by Patricia
 |
Jesus and the Children from the L.A. Cathedral Mausoleum (photo in Public Domain). |
Why did God create you? Do you ever think about that? I do.
Many years ago while on retreat, I wrote across the top of the first
page of my journal: Dear God, what is my purpose in life? Who am I
supposed to be?
I prayed all weekend for an answer, bringing my question continually
before the Lord. But I never heard an answer…and I was somewhat
disappointed.
But, now years later, I realize that I didn’t hear the answer because I was listening for
the wrong kind of answer.
I wanted something specific and concrete. I wanted to leave my
retreat with a plan…maybe even a list which I could check off. Here is
what God has sent me to do. Here is how I will make a difference in the
world. I wanted a mission.
But as the years passed, and life moved on with its sorrows and its
joys, I began to hear the answer I sought. It is always the same, and
it takes root deeper and deeper in my heart, and the joy it imparts is a
reassuring certainty.
Today, I heard a young woman describe her very first visit to the Eucharistic Adoration chapel in her parish.
She went in, not knowing what to expect. And to her amazement, she
saw a type of vision…one which arose within her imagination. She saw a
large tree and beneath it she was seated with Jesus. To her great
surprise, Jesus carved His initials and hers in the tree, and then He
drew a heart around it.
He looked at her so tenderly and told her, “You could never
understand how very much I love you. Fall in love with Me. I so much
want you to fall in love with Me.”
Then she went on to say that God always knows just what we need to hear, and the way we need to hear it.
And, I understood. So many times in the adoration chapel, I have had
a similar “vision,” only in mine, I am a little girl, all dressed up
with ribbons in her hair, and I am snuggled in the arms of Jesus, or
sometimes standing on his lap, looking into His eyes, or hugging His
neck so tight. And….I am so very peaceful, both in the scene, and as I
quietly sit there
being loved.
Getting out of the car, after hearing the young woman’s encounter
with Jesus, I looked up at the blue sky and the trees in their tender
spring leaves. I listened to the bird songs of some cardinals nearby.
I gazed at all of this and with wide-eyed wonder, marveled that the God
Who had created it all, and Who sustains a world teeming with life and
beauty, would so love me, and you….would so love us above all of His
material creation combined. Yet, I know that He does…because He told us
so.
Continue reading at Patricia's blog I Want to See God.