After I visited my orthopedist last Friday for a new set of xrays, I couldn't come here and write. I was too discouraged by what the xrays revealed: no healing.
After finishing Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal (which I highly recommend!), I began Abandonment to Divine Providence: Loving God in the Present Moment by Jean-Pierre de Cassaude. It had been on my reading list for quite some time; I'm convinced God led me to order it for 'such a time as this'.
Since a retreat over 5 years ago, "surrender" has been my word and my prayer before the Lord. That word was given me right after treatment for breast cancer and right before the leukemia diagnosis. I've lived with it on my keyboard for a long time now. Recent experiences, though, have revealed new depths to its meaning for me.
Cassaude writes:
Do we not know that by all creatures, and by every event, the divine love desires to unite us to himself -- that he has ordained, arranged, or permitted everything about us, everything that happens to us, and with a view to this union? This is the most ultimate object of all his designs, to attain which he makes use ... of his creatures... and of the most distressing events as well as of those which are pleasant and agreeable...If this be true, every moment of our lives may be a kind of communion with the divine love...
Last weekend and the early days of this week my spirit struggled to overcome the disheartenment I felt. I struggled to praise and thank God even for more weeks of dependence and house arrest.
Now I'm at the end of the week and I must testify, God has sent people every day this week to take me out and about. A Lutheran neighbor even took my to mass one morning. I am so amazed.
While my heart rejoices, I know God can't be manipulated. Trusting God is not a 'get out of jail free' card. I want to remember, though, that God has my back even when it seems I'll never emerge from the dark valley. God will lead me out. I can count on it.
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