, I am asked to consider patterns of my sinfulness. Truthfully, the past two weeks I have had difficulty connecting with the retreat focus on sin both that of the world and that for which I am responsible. This week, I feel a bit more connected. Truth be told I need to work on extracting myself from the rut I have found myself in over the past years. It is easy to blame life's circumstances and struggles on my own lack of motivation. Certainly challenges in life especially with parenting have caused a lot of anxiety for me but the challenge is in how I respond.

For the first few years since moving, I felt lonely and disconnected from the friends and community that we had left behind. I missed my church, the kids school and the friends we had made in the community. The things that had kept me involved were gone such as volunteering opportunities at the children's school and the sense of contributing and being needed seemed to be lost and replaced by day to day struggles to help my now older children navigate the challenges present in their teen years. I spent many days feeling lonely and filled my days with calling friends I had left behind and wishing that somehow I could go back.

I also filled the void with work. As the company I had worked with began expanding and growing, opportunities presented for travel and I was able to take on new responsibilities of leadership. This helped me to feel needed and valued and capable something I felt missing in my day to day life as I struggled with the challenges present in the lives of my children growing up. This became an escape. I got to travel and make a difference working with children and forming new relationships with others within my company. The problem was that even though I did not feel needed or valued on the home front I was needed even just to help police the day to day activities present in the lives of my teens. Although this was much less, exciting than travelling and without the perks that come from earning a good income, it was where I needed to be.

Gradually, I began to feel more connected to the new community. To a limited extent, through my children's activities especially cheerleading, we began to form closer friendships to neighbors and also through Bill's work. Still missing was the connection to my church community and being plugged into and supported in my faith journey. I missed the fellowship that I had felt in my former church where I felt surrounded by others sharing my faith journey and facing the same struggles and challenges. I desperately wanted the support and perspective that comes from sharing especially with other women and encouraging one another.

My problem was that I needed direction. Although I have always been a believer, I am at my best when I am a believer that feels connected and supported. Frequently and even now, I whittle my time away with things that do not lift me up or help me in anyway to be the person that God calls me to be. Worse yet, I neglect those things that I am called to do and I make excuses for what I should be accomplishing. I struggled here to find a place to connect. I had experienced a lot of support through a ministry at my former church but this ministry was not active in my new parish. I kept feeling the prodding of the spirit to bring this ministry to my new church but I lacked the courage to take those first steps. Finally, I took a risk and gathered together the information to share with our pastor. He was excited about this new ministry so at his prodding I began to lay the foundation. Still, I held back both discouraged and dissatisfied by the circumstances and struggles especially with my own children and feeling myself in no way to be able to lead and direct others along the journeys of motherhood. Reluctantly, I moved forward to start this ministry by recruiting a few others who were willing to help me make this happen. The results of these collective efforts was the first Ministry of Mothers Sharing 8 week journey at our parish. Even more amazing was watching the power of the Spirit to make everything happen. God is good!

My faith life seems to have reached a point of renewal. This brings me an incredible sense of peace when I stay faithful to Gods Will in my life. It is not something that simply happens though. I have to do my part by staying connected each day. This daily spirituality diet has been further nourished through my choosing to go on a Cursillio weekend this past Fall. Although I had heard someone speak of this from my old parish in Florida, it was not something that I knew a lot about. Upon moving to Georgia, I heard references from time to time about the upcoming weekends and wondered about it. Once again, through the Spirit and prodding of others I made an inquiry and decided to go. For 3 days, I felt more alive and full of joy than I had in years. Here I found a connection with other believers who were trying to move forward with their faith journey despite the ups and downs of life. I came to know others who had struggled with challenges in their marriages, children and health. Others who were trying to find the right path but who likewise experienced suffering. Here was a place for me to work and grow in my faith journey with the encouragement of others who were endeavoring to do the same. Cursillio asks that you make a commitment to Piety and Study. This is what has lead me to the online retreat and to challenge myself to work toward a deeper understanding of God's will for my life.

As I return to the weekly focus, I am able to see that my own tendency to sin flourishes during periods where I am not grounded and connected to my faith life and working to understand what is occurring in my life through God's eyes and trying to discern his Will. Instead, I chose to seek the answers by complaining to friends or somehow escaping my reality. I try desperately to control my circumstances and others and solve all my own problems. Is it any wonder that when I am not successful I find myself depressed and without motivation in my day to day life? It is these patterns that I need God's grace to help me change. It is here that I find myself asking God for his mercy and reaching toward God because he promises that he loves me always even when I don't feel lovable. Here, I can appreciate with gratitude God's love and the ways that he continues to draw me to him....de Colores!