The Road Less Traveled

I've kind of fallen behind in blogging. I am in the thick of being pregnant and miserable. Fortunately some of the nausea has let up but now I am dealing with constant headaches. When I am pregnant, sometimes I think it would be better if I just crawled into a hole for nine months and didn't see anyone. I feel like even if I am not complaining in words, misery is written all over my face and I do not want to be a downer to anyone. The Lord reminded me that when he walked Calvary, he wasn't smiling. Actually that would have been pretty weird if he would have been. Also, the image of Veronica's veil came to my mind. According to Christian tradition, there was a woman named Veronica who was deeply devoted to Christ. She followed him on the road to Calvary and wiped his bloody face with her veil. The image of Christ's face was transferred onto the veil. There are documents of this as far back as the early 300's. I felt like the Lord was telling me that when we choose the road of suffering (which could just mean doing His will instead of our own) and join our suffering to his, we cannot help but leave an imprint on the lives of others.

The Name of the Game

A while back, during a season when I was going through some very difficult circumstances that I did not want to accept, I had a simple but rather profound dream. In the dream I saw a board game. On the side of the board game was the word, in big bold letters, SURRENDER. I woke up and the thought came to me, "The name of the game is surrender!" 

I was reminded of that dream when I had a similar word I felt led to give this past Friday for our 1st Friday holy hour at church. This was used for our guided meditation:

John 21:1-6 (After the resurrection) Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

Like Peter and the disciples we can often work tirelessly from morning till night. We use up all our human effort and strength only to gain nothing. Sometimes it can feel like we are running on a treadmill; working endlessly but not getting anywhere. We can be left feeling discouraged and weary. When we finally come to the place where we realize we can do nothing on our own, we let go and surrender to the Lord, he can take over and we will begin to see the fruit of our labors. Jesus is eagerly waiting for us to come to this place so he can shower us with his abundance of grace and blessings.

I believe the Lord would say to us tonight, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Fall back into my love and mercy. Let go of all your fears and concerns. Fall back into me. I will hold you and I will carry you through. Put your trust in me! Let go and I will replace your worries with my joy and my strength!