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The Best Way to Make God Laugh

Feb 23, 2015 | 0 comments

Today, we’ve swapped posts with Blessed and Beloved, a blog about the single life for Catholic women! This article was written by Michelle, one of the blog’s four foundresses, and originally published on the 14th of November 2014.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29: 11-13

I make plans. I have always made plans. I enjoy and get excited planning. Whether it is what I am doing this weekend or my childhood plans of going to Africa, living in an orphanage, or going to graduate school on the East coast, plans have directed me in life and given me security. For the most part too I have followed these plans believing they too were God’s plans for me. Plans gave me control and following them made me feel successful. They allowed me to be able to share with people where I was heading in life and look like I knew what I was doing. If you know me I am always doing something and usually many somethings. Just having plans to have plans though is where things get dangerous.

But God’s plans are not our plans. Most people have heard the saying, “if you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans”. I think it is probably more of a little endearing chuckle followed by a big smile of a loving Father. His plans are sooooo much better, greater, and truly the only way for us to follow Him and be truly happy. As said in Jeremiah, His plans give us a full, rich and worthwhile life. It is a life where we are successful and not by the standards of the world but by His call to love and serve and glorify Him. It is a life where we can truly live as though we were created to do nothing more than love and be loved.

Figuring out those plans is not always easy especially when we put so much into planning and like me are stubborn and convinced we know best. It takes much discernment. It can take someone saying, “What are you doing?!” It can take everything lining up perfectly except certain things that we were convinced were never in God’s plan. It takes taking chances, trusting, and letting go of our pride, need for control, and lack of faith.

Yes, I went to live and work in an orphanage. Yes, it changed my life. Yes, it taught me in so very many ways that God’s plans are not ours. Looking back on my discernment process to join the Salesian Lay Missioners 2.5 years ago is when it all started. As my plans went I had to find an African orphanage. There were no other options and that is where I would be for the next year or more. But, when I found the Salesians God lead my heart first to their mission: seeing Christ in the Face of a Child first, and secondly to their specific sites. If you had asked me months before I applied to the program: do you see yourself going to South America? The answer most likely would have been probably not and secondly do you see yourself learning and becoming fluent in Spanish? The answer would have been “forget about it!” I took five years of French because I didn’t want to take Spanish with everyone else. While my friends would speak Spanish in front of me I would plug my ears and wait till they started speaking English again. Well as God likes to laugh at our plans and oh how much patience He has in our stubbornness. I ended up settling (I say that lightly) for an orphanage in Bolivia, where of course Spanish was the spoken language. Some would call it irony, but I call it God. Along with so many other aspects of my life in Bolivia, Spanish is now a part of my identity, my faith, my world, and my future.

From the moment of God leading me to Bolivia until now God taught me over and over that He was in charge and all I need to do was reach out, grab His hand, and let Him follow. My last few months in Bolivia were so very busy and as I started the New York job search, I thought, I’ve lived in an orphanage for the last two years: I can handle graduate school and working full time. I looked for a family that would be flexible, knowing my school schedule. Finally I was contacted by a woman who said my schedule wasn’t a problem for her. Everything seemed to start to fall together and then she started to help me think about my post-Bolivia perfect “plan.” Being in charge of the medical needs of the girls in the orphanage for the last year and a half had got me thinking about my vocation and what God wanted to teach me through this experience. The head sister, Hermana Rosy at one point looked at me and said “I think your work here shows that you might have a vocation in the medical field.” One of the doctors I often worked with told me that he could see God calling me to be a doctor. I thought perfect, the medical field that is where I am heading.

Heading to graduate school to study Child Life (supporting children in the hospitals) still seemed on track with what these wise people were suggesting. But, as I was advised by my future boss to look more into the graduate school I was heading towards things weren’t fitting. Financially, vocationally, and even practically I started doubting. It went from I am going because it’s my plan, to could God have a different plan for me? Should I be a nurse, PA, or even doctor? to ok, well I’ll go for at least a semester, to I’m moving to New York in one week and I don’t think God wants me to be attending this graduate school, to I have no housing but a job and I still believe God has something to show me, teach me, and for me to do in New York. It was a process that went rather quickly and I truly felt like my life and plans were falling apart and my life being turned upside down. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. But, it was also the most freeing realization letting go of the plans I had held onto and letting God show me that He has something so much better for me.

