This was from Me

Have you ever taken into consideration that everything concerning you concerns Me too?

For what concerns you concerns the apple of my eye.

You are dear in my eyes, precious, and I have loved you;

And for this reason it is a special joy for me to train you.

When temptations rise against you, and the enemy comes upon you like a river,

I want you to know –

                                    This was from Me.

It was one of those weeks when every phone call and conversation brought more anxiety and uncertainty. More troubling chronic health symptoms, a lost job and, with it, lost insurance, a car wreck, and a major disappointment. My heart was reeling, and it all felt so heavy, so dangerous. I need to fix this, solve this, save, protect, convince, and control! 

“God, help!” I cried, while simultaneously searching online for answers and replaying every frightening possibility in my head. I knew I was spiraling, but I had no strength to stop it.

On the prayer shelf in our bedroom, I spied a booklet I hadn’t opened in a while. It was a sweet gift from a precious friend titled “This was from Me.” Its text was taken from a letter written by St. Seraphim to his spiritual child – a bishop who was in a Soviet prison camp at the time. The purpose of the letter was to console and offer counsel as if from God to man’s soul. 

Worn out from crying, I lit a candle and began to read it aloud in front of an Icon of Christ:

I am your God, the One who arranges circumstances, and it was not by accident that you find yourself in the place where you are;

This is precisely the place I have appointed for you.

Weren’t you asking Me to teach you humility?

Well, then, look:

I have placed you precisely in that place, in the very school where this lesson is learned.

Your surroundings and those near you are only fulfilling My will.

And then I cried harder, deep sobs cleansing my heart of so much accumulated stress and agitation. It felt cathartic to finally come to the end of myself and meet Christ there. Hungry for more, I read on:

You formed your plans, and you had your intentions, and you brought them to Me so that I would bless them.

But I want you to leave it to Me to arrange and direct the circumstances of your life;

Then responsibility for everything will lie with Me.

For this is too difficult;

you cannot manage them by yourself, for you are merely an instrument, and not the operator.

I devoured every word! I was ready. The soil of my soul had been broken up and softened by suffering, making me especially receptive to the seeds of Christ’s merciful intervention. There was nothing I longed for more than to RELEASE all the weight I’d been carrying, and now here was this invitation – this bold assurance that it was safe and necessary to let go.

For by this anguish in your spirit, I am testing the strength of your faith in the surety of my promises, and the strength of your boldness in prayer for these your dear ones.

For was it not you who enstrusted them to the protection of My most pure Mother?

Was it not you who once entrusted their care to my providential love?

It turns out, relief from my anguish could not be found in answers, resolutions, or over-functioning, but only in Christ Himself. In the ceasing of striving, thinking, resisting. In yielding and accepting. In encountering Christ there on the cross. Thank you, I meekly whispered, feeling a flood of otherworldly calm wash over me. Lord have mercy. Thy will be done.

What is peace but absolute trust, repentance, and forgiving and loving all?  Until I reframe the thorn(s) in my flesh as my path to salvation, I will be turbulent and chronically despondent (offended, judgmental, joyless, stagnant, discontent).  I cannot die to myself only halfway and expect a peace that surpasses understanding. Christ wants the whole of me, withholding nothing, so He can fill me with Himself. 

Those tears at my prayer corner sprang from divinely orchestrated circumstances that had pushed me to the very edge of my own self-sufficiency. I had no choice but to leap! That is how much God loves me! Sending me all that I needed to run straight into His arms! Tasting of that rest makes me long for it always, and more vigilant about protecting my heart from all that disrupts it.  It makes me want to be near Him at all times, grafted to His Light and Resurrection. It makes me brave enough to release my own short-sighted desires so God can bless me with something eternally better.

Keep these words.

Know and remember – always, wherever you may be –

That every sting will be softened when you learn to see Me in everything.

All has been sent by Me for the perfecting of your soul.

                         All of this was from Me

This week's journal prompt:

Be still and know that I am God - Psalm 46:10

Reflect on a situation in your life that feels heavy and uncertain. How might it be profitable for your soul and increase your faith?  In what ways has God been present and faithful within that situation?