The Wall of What Ifs

As we continue drawing closer to God, asking Him to order our lives, we just might come face to face with a wall we hadn't expected. 

We've made a commitment to try to please God and to avoid sin.  We meant it when we said "God, I want to be totally Yours."  Perhaps we've prayed something along the lines of: "God I abandon myself to You completely.  Let me live as You wish, not as I want.  Do with me whatever You will......"

"Do with me whatever You will."  Most of us, when saying this, will get at least a twinge of fear.  A  touch of the what-ifs.  It's natural to feel this way.  It is part of being human. Thoughts tumble across our paths, sometimes like pebbles, sometimes with the force of a rockslide.  I want God to do with me whatever He wishes.  However,

What if He gives me a cross I can't bear?
What if He calls me to go evangelize on the other side of the earth?

And of course I could list many more, but we all know them.  What I am asked to do now is go forward in spite of anxieties, not letting fear of "what God will ask of me" throw up a wall that blocks my path. I cannot go on my own, nor do I have to. 

Jesus is the Way through the wall of what-ifs.  Going forward, I take His hand....

"If you live according to My teaching, you are truly My disciples:  then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."  (John 8:31-32)

"O Most High, when I begin to fear, in You will I trust.  In God, in whose promise I glory, in God I trust without fear; what can flesh do to me?"  (Psalm 56:3-5)

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths."  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

"Only goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."  (Psalm 23:6)

"Dismiss all anxiety from your minds.  Present your needs to God in every form of prayer and in petitions full of gratitude.  Then God's own peace, which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 4:6-7)

Text not in quotes © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org   

This is part of a 'mini-series' of posts on walls. To continue in chronological order, click here.

The Other Side of That Wall

If I have repented of sin, I've made more than a giant leap toward God.  I have allowed Jesus to break down walls between us and to carry me swiftly into His Presence.  

Today's post is a slightly edited version of one I wrote here over a year ago, for these words of St. Faustina give us a glimpse into what has actually happened.  If I've repented of sin, I may or may not feel any different, but the truth is:  I have been met with great love.

"I saw that God was well pleased with me and, reciprocally, my spirit drowned itself in Him.  Aware of this union with God, I felt I was especially loved and, in turn, I loved with all my soul….   And the Lord said to me, ‘You are the delight of My Heart; from today on, every one of your acts, even the very smallest, will be a delight to My eyes...'  My earthly body was the same, but my soul was different; God was now living in it with the totality of His delight.  This is not a feeling, but a conscious reality that nothing can obscure.”  (St. Faustina, Diary) 

God will not be outdone in generosity.  If I've taken even one step toward Him (no matter how timid the step, no matter how faltering), I can be sure that He is reaching out to receive me.  I am enfolded, encompassed, and totally embraced by Love.

Photo © 2010 Nancy Shuman

This is part of a 'mini'-series' of posts on walls.  To continue in chronological order, click this line.

Lord, Free Me of Sin

The picture of the wall on this post is not "pretty."  It isn't supposed to be.  It is here to represent the thing that walls us off most fully from connecting with God, and that thing is unspeakably ugly.  It is so ugly that our Lord Jesus suffered an excruciating death to free us from it, to break through the wall of it, so we can enter the presence of God.

I am speaking, of course, of the wall of sin.  The thick, dark, grungy wall of sin.  The sin that separates us from God, darkening our minds to the light of Christ and causing us to flee from that light as we might from a searing blaze. 

Hopefully, we are not experiencing a wall that thick as we read this.  However, I daresay many of us have known it, at one time or another, and many live in such bondage today.  It can be hard to even want to get out of it.

Such a wall, can, in time, begin to feel comfortable.  We fool ourselves into thinking of it not as the place of danger it is, but as actually something of a "safe place."  If I cannot perceive God because of this wall, maybe it works both ways (I tell myself).  Maybe He can't see ME.  Maybe He'll forget all about me, and then He won't notice that I'm living in sin.  Maybe there isn't any such thing as sin; I mean, all I have to do is turn on TV to know that "social norms" seldom recognize its reality.

I can do a lot to hide that pesky wall.  Add a bright coat of paint, plant some ivy, maybe even put up a hedge so I don't see the wall at all, in time. Sin can be made to look quite attractive and normal.  Just a spray of denial and a dulling of conscience, and I'm all set.

Except that I'm not.  I'm not set at all.  I'm walled off from God; and in my moments of honesty, I am miserable. 

