Let me tell you one thing about our life here: it’s amazing! God is continuing to show up in so many uncountable ways—I love it. Our life is about to become a whole lot busier (at least externally...I feel like we’ve been busy since we’ve arrived here!) in the next month or so, as God has given us a whole host of opportunities for reaching out and building community: a Core retreat for the team here in Süsterseel in November, an XLT at a parish in Roermond (NL), and two retreats for teens and young adults in December. We’ll also be spending some time with the Core teams from parishes in the Netherlands when Chris and Erik fly out in December—so excited to see some of our missionary family! There’s just so much, I could go on and on about all the ways God is providing us to be able to invite people into deeper relationship with Him.
This theme of invitation has come up consistently in our prayer (and more than once on my blog, ich glaube...). God is continuing to prove to us that all we can do is invite; nothing we could say, nothing we could do can inspire any conversion or change lives. Only God can change hearts. Our role is simply to say, “come and see.” But if nothing else, we’re learning that this posture of invitation has incredible results!
As I mentioned, we’re having a couple retreats for teens and young adults here in December—the Core is planning the Joyful Noise retreat for the teens, and Fr. Roland is preparing a silent retreat for young adults. Thanks be to God, we’ve had amazing response from teens who are signing up left and right to go! We’ve had to print out additional copies of retreat forms so that we can give them to more teens. One of the biggest glory moments for me came when one of the teens invited her friend from school to go on retreat with her. When we were talking about it in the Life Teen office the other day she said, “I’m a missionary!” with so much excitement in her face, it brought tears to my eyes (I think we startled her a little bit when we all shouted “Exactly! Yes, you are!” at the same time...). That’s what it’s all about! Little moments of invitation, one after the other, that lead up to more and more people saying “yes” to God and what He wants to do in their lives. (oh, and p.s. her friend is coming on the retreat. Further proof that sometimes an invitation is all you need...)
I think this section from our Rule of Life defines what this mission is all about:
“Life Teen Mission bases are welcome places—a place where people are refreshed, restored, revived, and experience God; where the focus is not to escape ‘normal life,’ but to pursue the face of God and encounter Him personally. [...] Our goal is to conform our lives to the ultimate mission of the Church, the Great Commission: ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations’ (Mt 28:19). We are committed to teach young people about God’s loving plan of salvation, to empower them with prayer and the truths of the Church, and to launch them into God’s mission.”
That one moment with that one teen in the office renewed my excitement for this mission, where more and more people are feeling empowered to live a missionary life—something we are all called to do—and invite people into relationship with Him. God has been doing the work long before we got here; we’re just now getting the chance—the privilege!—to watch it all unfold.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Ich spreche nicht.
I find myself in a rather odd predicament as I’m writing this blog: I don’t know what to say.
Just to clarify, this is new and different. Words are a big deal for me. My life seems to revolve around saying things (or not saying them, or wishing they were said, or hoping someone will say them…etc.), and so I’m not exactly sure what to do with this feeling of being speechless. But I think that it’s good, and that God is actually trying to reveal a greater truth through this experience; in fact, it parallels what God has been doing here in my own heart lately.
First things first: living in Germany, there is a need for us to learn German. Yes, I know that seems like a rather obvious thing to say; but what I’ve realized is that while it’s one thing to sit in the Mission Academy and laugh about how silly it is to say random German phrases from Rosetta Stone out loud, it is quite another thing to go to the dentist while using your very limited German, or to try to withdraw money from an ATM that is all in German, or to try and be relational and minister when all you can say is “Wie geht’s?” “Wo wonnst du?” “Was machst du gern?” “Was isst du gern?” (translation: How are you? Where do you live? What do you like to do? What do you like to eat?)
I am in a continuous position of being humbled through realizing that there is so much I CAN’T say; not because I don’t want to, not because I’m afraid of offending someone, not because I’m not sure if the other person is going to be receptive to what I’m going to say…I literally just do. not. have. the. words.
As you might imagine, this frustrates me to no end.
