I needed more light before I could understand how God works in my life. I've shared several faith stories in my blog, but 'conversion' is a process I have to undergo each day... every moment of my life...
The Road to Freedom
I remember talking about my 'soft addictions...' ~ my little cravings, want of attention...they were minute but noticeable just the same because once they accumulate they become a hunger ~ disordinate and insatiable esurience that corrupted my soul and my being.
My confessor counseled that I 'choose' my thoughts... It has to be deliberate and freely made... and I followed this 'difficult' road because my natural tendencies were always in the way.
"I don't have the strength to stay away from you..."
-Edward Cullen, Stephenie Meyer's Twilight
That was a close excuse from taking control of myself. But that exact same time, the Lord gave me a person I could journey with through this...
Often I have said to people,
"I will pray for you,"
but how often did I really enter into the full reality of what that means?
-Henri Nouwen
-Henri Nouwen
The Journey
I didn't exactly knew what I would do. I wrestled with the Lord, "The blind cannot lead another blind...(Mt.15, 13)" My friend was struggling from his own addictions. I wanted to give up at one point because he was pulling me down. But God always made me felt that His grace was sufficient.
For a year and a half, every time the chalice was raised in the Eucharist, I offered God my friend's soul and asked Him to guide my friend's ways.
I really bring my friends and the many I pray for into my innermost being and
feel their pains,
their struggles,
their cries in my own soul,
then I leave myself,
so to speak,
and become them,
then I have compassion.
-Henri Nouwen
-Henri Nouwen
We didn't see each other for two weeks before Easter, but when he came back he told me he had been reading. I saw a glimpse of God somewhere because my friend never reads. His social networking decreased ... our frequent talks lessened and last night he had a revelation.
He had been crying, he said, and for two nights he couldn't sleep. He was reflecting on what he read. It was about God and the Last day... he wept like a child, he told me, because God did not expose his sins to others but instead made him see it on his own. He felt sorrow for displeasing God and wanted to change his ways.
And he wept for himself because he knew that his inner struggle is not over... this was just the beginning...
God answered my prayers!
"Oh," he added, "I've been praying for you too... that you may be released from your walls of imprisonment... I thought of you, and wanted your soul saved."
I broke into tears... God answered his...
Compassion lies at the heart of our prayer for our fellow human beings.
When I pray for the world,I become the world;
when I pray for the endless needs of the millions,my soul expands and wants to embrace them all and bring them into the presence of God.
But in the midst of that experience I realize that compassion is not mine but God's gift to me.
I cannot embrace the world, but God can.
I cannot pray,but God can pray in me.
When God became as we are,that is,when God allowed all of us to enter into the intimacy of the divine life,it became possible for us to share in God's infinite compassion.
In praying for others I lose myself and become the other,
only to be found by the divine love which holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace.
(Genesee Diary)
To Pray is to Become
by Henri Nouwen,In My Own Words:compiled by Robert Durback, Chapter 3:Response (Ligouri,Missouri:Ligouri Publications,2001),54.
What was it that I prayed for?
That we may both encounter and experience God in a more personal way.
-Reflections with my Muslim friend, 19 April 2013-