Almost a year ago I was preparing to leave to serve nine months doing missionary work with NET Ministries. It is funny how time flies. It is hard to believe that one year ago I left for NET, and my mom's breast cancer went into remission, all on the same day. It is amazing how somethings change dramatically and some things never change.
One year later and I am still broken, still unsure, and still very much a sinner. But I did change. I was transformed into a new person, a new creation. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has passed away, behold the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17
I didn't the day after the Final mass, go to the nearest convent to sign up to become a nun, though that was what some people I knew thought I would do. What had changed the most about me, was my heart. I found out what it means to have a deep and profound relationship with the Lord. I learned what it means to pray.
"Great is the mystery of faith. The Church professes this mystery in the Apostle's Creed and celebrated it in the sacramental liturgy so the life of the faithful may be conformed to Christ in the Holy Spirit to the glory of God the Father. This mystery, then, requires that the faithful believe in it, that they celebrate it, and that they live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the true and living God. THIS RELATIONSHIP IS PRAYER." CCC 2558
Our relationship with God is prayer. On the road, I discovered what it means to have a relationship with God, and I discovered what it truly means to be in love with the Lord. Before NET, I was restless. I was living very much of the world. I wasn't a terrible person, but I wasn't really living my life for the Lord.
Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions, "Our hearts, O Lord, were made for you, and they are restless until they rest in you."
I was restless living in the world and living of the world. My heart knew that I was made for something bigger but I could not define what that longing was. I prayed but only when I felt like it; it was not a daily routine.
But something in my heart changed. I remember during fall training at WAPO hearing the talk, God, Our Father. I wept at the realization that God is indeed my father and He wants only good things for me. While bad things have happened in my life, He loves me through those things. While I am still a sinner He sent His own beloved son, Jesus, to die on a cross for my sinners so I could achieve heaven. That is how much He loves me. His love is something that I can never earn but I just get to receive.
"But God shows his love for us in the while we where yet sinners Christ died for us." Romans 5:8
I can never earn God's love. I don't deserve it and I never will. But God in his goodness lavishes His love upon me. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should have eternal life." John 3:16
The constant in my prayer life since last October has been God's love. I will spend the whole of my lifetime trying to truly understand what it means to be loved by God, something that I will never understand.
Life with NET was not easy. Those days when you wake up at 4:45 AM after going to sleep late, or driving over five hours after a retreat, or when you are crying because you don't know what your mom looks like because when you left she had no hair from battling cancer, or even when you were sick running a fever on a overnight retreat at a camp in the middle of nowhere, while your female TL is away, and you wake up in the morning to find out that the heater was not working and it was 43 degrees in your room and you have a small group. Those are the days where you want to just say, "God Today I give up! I want to go home." But somehow even with the bad days God still works and He still loves us so very much.
Those are the days where you realize how very much God loves you and how He has provided for you.
God's love for me was made evident for me in my teammates. Team life and living in community was something that drew me to NET. I wanted people in my life to affirm me and to push me to learn to be closer to Christ. I wanted true brothers and sisters in Christ. God answered my prayers. My brotherhood did something for me that I cannot even express in words. They restored my faith there are truly good men in the world, men that seek to guard women's hearts and want to up hold their dignity. My sisterhood taught me to listen first, to put myself last, and what it means to be a beautiful woman of God.
My team loved me and showed me that I deserve to be loved. They made me laugh for hours on end, they made me cry, and at times they made me angry, but through it all they lead me to greater holiness. Anney, Matt, Nichole, David, Mary, Kolbe, Chris, Zach, and Jessica, you all have shown me Christ's love and made me a better person.
"I thank me God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, and I prayer that the sharing of your faith my promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother(s) and (sisters), because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you." Philemon 1:4-7
While a year has passed some much has changed and much has remained the same. I am still broken, I am still imperfect, and I still am a sinner. What has changed is that I am confident in knowing that I have the love of a father that surpasses all understanding, and I have true and lasting relationship God whom I am in love with. I know that while I am broken I am not shattered. I am a work in progress and He will bring his masterpiece to completion.
"I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you (me) will continue to complete it till the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6
No comments:
Post a Comment