Not Walking, but at Least Floating

Because it's my busiest month of the year at work, and since I can't get anything done at work because every two and half seconds someone comes and asks me a question or asks me to do something, I decided to start working from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., so that I would have a chance to get something accomplished before everyone else got to work. My first day to do this was Thursday, and after getting an amazing amount of work done by 8, I decided to run over to a nearby church for 8:30 Mass. About twenty minutes, I thought--just a quick daily Mass. 

I wasn't sure if the front door of the church was unlocked for this Mass, so I went into the door that opens right into the space between the front pews and the altar rail--yes, an altar rail. So, I rushed in the door, blessed myself, and looked up to see a church full of school children. Now, I'm not opposed to school Masses in general, in fact I think that they are wonderful, but I really try to avoid them when I'm in a hurry. Still, there they all were looking at me, and I didn't want to turn around and leave so I stayed--for the whole hour.

Once I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to miss a good chunk of the work day, I was really glad that I had come. The priest at this parish is wonderful and he was great with the kids. He has a way of engaging them, but not talking down to them. During the homily, he told them the story of Jesus walking on the water. One thing he said really stood out for me. He pointed out that when the apostles saw Jesus coming to them on the water, they didn't recognize Him because of the turmoil of the storm, and so they were afraid. Of course, I've heard this gospel over and over again, and I know this, but it struck me that what he was talking about was exactly what I was talking about in my last post. Our greatest joy coming to us appearing as our greatest fear. 

I've been thinking about the comments on that post, and thinking about how I have always feared that if I said to God, "Have Your way with me," terrible things would happen to me. And yes. Yes, they will. Terrible things will happen to me whether I say that or not. The God-having-His-way part is the part where I allow Him to use that terrible thing in the way He wants for His glory and my salvation. It's the part where He calls me out of the boat and I mostly mess it up, but He takes care of me anyway. And at some time, I'm not even sure when it happened, I seem to have slipped over some invisible line where the trust became greater than the fear. It's like the first time that by some miracle you relax enough to float, and what seemed impossible before now is impossibly true, and you never again doubt that you will be able to do it.

AMDG