No matter where we are or what we are doing as long as we love and letting God lead us, we are His. We can find Him in any tabernacle of the world, in others we encounter, and in our own hearts. As I journey from one place to the next sometimes I feel that my heart is in so many places. I leave it in Kirkland anytime I leave home, I left it in Africa when I went there in college, I left it at Gonzaga where God formed my heart and led me to many wonderful people, I left it in Bolivia with my girls and the sisters, and so many other places and people that God has blessed me with the chance to encounter. But when I think about that the line “Let your goodness like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee” from the song Come Thou Font of Every Blessing comes to mind. My heart has wandered from place to place, person to person, experience to experience but in His goodness He has always wandered with me. In feeling my heart being torn in many directions I always feel most at peace in Him and through Him home is wherever He is with me. Often we do so much searching in the world especially when it comes to our planning. God calls us to come back to Him, encounter Him in our hearts, and in that see what His plan is. As St. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” It is so easy to look in other places for that peace, in our plans, in our ideas, in our activities, etc. But, in the end we can only find that in Him, in His love, and in His plans for our lives.

As I continue on the adventure that God is taking me on I don’t know where He will lead me. I don’t know everything that is in His plan. I never will and that is alright. I choose to let Him bind my wandering heart to His and seek Him with all my heart. I know He has never led me astray before. In fact, His plans have always blown mine out of the water and given me the biggest gifts in my life. Although it’s not easy giving up that control it’s worth it always. He blesses each of us with our own story, our own journey with Him and back to Him. Help us Lord to remember You are in control, to trust in Your plan over ours, and find our home in You.

Bush Whacker

Dec 9, 2014 | 1 comment

By Pinkie.

It looked sad. Bare. Lonely. Exposed. Vulnerable. Near death. Like a phantom.

On my daily walk I noticed the neighbor’s bush had been seriously cut back. It was springtime and it had been pruned. It looked more like a collection of sticks than a living plant.

Would it survive after a hack job like that? It didn’t look like it to my untrained eye. Was the homeowner trying to kill his/her bush? Not intentionally.

Could he/she have made a mistake? Was it pruned too much? Possibly.

I know how I felt pruned too severely when I returned to the world from the convent. I could only moan, “Why Lord?”

I would meditate on John 15 (the vine and the branches) and wonder if I was the pruned vine or the rejected junk thrown into the fire. It felt as though I could be either and that was not comforting.

I continued to walk past this bush and I noticed its steady growth and recovery. Eventually it started sprouting buds so I took a picture. I wanted to be reminded of this rebirth, of this growth after looking utterly hopeless and forlorn.

By the end of the summer, the bush was massive and it was hard to believe it was chopped to nothing roughly six months ago. This change was gradual and happened over a long period of time. But it did occur, even though the changes day to day were imperceptible.

It is the same for me. I do not feel much different today compared to yesterday. Sometimes I even feel worse. Two steps forward, and one step back, etc. I am confident I do not look outwardly different today compared to yesterday, just like the bush. But that time period is too small.

God has given me glimpses of my growth and recovery from that extensive pruning when I look at larger chunks of time. Often I don’t recognize it but the reality is that I am trending upward. When I reach certain milestones they help me take a moment and do a direct comparison.

How about you? Do you try and stay focused on the bigger picture? How do you do that? How do you encourage yourself and others day to day?

A Year of Not Me?

Nov 29, 2014 | 5 comments

By Mater Dolorosa

Hearing the announcement from Pope Francis that 2015 will be a year dedicated to consecrated life initially left me with mixed emotions. Obviously, this will be a great grace for the Church. It will be beautiful to pray for those in the consecrated life and it will create more awareness about consecrated life. And I am confident that my former sisters are very excited!

