Grief 1: Thy Will Be Done

Whenever we imagine we are in control of life—our own or someone else's—we have fallen prey to the ancient whisper in the Garden: "You shall be like gods."

Magnificat, Vol 24 Number 12, February 27, 2024

It is now forty-one days since my Beloved, my love for 54 years slipped gently away to God.  Suffering with his heart for all of his eighty years, it finally gave out after two particularly long difficult years of care. The last six months of in-home hospice care were a blessing. Every day from our anniversary July 26 until his death I knew exactly what God expected of me--caring for my husband round the clock. It was the longest period in my life when my calling was brilliantly clear. Every moment of it was a blessing.

Greg always said God would take him when He was ready and was perfectly at peace. We had lived every day of the last thirty years since the last crisis as if it could be our last. We had no regrets or work undone. we had traveled and spent endless time enjoying one another. We'd moved to be close to our Grandson and took full advantage of it. After some years of terrible estrangement, we had reconciled with our middle child, Rachel, and had her close for the last five years, seeing her at least weekly.

And then, God took Rachel too. On Christmas Eve. We had two funerals in three weeks. The burden of that added to months of sleepless and endlessly interrupted nights, left me numb. The exhaustion remains, and I still haven't relearned how to sleep through the night.  I still haven't cried or crumbled.

My calm concerned me. The counselor I'm seeing pointed out there is no one right way to grieve. Perhaps I was just ready. Perhaps Greg's faith and strength in the face of death sustain me. We'll see.

I've never lived alone before. I'm taking it one day at a time. I offer my day to God every morning. My theme song is now "Lead Kindly Light..."

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th’encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

Yep. That was me. Telling God what I was going to do for him and never waiting to listen. I am so trying to wake up every morning and give my day, that one day, over to his will. I did that yesterday, and he gave me...  MICE. I'll be dealing with the mess in my garage for a long while. Such is real life.  

Prophets

He has spoken through the prophets.

The Nicene-Constantinople Creed

Hear the word of the Lord...listen to the instruction of our God.

Isaiah 1:10

Pop "the word of the Lord" into any of the Bible search engines now ubiquitous on the Internet and you will get pages and pages of references from Genesis 15:, "the word of the Lord came to Abram, to 1Peter 1:25, "the word of the Lord remains forever and this is the word that has been proclaimed to you...." Those two references alone represent a two thousand year stretch.

The prophets were not fortune tellers. They didn't divine the future or act as seers.  The prophets heard God speak and were compelled to proclaim the word of God to His people.  The content of the message was always the will of God, what He expected people to do, how He expected them to live their lives.  It still is.  John L. McKenzie SJ calls that word The Two Edged Sword.

The remarkable thing is God speaks to ordinary people.  Gideon plowing his field, Amos tending his sheep, Peter fishing--even Moses tending sheep--heard God speak directly to them.  His voice wasn't always that of the great and powerful. Isaiah heard it in the night and Elijah heard a still small voice.  I suspect we all could hear it if we would but listen.The 

Creed is clear on one thing, when God speaks it is the Holy Spirit that does the speaking.

Plans

In his mind a man plans his course, but the LORD directs his steps.
Proverbs 16: 9

The old joke: How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans. If you do a full-text search of the Bible on "plans" you get dozens of references to the plans of men, must of them about frustration. Rarely do you see that word in reference to God.

And in honor of the Feast of Christ the King, this from Pope Benedict XVI:

God does not have a fixed plan that he must carry out; on the contrary, he has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his wrong ways into right ways...the Feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated, but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes straight with crooked lines.

So we plunge ahead confidently, remembering to listen, trying to do so, and trust Him to make sense out of the tangle of our lives.

Balaam's Ass

Then the Lord removed the veil from Balaam's eyes and he too saw the angel of the Lord standing on the road with sword drawn..." Numbers 22:31

We claim to seek God's will, but then immediately begin to pick and choose which of His messages we wish to hear. Some messengers are so obvious that even an ass can see them--but we don't see what we don't want to see.

Today I was determined to do [what I decided was] the right and responsible thing even if it meant disrupting my brother's family, and my staff. In the end, however, what was wanted was for me to let go of work which didn't need me anyway, take care of my Dad, and relax. It never occurs to me that the Lord's will for me might be rest, joy, peace. I look only for work.

Today I got sunshine, a good book, a nap, and time to reflect.

Having accepted that I can quit the position that has obsorbed so much of my soul for eight years, I now want to puff up my importance by filling my remaining days with events to demonstrate how indispensible I actually am. I can't leave for two months, but I can begin now to put other things first, and, in humility, let others take control at work.

Now

"...to do that [surrender to God's will] is to live in the present. You know God in the midst of your family and his continuous providence for it; you are at peace within yourself in the fullest sense because you are content to do the work of the present moment and let God provide for the future." Gerald Vann OP

In this is the will of God for me--whatever today's "This" is.