#SheSharesTruth - Reflections on Jonah 3 & 4

"For You love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what You have hated, You would not have fashioned." - Wisdom 11:24

So many things are swirling around in my head right now. In the last half of Jonah, there are so many directions which I could have focused on.

1. Fasting. Sackcloth. Repentance. 40 Days. Chapter 3 is oozing with Lenten symbolism. I love it!!
2. Chapter 4 looks at Jonah's tantrum when the people Jonah feels are "beneath him" get God's mercy. 
3. "...and announce the message that I will tell you..." (Ch 3, vs 2). Will tell you. Hmm. God sends us on our missions sometimes withholding all the info. Does He do this to be mean? Does He do this because He has not planned out every step? No - rather, He does this because He asks us to continue to TRUST Him in every step AND NOT LET OUR PRIDE GET IN THE WAY. Oohhhh pride. I laughed when I read this verse. If I were asked to go tell/teach/preach something, I'd want to plan it all out, know everything I am going to say ahead of time. I'd want to be prepared & knowledgeable. I. I. I. <-- That's the point. When we're on God's mission, it's not about "I". A lot of LOLs here. 

This is a post for the #SheSharesTruth blog collaboration on the study of Jonah 3 & 4. Yes, we are sharing & reflecting on God's truth, but today, I'm going to focus on KristinaSharesTruth.

Back to point 3 - Pride. My truth is that I am a prideful person. But aren't we all on some level? (enter  semi-embarassing hand raise, light chuckle, and smirk) 

Even as I write this post, I've already written & deleted it several times, trying to come up with the perfect words so that I can come across intelligent, witty, and likable. But this isn't what I'm called to. 

I am called to the humble way. I am called to die to self. This means then, that I need to be honest & actually write about what is standing out most in all of chapters 3 and 4 - "... and announce the message that I will tell you...." That's it. Not the repentance of the people of Nineveh, not Jonah's toddler like fit about the sun on his forehead. 

So, I'll be focusing on pride in my personal prayer. Praying that I get out of God's way and be a vessel  and not the main attraction. And trust. Trust in His way, His guidance, and that He provides the words. 

xo, 

P.S. Speaking of toddler like tantrums & trust, I have another Praise God Timeline!!

• March 19th: I tell my co-worker passively "You know, I need to go on retreat. It's been almost 14 months." <-- there's that "I" again...
• March 22nd: I tell my husband passively "I really want to go on retreat."
• March 23rd: A retreat crosses my mind several times. But then I remind myself that I do not have time, I don't have money, and there aren't any being offered in my area anyways. Whoa is me. 
• March 27th 830am: I get a Facebook message that I am invited to a retreat about 2.5 hrs from my home, hosted by Friars (my favorite retreats are hosted by religious).
• March 27th 9am: Call the coordinator to see if any spots are left. Leave message on voice mail. ((sigh))
• March 27th 130pm: Get a call from the coordinator. She invites me to the retreat AND IS COMPLETELY PAID FOR BY SOMEONE ELSE! ((gasp))
• March 27th 2 pm: Get email with retreat application and see that the retreat is titled "Trust In God" with a focus on the Eucharist & Jesus' Sacred Heart.  <-- another set of LOLs. Isn't God hilarious?!
• And did I mention, the retreat is NEXT WEEKEND! April 4-6! MIND. BLOWN.

P.S.S. If you don't know, Margaret Mary Alacoque is associated with the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus - my most beloved and favorite devotion! It focuses on His immense love & mercy. ((clap clap clap, happy dance)) I cannot contain my excitement! 

This post is a participation of the #SheSharesTruth collaboration where the participants from the Jonah study share what the Holy Spirit has been stirring up in our hearts. 

#SheSharesTruth - Reflections on Jonah 1 & 2

But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish, away from the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down in it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord. - Jonah 1:3

Have you ever seen a map of Jonah's travel? I did recently.  And it surprised the heck out of me. Why was it a surprise? It was a map of my heart.

How many times have I run from the calling of the Lord? How many times did I go above and beyond to avoid His voice - err maybe even the whisper that He gives - calling me to something.

- - - 

I have been in hot pursuit of a bible study. As an at home mom of a 9 month old, I need something available online. But many that I found, though Christian, are outspokenly anti-Catholic. I need something that would fill my soul with God's word and balance it with my Catholic faith. Enter SheReadsTruth. It is this perfect balance. I see Protestant & Catholics alike on the site. And they are welcoming, open about their hearts, encouraging, and also in pursuit of the Lord. All of this came from my active anti-participation of Lent in 9 years. (see backstory here.) I thought I would just take it easy and read from St. Faustina's Diary: Divine Mercy in my Soul & from a book called "In Converstion with God" by Francis Fernandez. Boy, was I wrong.

God wanted to fill me with His Word & consume/overflow my heart with His love. He put scripture study on my heart. So in pursuit, I found SheReadsTruth and it's first study I am participating in is on Jonah.

God wanted Jonah. He pursued him until he couldn't avoid Him any longer. And God came at him strong, but in full love. God met Jonah where he was at, even if that's in the middle of a raging storm.

I'm realizing that God is pursuing me - in the middle of my storm. Lent is a time to turn to the Lord and seek him. My heart hasn't been able to do that these past 9 years and recently I asked the Lord to meet me in this place. I didn't/couldn't/was to scared to come to Him. So He found me where I am and is speaking to me through Jonah.

This post is just on chapters 1 & 2. I am understanding now that I, like Jonah, have an awesome God who loves me unconditionally. When I say understanding now, it's not that I have just accepted my Jesus. Rather, it's been a reminder or rekindling of this relationship that I have had all along. It's like, "oh yea, I do have a merciful, loving, compassionate God who forgives and accepts me - how did I forget that? Duh."