However, I can’t help but feel a little left out. You see, a few years ago I was in the convent going about my normal Monday when I was called into my superior’s office. To my great surprise I was asked to leave the community. And even though it’s been a few years, my heart is still confused by this. Initially, it seemed that hearing about this
special year reopened those wounds.

And yet, I don’t believe that is the entirety of what is going on in my heart…

Jesus always calls us to greater healing and wholeness. Yes, hearing this announcement did stir up feelings and emotions. But this “stirring” in my heart is also a beautiful opportunity to let God into those hurts and receive more healing. In these moments, when I feel left out and when my life feels meaningless, I have to reach out in faith. When I have the courage to let God be the only thing that I possess He fills my heart with the knowledge that I belong to Him.

He is enough for me.

Now I look back and see how much I have grown and healed. This announcement is not so much salt in a wound but rather a reminder of the healing balm the Lord has placed in those wounds.

How about you? How does this announcement make you feel? God bless!

He Delights in You!

Oct 18, 2014 | 4 comments

By AfterEpiphany.

I experienced God’s indisputable sense of humour (hey – He’s the AUTHOR of humour!) on the day that I left the convent. Through a strange act of Providence, I was rostered to do the First Reading at Mass with the Community on the morning that I left. Attending Mass was my very last act in Community – afterwards, I was whisked away to gather my things, eat a quiet breakfast and prepare to leave for the airport, whilst the rest of the community all went to community breakfast.

The fact that I was the reader for the day meant that I absolutely couldn’t become distracted or zone out during the reading. The significance of every word I read is even still with me. But what has me gobsmacked (yes, even now!) is the particular reading it was that day – Is 62:1-5. Here is a snippet from it:

“No more shall people call you ‘Forsaken’ or your land ‘Desolate’, but you shall be called ‘My Delight’ and your land ‘Espoused.’ For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse. As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so shall your God rejoice in you.”

Um… WOW.

I really don’t think it was an accident that this particular Scripture passage was the reading for my last day wearing a religious habit, responding to a religious name, and belonging to a religious community. I think He had a message of comfort, and hope and deep, intimate love for me that day, one to carry within my heart for the rest of my life. Perhaps He also intended this message for each of you – my brothers and sisters in Christ who have experienced similar life changes of late in “discerning out” of your religious order or seminary.

Those questions that so many of us ask upon returning to the world: does God still love me? Doesn’t He want me to have an intimate relationship with Him anymore? If I have to be out in the world, can I still make my life all about God? Can I still bring others to Him as a lay member of the faithful?

This reading is His answer to me…
… and maybe to you as well?

He calls each of us to intimacy with Him. And even if we are not being wed to Him in the same mystical sense described in Canon 607, there is still a spousal element to our relationship with Him, by virtue of our membership in the Church, His Bride, for whom He freely laid down His life.

“Religious life manifests a wonderful marriage brought about by God… a gift of self by which their whole existence becomes a continuous worship of God in love…” ~ from Canon 607

But aside from all of that, He is my Builder and my God, and HE DELIGHTS IN ME!! *shakes head* I still don’t get that! It’s a mystery, but I trust that it is true. He delights in you too.

Yes, you!

To conclude, here are some passages to sit with; as scattered as they might seem at first glance, they unite in a very definite, and comforting, message of hope and promise:

Mt 28:20 | Songs 3:1-4 | Jer 29:12-13 | Is 54:4

AfterEpiphany spent 1.5 years living religious life, half a world away from her homeland, convinced that God was calling her. He was: to a deep conversion of heart. Out in the world again, and with a professional background in IT Project Management, it would be remiss of A.E. not to have a 5-year plan for herself! her twofold plan consists of the completion of a PhD in Theology, and securing a job in an academic library as her interim livelihood. She cares deeply about faith education and the spiritual formation of young adults.