There is so much I want to say! There are so many people I want to reach out to, and I just don’t know how!
Ah….here is the beauty of what God is teaching me.
I was praying about this the other day, and how frustrated I was with not being able to speak, to share, to talk, wondering why God would want to bring me to this place where I can’t say anything (!); and God just spoke into that (haha, “spoke,” I know…let’s just say he revealed it to me), reminding me that in all my discerning about coming here this year, in all of our prayer in preparing for this mission, in everything He’s been revealing to all of us regarding our presence here, there has never once been any mention of speaking. I’ve been so caught up in the frustration of not being able to speak, that I’ve been missing out on all the other ways God is asking me to reach out, to invite, to love. God wants to stretch and change my conceptualization of what it means to be missionary; learning how to fulfill the Gospel call to “go out to the ends of the earth and proclaim the Good News” without words.
I’m starting to realize that I’ve been exerting so much effort I didn’t really need to exert in the first place. I’ve been thinking and acting like any of this mission depends on me or my ability to share (in a speaking sense of the word) God’s plans, and that if I can’t speak, then the “real” mission hasn’t started yet. I’ve felt like I’ve failed in a lot of situations because of my lack of ability to speak. The beautiful truth of the matter, though, is that God is bigger than any words I could use to talk about Him, and that in this moment, He is calling me to be even more dependent on Him through my inability to use words—to point back to Him through my living and acting and BEING more than through anything I could ever say.
Jesus is the Light and the Truth.
It is Jesus who converts. It is Jesus who reveals. It is Jesus who speaks.
All I can do is turn back to Him, to live as best I can the truth He’s revealed to me. All I need to do is be loved by Him and to love in return—to hope in His promises, to walk in His freedom, and to be a vessel of that hope and freedom for others.
Just to clarify, this is new and different. Words are a big deal for me. My life seems to revolve around saying things (or not saying them, or wishing they were said, or hoping someone will say them…etc.), and so I’m not exactly sure what to do with this feeling of being speechless. But I think that it’s good, and that God is actually trying to reveal a greater truth through this experience; in fact, it parallels what God has been doing here in my own heart lately.
First things first: living in Germany, there is a need for us to learn German. Yes, I know that seems like a rather obvious thing to say; but what I’ve realized is that while it’s one thing to sit in the Mission Academy and laugh about how silly it is to say random German phrases from Rosetta Stone out loud, it is quite another thing to go to the dentist while using your very limited German, or to try to withdraw money from an ATM that is all in German, or to try and be relational and minister when all you can say is “Wie geht’s?” “Wo wonnst du?” “Was machst du gern?” “Was isst du gern?” (translation: How are you? Where do you live? What do you like to do? What do you like to eat?)
I am in a continuous position of being humbled through realizing that there is so much I CAN’T say; not because I don’t want to, not because I’m afraid of offending someone, not because I’m not sure if the other person is going to be receptive to what I’m going to say…I literally just do. not. have. the. words.
As you might imagine, this frustrates me to no end.
There is so much I want to say! There are so many people I want to reach out to, and I just don’t know how!
Ah….here is the beauty of what God is teaching me.
I was praying about this the other day, and how frustrated I was with not being able to speak, to share, to talk, wondering why God would want to bring me to this place where I can’t say anything (!); and God just spoke into that (haha, “spoke,” I know…let’s just say he revealed it to me), reminding me that in all my discerning about coming here this year, in all of our prayer in preparing for this mission, in everything He’s been revealing to all of us regarding our presence here, there has never once been any mention of speaking. I’ve been so caught up in the frustration of not being able to speak, that I’ve been missing out on all the other ways God is asking me to reach out, to invite, to love. God wants to stretch and change my conceptualization of what it means to be missionary; learning how to fulfill the Gospel call to “go out to the ends of the earth and proclaim the Good News” without words.