God could have let me drown, just like he could have let Jonah drown. He could have let the waves crush me and let me be forgotten into the endless sea of the lost. But God didn't do that to Jonah. And He hasn't done that to me.

"But I, with a thankful voice, will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed to pay: deliverance is from the Lord." - Jonah 2:10

God is delivering me from what I thought Lent would be: a dry desert, abandoned by God. (again, see backstory) Rather, He is delivering me from those lies and showing me that I am never abandoned - I just have to say yes to Him and willingly obey.

I'd like to add here the timeline of finding this study:

• March 7th: Made a reluctant agreement with the Lord that I will try  to participate in Lent.
• March 11th: Spoke with a friend of mine that bible study was on my heart.
• March 11th - March 18th: Searched Google, Facebook, and Pinterest high and low for an online bible study. Nothing. (rather, nothing called to me) 
• March 18th a.m.: FINALLY wrote in my prayer journal (this makes it an actual request in my mind for some reason - weird, I know) that God must give me a bible study because I'm at a loss. 
• March 18th p.m.: Discovered a study on Jonah that just so happens to start the next morning.
• March 19th: MIND. BLOWN. 

xo,

.today I visited the sea - what a visual gift from the Lord that serves as a reminder of Jonah's story.

This post is a participation of the #SheSharesTruth collaboration where the participants from the Jonah study share what the Holy Spirit has been stirring up in our hearts. 

A Nine Year Tantrum

The Christian who goes through life systematically avoiding sacrifice will not find God, will not find happiness. What he will have been taking care [of, is] to avoid his own sanctity. (1)

This Easter will be my 10 year anniversary of my conversion to Catholicism. The first year was an extreme high for me. Visiting our Lord in adoration several times a week & attending daily mass lead me to, what I thought was, a permanent residence on Mt. Zion. Jesus and I had hourly conversations. I was with my Lord and He was always with me. Every decision, every joy, and every pain, was discussed with, celebrated with, and survived with my Jesus.

The upcoming Lent, my first Lent, I was gun-ho to "give up" something - to experience this desert of faith that we are asked of as Catholics. Honestly I do not remember what I "gave up", but the experience of that first Lent altered all my lents up to the present day. Desert? Oh yea. I was in a desert. My Lord was no where to be found, no where could I hear Him. No where could I feel Him. By the middle of Lent, I was on my knees "ugly crying" (you know, the kind of uncontrollable sobbing where you can't breathe, your mascara is running, your eyes swell just about shut), pleading for Him to never leave me again and vowing that I would never go through a desert again. Even if Mother Church asked me to. How dare she ask me to experience a desert! How dare she expect me to lose the closeness that I had! And how dare she ask that I do it every year!!! This can't be what she would want for me.

When I hear the word 'Lent', a little part of my spirit shivers. The experience of my first lent has left a permanent scar on my soul's memory.

But why does she ask us - why does the Church see this desert as something so important as to repeat the exercise every year?

Come to a week before this lent. In prayer, hilariously, I am asking God to "take this away from me". "Can I just ignore it Jesus? You don't really need me to participate in Lent, do You?"

For some reason, I feel compelled to participate this year - though the feeling is like the the time I was about to zip line. Being petrified of heights, the feeling is similar to stepping onto that platform, seeing the drop below me, with the end - my survival - off in the far distance, almost unattainable. But there is this urge. And then, as soon as I am finishing the "do You?" of this toddler like tantrum negotiation, my Jesus says to me - "this is what Hell is like. Learn from it now."

Um.. what? I'm sorry, there's wax in my ears. [finger in ear.. squeak squeak] One more time?

That sentence - THIS IS WHAT HELL IS LIKE - is what my first lenten experience was. I had spent a year in high heaven (see what I did there), and that 1st lent was the depths of hell. I was without God. I kept reaching, scratching, clawing, grasping for Him; yelling, shouting, screaming His name - and it felt as though He would not save me, wouldn't come back for me.

Hell is the absence of God - it's knowing that He's just on the other side of this wall, but I cannot be with Him. This is the wall that we build through sin, being lukewarm, and being systematic in our walk of faith.

I don't think my parents taught be about death very well - or maybe they did and I just didn't absorb the idea well. I am petrified of death. And it's solely based on the idea that I will be without God. It's this weird idea that I am only going to experience God while here on earth, because I am not worthy to be with God in the eternal. The promise of our faith & hope of our salvation is the complete opposite, yet I have been battling this demon of doubt since I was maybe 6. To this day, I have a period of 1-2 months a year where I wake up in panic attacks, having nightmares at night that one day I'm going to die.

This upcoming season, something has been altered. There is this peace that I can see off in the distance, but I'm being asked to trust the Lenten experience. ::shiver::

Ok, so Jesus, what do you want me to do? ....

This year, I'm giving up my time. I've pulled out 2 books this year, along with using my Bible, the Diary of St. Faustina & "In Conversation with God" are the two books that I will be leaning on this year. I'm realizing I am perpetuating my own fears by not participating in Lent for the past 9 years. The Church is SO SMART! Haha! Lent is a time when we are supposed to recollect ourselves, acknowledge our sins, our immense need for Jesus and re-recognize that HE IS OUR SALVATION. He is our only way to heaven! If we don't recenter our lives on Him, we are lost. We are in Hell.

The beauty of the Holy Spirit is that He teaches how to pray, yes? So in His intelligence, He has led the Church to an annual re-centering. We are so human. If we didn't have this season, we would stay mundane, systematic, robotic in our faith. It's the "going through the motions". How beautiful that our God knows we need the reboot. And that He is patient and loves us through it. Even when we  purposefully ignore it for 9 years.

xo,

1. "In Conversation With God: Daily Meditations of Lent", Thursday after Ash Wednesday - Francis Fernandez