April 24, 2010

Verse of the Day
"The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers." Acts 9:31

Song of the Day
"Everything Falls" by Fee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V11E0VTlmY&feature=related

My Thoughts

Peace as described in the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary has several listings, but the most important for my soul is "freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions". This peace is only found in our Lord, but how to obtain it seems to be my quest right now. My children are young, yet I lose my peace so quickly. I can't imagine what I will be like when they are older if I don't learn how to embrace this peace from our Lord. I know He has it there for the taking despite what life deals out to me.

I think of my life and how much I enjoy it, but yet how much I allow Satan to steal that peace away. It can get extremely frustrating to have a strong desire to react differently to experiences my children go through, but despite that strong desire I continue going down the path that rips my peace away. According to the book on peace that I have mentioned in my earlier blogs, it becomes a question of how to regain our peace as quickly as possible when we have been troubled by our imperfections, therefore avoiding more sadness and discouragement.

The reasons I need to do this are #1) God acts in the peace of one's soul. I loved the verse of the day because the church was in peace and Holy Spirit's consolation was upon them. Was it no surprise that there were so many miracles in the book of Acts? So, peace is essential to allow God to work. "Rather than troubling ourselves, it is more efficacious to regain our peace and let God act." (p 58)

The second reason is that it is more pleasing to God for us to react this way. Fr. Jacques listed a beautiful prayer that I am going to copy to use frequently. I mean what could be better than when we are discouraged and tormented to react by saying this prayer:

"Lord, I ask Your pardon, I have sinned again. This, alas, is what I am capable of doing on my own! But I abandon myself with confidence to Your mercy and Your pardon, I thank You for not allowing me to sin even more grievously. I abandon myself to You with confidence because I know that one day You will heal me completely and, in the meantime, I ask You that the experience of my misery would cause me to be more humble, more considerate of other, more conscious that I can do nothing by myself, but that I must rely solely on Your love and Your mercy."

The third reason is that when we are troubled, the sadness and discouragement are rarely pure, usually pride exists in there somewhere. In fact, this excessive pain is actually a sign that we have put our trust in ourselves - in our own strength and not in God.

I don't know. Maybe by focusing on peace and working to obtain it, I will get better at handing things over to God and over analyzing the kids experiences less. It is as if I wish I could just get my brain to stop thinking sometimes, but I am realizing that isn't the solution. Maybe I need to stop thinking about a certain situation, but I need to start thinking more about God. This blog is helping me to do that. It is just so evident why I felt such a strong call to blog my experience of Lent this past Ash Wednesday - to help me keep my focus where it belongs, on Our Lord!