No Service (01/14/2024)

This morning I rose as usual and went outside to greet the day and the LORD. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was cold. I managed a few minutes before having to come inside. I started my scripture reflection, got it ready to post, and found out I had no internet connection. And so, I have been waiting patiently. Finally, about ten minutes ago I got the signal on my computer bar that the internet had been restored. And I posted the scripture reflection for the day. Sometimes we’re ready, but it seems we just aren’t getting through.

The internet wasn’t gone. My connection was out. It’s like when I hit a dry patch in my relationship with the LORD. The LORD didn’t go anywhere; the LORD is still there. But my connection is out. Perhaps it’s become stagnant from lack of effort on my part; every relationship must grow from real effort invested in it. Perhaps it’s because I need to draw closer to the LORD because what’s coming is going to require it. Perhaps it’s because I’ve matured and just as I’ve outgrown clothes, I’ve outgrown my less mature understanding and terms of relationship.

My relationship with my parents changed over time. The love was always there; but how I behaved in that relationship changed. My relationship with my husband has changed over the years from our newly married to married over 50 years relationship; over time we have come to know one another better, more deeply, more purely. Relationships change and that requires a change in us.

My relationships have been tested over the years by hardships or hurt; I think that is true for all of us. And at times, our relationship with the LORD experiences rough times when we can’t understand what is; it doesn’t fit in our current “theology.” The LORD doesn’t go away in those times; but we must draw closer to the LORD regardless of the hurt and dryness in our prayer.

I recall once when I was in such a dryness. The LORD hadn’t moved away; I had. I was hurt because I’d gotten to that point believing that “God takes care of good people.” And it is true. The LORD does. But I wasn’t mature enough yet in my faith to recognize that the LORD’s care doesn’t always look like what I think it should. It took my father insisting that I study a crucifix to understand that “God takes care of good people” doesn’t always look like what I think it should. And in that moment, when I opened my mind and heart, I could feel Christ asking me to come closer.

All relationships take time, commitment, and perseverance. And none is more essential nor requires more time, commitment, and perseverance than the one with our LORD, the source of our very being. And yet most of us will experience a time when we are called to a new conversion, to a new way of relating, a deeper and more profound way. John of the Cross experienced this, and he wrote about it in his work on “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Mother Teresa experienced this, and she spoke of it often. As we mature, we shouldn’t be surprised when we are asked to also mature in our relationship with the LORD.

As we journey on in faith, hope and love, let us be always attentive to our relationship with the LORD and be open to the call to come closer, to open ourselves more wholly so that we might become more holy, to clear away our old conceptions to make room for new understanding, for new revelations of what it means to be a child of the LORD, a disciple of Christ, a temple of the Spirit in the world.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.