A Lost Sheep
This weekend’s readings are beautiful and so filled with the promise of richness. I have been praying with the Good Shepherd for weeks listening for the insight that God would share with me. Well, my time is running out, and I think this week I am little more than a dumb sheep. I have got nothing.
I love this reading. There is such warmth, gentleness, and promise in it. And yet, as I sat in my beautiful little prayer space, nothing came. I was beginning to think that Easter must have been extra stressful for God too. He was taking a vacation, and I was here talking to myself. This has happened to me the last couple of weeks when I have prayed. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t like it, and it frightens me.
This week instead of sharing some recycled spiritual thought or theological wandering, I want to share with you about feeling alone in faith. There are times when the spiritual well in our soul runs dry. It happens to all of us. I take some comfort knowing that it also happened to the saints, and sometimes for very long periods.
Periodically, the absolute silence of God is all that greets me when I pray. There isn’t even the feeling of God present, and my grocery list is more engaging. God is absent. I beg Him to come, and yet I am alone in prayer. When this happens to me, I often immediately think I am doing something wrong. I haven’t quieted my heart enough, or perhaps I am blocking what God is trying to give me.
I admit that every time it happens to me, I am surprised and disappointed. I immediately feel like a failure at prayer. This is when I push my brain to kick in and not allow me to wallow in my feelings of inadequacy and loss. Maybe we all sometimes feel lost and abandoned by God.
When I find God silent, I am persistent. I keep showing up. I continue to sit in God’s presence and to wait. The other day I watched the minutes pass, and I thought of everything else I could be doing. Yet, I remained and continued to call my heart to silence. We need to show up. We must be faithful even if nothing is happening, even when God is silent. In those times, God is working in the background, tilling our hearts and souls and readying them for a new moment.
I grew up on a farm. And I take this image from that experience. After a lengthy northern winter, we took out the wheel harrow, hooked it to the tractor, and began to turn the soil, fertilize it, and prepare it for planting. The earth was rock hard from the winter, and the tilling was grueling work.
Sometimes God needs to till and fertilize the soil of my heart. He needs to prepare it for new planting. God’s silence is not a sign of my failure. It is a promise of God’s grace. God has found my soul a worthy meadow in which to plant new seeds. I sit silently in God’s presence and allow God to work.
I believe He is there even when I cannot see Him. He loves me even when I cannot feel Him, and He is calling me into a closer relationship even when I think I have gone as deep as I can go in my love for Him. I believe, and I trust, so I will wait. I will wait silently in His presence.
Today, I am a lost sheep longing for the Lord to find me. I know He will. I will hear His voice, and the Lord will come to me. Ahh, I cannot begin to imagine the new pastures he has prepared where I will once again hear His voice.
In God’s Unending Love,
Gwen
Gwen,
I especially appreciate your ‘special’ REFLECTION this week. I have written a few ‘comments’ before and even sent one of my ‘thank you’ cards to all of you at one time. (I adapt my ‘Hallmark’ card program…no, God has not blessed me … yet … by giving me the tools to be a computer programmer!). I believe that I had mentioned before that my husband and I as well as many of my own family members (siblings/spouses, cousins, best friends, my fellow choir members just to name a few) have been ‘going to and participating in’ your weekly Saturday afternoon Masses for about a year now. [A year ago … March 27, 2020, my dear husband had surgery on his ‘left’ kidney at ‘The James Cancer Hospital’ – part of OSU – in Columbus, Ohio. This particular time, his large tumor was benign, and his skilled surgeon was able to remove the whole ‘growth’ robotically! But s with any surgery…especially kidney surgery, complications arose and my husband had numerous…emergencies, leading to being readmitted several times back to the wonderful, God blessed healing facility. Even though after this last surgery in 2020, Walt now has only 70% of one kidney left in his body (in 1995 his whole right cancerous kidney was surgically removed) we thank God every single day that HE guided the hands of my husband’s surgeon on that day in March 2020! GOD gave our whole family the strength to make It through a rather trying several months until July 17, when my dear husband was finally released from the hospital for the last time! For most of these months, Gwen, when during your ‘Prayers of the Faithful,’ whenever you said to add our own special intention, I always felt You were praying for my dear husband of almost 53 years! Please continue to think of my beloved each week when you pray. He will be under the care of his nephrologist at ‘The James’ for the rest of his life…having quarterly blood draws to keep his creatinine (kidney function) level in check. We were told upfront, following his long surgery, that there may be a time when he would need dialysis treatments. Walt’s strong faith has always been a source of inspiration to anyone who has ever met him. I thank God everyday that even though my husband left his priestly studies after 2-1/2 years (before we ever met), he moved to my hometown to become a Parochial high school teacher. He made a phenomenal difference to many very troubled young men. At various 50th class reunions we were honored to attend, especially those young men would come up to my husband thanking him for helping guide them back in their young teen years! Many of these ‘men’ became teachers themselves because, I feel, God chose my husband to guide and counsel these ‘then’ young men.
One more thing, Gwen, in your prayers of the faithful could you possibly mention a prayer of thanksgiving to the staff at The James Hospital in Columbus Ohio … for sharing God’s special care that they so freely give to many CA patients. During the time my husband was in the hospital, the husband of my first cousin died of CA (just one year ago next week).. He had been on various CA treatments . Then this past January 2021, his wife, my cousin was diagnosed with breast CA. One of her doctors had been one of her deceased husband’s doctors. I never would have known about your amazing Sacred Heart Parish had it not been for one of closest couples. They visited your wonderful parish family once on vacation. He had a friend, parishioner (?) who would send them your link each Saturday for your Masses, therefore, OUR connection to your Parish. Earlier this year, the wife of our friend also lost her battle with CA!
As always, Thank You, Gwen, Fr Jerry, Rory … and Ladies (and at times…gentlemen) and brilliant videographer! Without your sharing of God’s great Love with all of your on-line parishioners, we probably would not have spiritually (or mentally) survived 2020 because of COVID but especially in my case, the devastating days I would have faced without my spiritual team along side of me!
Please feel free to share my short …‘epistle’ with Father, Rory-Ladies (+ men?) and well as your videographer, but please don’t mention any of our names during Mass..
May God bless and keep each and everyone of you … safe and healthy!
✝️?☮️