I’m starting to realize that I’ve been exerting so much effort I didn’t really need to exert in the first place. I’ve been thinking and acting like any of this mission depends on me or my ability to share (in a speaking sense of the word) God’s plans, and that if I can’t speak, then the “real” mission hasn’t started yet. I’ve felt like I’ve failed in a lot of situations because of my lack of ability to speak. The beautiful truth of the matter, though, is that God is bigger than any words I could use to talk about Him, and that in this moment, He is calling me to be even more dependent on Him through my inability to use words—to point back to Him through my living and acting and BEING more than through anything I could ever say.
Jesus is the Light and the Truth.
It is Jesus who converts. It is Jesus who reveals. It is Jesus who speaks.
All I can do is turn back to Him, to live as best I can the truth He’s revealed to me. All I need to do is be loved by Him and to love in return—to hope in His promises, to walk in His freedom, and to be a vessel of that hope and freedom for others.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Hide and Do Not Seek
We’ve had amazingly full days since we’ve been here in Germany; I’ve been a little surprised, actually. I think I expected to have to wait around more until things “got going.” Here’s lesson number one of missionary life: God does not wait. He wastes no time diving right in if you let Him! Part of the reason we’ve had such a full schedule, I’ve realized, is because we pray so much—praise God! (just for you Fr. Paul). I guess I never really noticed how much time we set aside for prayer when I was living at Covecrest last year; everyone did it, so it wasn’t as noticeable. But now that we’re living smack dab in the middle of a whole bunch of people who don’t necessarily pray in the same way we do, we have to do things like make a schedule (what? What’s that?), and our schedule is built around prayer. I’m so thankful for the foundation that was laid last year during my formation; I’m just now beginning to realize how important maintaining a rhythm of prayer is.
Which brings me to lesson number two of missionary life: it’s amazing how much God will reveal to you when you give Him the chance! God is just beautifully answering my prayer, in ways that I never expected; I think I’m getting rather used to hearing God’s voice (even if He sometimes says things I don’t understand…)! First of all, a little background information to give you some perspective:
Two things you should know about me: I have always described myself as a take-charge kind of person, and I tend to get anxious when I don’t know what’s coming or when I don’t have control over any given situation. With these two characteristics combined, I tend to get somewhat “grabby” in unfamiliar situations and try to grasp at things or people that are familiar so that I feel I have something that kind of resembles control. Now, God has really been working on these quirks of mine over the course of the last year of formation, and I’ve come a long way. It’s easier for me to trust God with the details (or even the big chunks!) of my life that I don’t know anything about, and I’m getting more and more used to taking the backseat while God’s driving and just enjoying the ride. Fr. Jean C.J. d’Elbee says in I Believe in Love, “I have often noticed that to reward an act of confidence, Jesus gives us the occasion to make an even greater act of confidence.” So, because of how much I’ve progressed, Jesus has gifted me with the opportunity to trust Him more fully, to die to self, and to let go of control (and even vision of the future) more and more. Thanks, Jesus.
Humanly, this is incredibly difficult for me. The more Jesus prompts me to let go of control, the more something inside of me fights to have control (doesn’t St. Paul talk about this somewhere? Always doing what you don’t want to do?). Some days, it takes a great deal of effort for me to wake up and say, “God, I love you, and I trust you today. I know that you have great plans for me. You have promised to give me life to the fullest, and I trust that what you promise, you will also do. Give me the grace to live that reality today!”
But what a beautiful way to live! It’s been amazing for me to see evidence of God’s love for me; all the small ways He is fulfilling me and fulfilling His promises to me in the small, ordinary events of the day. A small example: I’ve gotten really used to an hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every morning to start my day. It’s something that I look forward to (yes, even on the days when I want to sleep in) because I’ve realized how much I need to hear God speak to me. Now that we’re living in a place that doesn’t offer Eucharistic Adoration every day (although we’ve been able to go to Mass every day, a blessing in itself), I’ve really been missing my daily holy hour. So one morning before we headed to Mass in the Netherlands, I just prayed a quick little prayer that God would give me some time during the day to just sit with him and pray. So we get to the convent where Mass was scheduled for 11:00 and, wouldn’t you know it, there was Jesus, exposed in the Blessed Sacrament. And we had a holy hour with Exposition before Mass that day. Thanks, Jesus!