If I find myself in such a spot as I read this, I don't have to stay there.  If I am in serious sin, I daresay I know it.  I might have tried fooling myself, playing some "everybody's doing it" games in my head.  But I know.

The great thing is that I don't have to break down this wall myself.  There is a hole in it.  It is not a wide hole, but it's large enough for a person to get through.  It is a hole the size of a cross.

photo attribution

"Jesus, uttering a loud cry, breathed His last.  At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom."  (Mark 3-38)

"It is in Christ and through His blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven.:  (Ephesians 1:7)

"If we confess our sins, He who is just can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrong."  (1 John 1:9)

Lord Jesus Christ, I confess to You that I am a sinner.  In particular, I ask forgiveness for these  transgressions___________.  I am so sorry.  If my sins have been grave, help me get to the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Give me the strength to turn away from sin and temptation, and to avoid occasions that would lead me into sin.  Thank You for Your grace and mercy.  I ask You to break down any walls of sin that keep me from You.  Jesus, I trust in You.  Amen.

"I am more generous toward sinners than toward the just.  It was for their sake that I came down from heaven; it was for their sake that My blood was spilled.  Let them not fear to approach Me; they are most in need of My mercy."  (Jesus to St. Faustina)

Text not in quotes © 2013 Nancy Shuman.  All Rights Reserved.
thecloisteredheart.org   



This is part of a 'mini'-series' of posts on walls.  To continue in chronological order, click this line.

Let's Go In

I have been thinking about walls.   I woke up today dreaming of one in particular.  I was going around and around and around it, looking for the gate in, because inside was the "interior cloister."  But somehow the gate was hidden.  My first thought was "oh no... am I outside the will of God?!"  I really didn't think so.  Not in the sense of serious sin, anyway.

But then I thought of what it truly means to be a cloistered heart.

"The word cloister speaks of total consecration..." I wrote some years ago.  "Compromise does not fit well in a cloister, nor does lukewarmness, nor does complacency.  The cloistered life is absolute."

Compromise.  Lukewarmness.  Complacency.  Have these crept into my life?  After all, I live in the world.  I interact with it daily.  And "the world is persistent in its tugs on the heart trying to live for God..."

Being one who is called by God to live in the world, am I ever at risk of becoming too attached to the multitude of distractions it offers?  As I spend time with others, when I look at a newspaper or movie or TV, am I in danger of being infected by attitudes that are in actual conflict with the will of God?  These are, of course, rhetorical questions.  I think we know the answers all too well. 

Over the next few days, I would like to look at some of the things that can wall us off from growing closer to God.  More importantly, I hope to find the way to get through those barriers.  I know "walls" have been a theme here for the last week or two.  That was unintentional on my part. 

I'm beginning to think it may not have been unintentional on God's.

"The Good Lord willing and Internet connections don't fail," I'll see you back here tomorrow.  No matter where we are on the journey, we can have stronger faith, deeper prayer, more zealous love, greater virtue, higher joy.  With such blessings as these available, why would we want to spend one more minute lazing around in the tepid waters of lukewarm faith?

God is calling each one of us into the FULLNESS of His love. 

Let's go in.

"Ask, and you will receive.  Seek, and you will find.  Knock, and it will be opened to you.   For the one who asks, receives.  The one who seeks, finds.  The one who knocks, enters..."  (Mathew 7:7-8)

Painting: Karl Julius von Leypold, Wanderer im Sturm


This is part of a 'mini'-series' of posts on walls.  To continue in chronological order, click this line.

The Unscheduled Wall

Our Internet connection has been down this afternoon.  Again I have felt as if I’ve been locked out of my blog house, and again the feeling is a strange one.

I wonder how Pope Emeritus Benedict feels today.

We humans make our plans.  We schedule blogs, lents, jobs, marriages, careers, retirement, and what we’ll have for dinner.  And each of us can point to bumps in the roads, probably in many areas, at various times in our lives.  Sometimes it feels as if a wall pops right up in the middle of our path. 

But God has given us a promise.  

Looking through the grille is seeing as God directs us to see – not as our mere human instincts dictate.   So I've been holding the following “piece of grillwork” before my eyes as I've been locked outside my bloghouse...

"We know that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His decree.”  (Romans 8:28)

I pray - and I am even seeing - that being "locked out" has resulted, in fact, in being walled more fully inside God's will.  

Caspar David Friedrich painting 

Click this line to leave comments in the Parlor   

There is still time to adopt-a-cardinal to pray for as the conclave gets underway!  Click here for details.