That’s just one very, very small example of all the ways Jesus is gifting me—almost spoiling me, in fact—in response to my waiting for him. I’m learning that the struggle of living a life of holiness isn’t in choosing between the good and the bad, but seeing the good and then waiting for the best, the fullest of what God has in store for me. God keeps telling me to wait, to keep waiting, for Him to reveal more of His plan for me—a plan that I could not even begin to conceive of on my own. And let me tell you, it’s looking mighty good from where I’m sitting!
“‘Come,’ says my heart, ‘seek God’s face’ [...] I believe I shall enjoy the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Wiat for the Lord, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27: 8, 13-14).
“Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance” (Romans 8:24-25).
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed” (1 John 3:2).
Which brings me to lesson number two of missionary life: it’s amazing how much God will reveal to you when you give Him the chance! God is just beautifully answering my prayer, in ways that I never expected; I think I’m getting rather used to hearing God’s voice (even if He sometimes says things I don’t understand…)! First of all, a little background information to give you some perspective:
Two things you should know about me: I have always described myself as a take-charge kind of person, and I tend to get anxious when I don’t know what’s coming or when I don’t have control over any given situation. With these two characteristics combined, I tend to get somewhat “grabby” in unfamiliar situations and try to grasp at things or people that are familiar so that I feel I have something that kind of resembles control. Now, God has really been working on these quirks of mine over the course of the last year of formation, and I’ve come a long way. It’s easier for me to trust God with the details (or even the big chunks!) of my life that I don’t know anything about, and I’m getting more and more used to taking the backseat while God’s driving and just enjoying the ride. Fr. Jean C.J. d’Elbee says in I Believe in Love, “I have often noticed that to reward an act of confidence, Jesus gives us the occasion to make an even greater act of confidence.” So, because of how much I’ve progressed, Jesus has gifted me with the opportunity to trust Him more fully, to die to self, and to let go of control (and even vision of the future) more and more. Thanks, Jesus.
Humanly, this is incredibly difficult for me. The more Jesus prompts me to let go of control, the more something inside of me fights to have control (doesn’t St. Paul talk about this somewhere? Always doing what you don’t want to do?). Some days, it takes a great deal of effort for me to wake up and say, “God, I love you, and I trust you today. I know that you have great plans for me. You have promised to give me life to the fullest, and I trust that what you promise, you will also do. Give me the grace to live that reality today!”
But what a beautiful way to live! It’s been amazing for me to see evidence of God’s love for me; all the small ways He is fulfilling me and fulfilling His promises to me in the small, ordinary events of the day. A small example: I’ve gotten really used to an hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament every morning to start my day. It’s something that I look forward to (yes, even on the days when I want to sleep in) because I’ve realized how much I need to hear God speak to me. Now that we’re living in a place that doesn’t offer Eucharistic Adoration every day (although we’ve been able to go to Mass every day, a blessing in itself), I’ve really been missing my daily holy hour. So one morning before we headed to Mass in the Netherlands, I just prayed a quick little prayer that God would give me some time during the day to just sit with him and pray. So we get to the convent where Mass was scheduled for 11:00 and, wouldn’t you know it, there was Jesus, exposed in the Blessed Sacrament. And we had a holy hour with Exposition before Mass that day. Thanks, Jesus!
That’s just one very, very small example of all the ways Jesus is gifting me—almost spoiling me, in fact—in response to my waiting for him. I’m learning that the struggle of living a life of holiness isn’t in choosing between the good and the bad, but seeing the good and then waiting for the best, the fullest of what God has in store for me. God keeps telling me to wait, to keep waiting, for Him to reveal more of His plan for me—a plan that I could not even begin to conceive of on my own. And let me tell you, it’s looking mighty good from where I’m sitting!
“‘Come,’ says my heart, ‘seek God’s face’ [...] I believe I shall enjoy the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Wiat for the Lord, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27: 8, 13-14).
“Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance” (Romans 8:24-25).
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed” (1 John 3:2).
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