Who is my neighbor?

I will tell you a story. One night a man came to our house and told me, "There is a family with eight children. They have not eaten for days."
I took some food with me and went. When I came to that family, I saw the faces of those little children disfigured by hunger. There was no sorrow or sadness in their faces, just the deep pain of hunger. I gave rice to the mother. She divided the rice in two, and went out, carrying half the rice. When she came back, I asked her, "Where did you go?" She gave me this simple answer, "To my neighbors; they are hungry also!" I was not surprised that she gave-poor people are really very generous. I was surprised that she knew they were hungry. As a rule, when we are suffering, we are so focused on ourselves, we have no time for others. -- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta


This story struck a chord with me when I read it! I read it and thought how often I suffer and get so stuck in me and forget the others around me.  I realized that when I am spiritually attacked  it is not only feeding me lies, but keeping me away from my brothers and sisters in the Lord.  How you may ask? Because I am so self-centered in that moment.  I am not thinking that maybe someone understands. I am thinking no one does. That is how I think Satan's ways are not only deceitful to me in that moment but also deceives everything and everyone around me as well. 
I become into me so much, Satan convinces me that no one will ever understand and then not only am I at a loss for healing, but possibly the people around me are to. Meaning they lose the opportunity to heal others and themselves.


There is healing when we can share our hearts with another.  There is healing when we share our sufferings. They say " Pain shared is half the pain and joy shared is twice the joy."  When we share, and process with those around us, who we can do so with, there is such a beautiful gift that is received...we receive God's love in a new way! A beautiful way, a way that we never thought we could.  God allows us to draw from each other so as to be closer to Him.  It is a gift.  He calls us to help each other so we can experience Him. He calls us to love each other so that we can experience His love for us.


The interesting part of it all is that it is not that easy! Love as I have mentioned in past posts is a challenge of the person to be more then they know they can even be.  So sometimes, depending on where we are at, we don't even know our own capacity level to love.  In fact, most often, we don't think about the fact that our hearts were made to love and serve the Lord.  We learn to love and serve ourselves and although there is a place for that, our Love of self, or rather our ability to take care of self, needs to lead us to greater love of neighbor!  As you can see from the short story Mother Teresa told of the woman receiving what she needed and then remembering those around her, her suffering called her to help others! She did not let her sufferings rule her, rather she allowed her sufferings to strengthen her and lead her to service and to be a gift of self to another.


That is so so hard.  I think that is why we are continually refined in our love! It has taken many years of experiences, joys, disappointments, hurt and a constant humility to refine love in my own heart.  And God continually will refine me, so that I can be led to greater love of him and my neighbor.  So who is my neighbor? I believe that we are all neighbors to each other.  Some we are called to pray for, some we are called to serve, some we are called to ask for there service for us.  Really are neighbors are not just those next to us but all those around us--those we have met and those we do not know. Those we like and those we dislike--we are all neighbors to each other.  This always causes the most problems--the being the neighbor to those i dislike--I think this is God's way of showing us what he is made of.  We have to depend on him and allow him to be the love we don't even know how to be in that moment. In these moments I always say, Lord take over! The coolest thing is, he does and he makes everything beautiful--as long as I am open to that moment. 


Learning to love in our sufferings is more then difficult.  I can say that from experience I had to walk through my pain just a bit to be able to even see pain in the others around me. Once i do walk in my pain, my capacity to love grows, my compassion is bigger, I begin to think of others in their sufferings and reach out to be to them what I have received and the more i do so the more I heal my own heart of the sufferings I endure!

The Road

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at all. It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it. -- Oswald Chambers


This quote makes me think of all that God calls me to and how God is always calling to be more than I can ever see myself becoming!  That is so hard.  I always think I'm okay and then boom, God's like, oh wait there's more! Love is that more and it will always carry me beyond anything that I can see for myself.   It is hard because it does call me away from my woundedness and fear.  Love takes me beyond because it takes me away from my ego and all my self-centeredness.  It calls me to draw from that place that only God can provide.  God can only give to me the ability to make me love that much more or at all in any moment.


I find that in my own life I have struggled with a lot of woundedness that has caused me to stay in a state  of fear.  That fear kept me safe and protected but not very happy! If I want to be open to love completely I have to risk the fact that I could suffer and be hurt.  I just don't want to continue to go through all that.  I want to live without pain and suffering--wouldn't that be nice! But as St Gemma Galgani says: If you really want to love Jesus, first learn to suffer, because suffering teaches you to love. Suffering teaches love...hmmm...oh there is that irony again! Although it makes sense.  If I have suffered then I have compassion and if I have compassion then I love because I know the other side now! My heart needs to be broken to learn to love! My heart needs to experience a bad relationship to know what a good one is! My heart needs to have a few battle scars to remind me that love is not easy but it is worth the fight! 


Also when I realize that ultimately it is not the road that caused the accident, but carelessness of a person behind the wheel of another car or my own carelessness, I realize that I can't give up the road for the sake of safety! I can be careful, follow the road rules and trust myself from my experience driving!! This analogy paints a beautiful picture of love and brokenness. Of pain that causes a lack of trust! The fear of knowing that anything can happen, even if you are a good driver.  I can't give up the road because that is the road that I need to get me to where I will ultimately end up!! The road to love. 

The Name of Mary

Saint Bernard’s sermon on the Name of Mary. Allow his words to plant deep within your hearts the gift of an abiding devotion to Mary’s sweet Name:


Let us say a few words about this Name
which means “Star of the Sea”
and is so appropriate to the Virgin Mother.


She — I tell you — is that splendid and wondrous star
suspended as if by necessity over this great wide sea,
radiant with merit and brilliant in example.


O you, whoever you are,
who feel that in the tidal wave of this world
you are nearer to being tossed about among the squalls and gales
than treading on dry land:
if you do not want to founder in the tempest,
do not avert your eyes from the brightness of this star.


When the wind of temptation blows up within you,
when you strike upon the rock of tribulation,
gaze up at this star,
call out to Mary.


Whether you are being tossed about
by the waves of pride or ambition,
or slander or jealousy,
gaze up at this star,
call out to Mary.


When rage or greed or fleshly desires
are battering the skiff of your soul,
gaze up at Mary.


When the immensity of your sins weighs you down
and you are bewildered by the loathsomeness of your conscience,
when the terrifying thought of judgment appalls you
and you begin to founder in the gulf of sadness and despair,
think of Mary.


In dangers, in hardships, in every doubt,
think of Mary, call out to Mary.
Keep her in your mouth,
keep her in your heart.


Follow the example of her life,
and you will obtain the favour of her prayer.

Following her, you will never go astray.

Asking her help, you will never despair.

Keeping her in your thoughts, you will never wander away.


With your hand in hers, you will never stumble.
With her protecting you, you will not be afraid.
With her leading you, you will never tire.


Her kindness will see you through to the end.
Then you will know by your own experience
how true it is that the Virgin’s Name was Mary.

Love

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken....To love is to be vulnerable.  -- CS Lewis


Love is a scary thing!! That is what I have found for myself.  Simply put...."Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. " — Fyodor Dostoyevsky 


Why is it such a scary thing? Well I think for myself it is because i have to trust my heart to another.  I have to be vulnerable before another and let go of myself and let God enter that moment! Let God lead that moment and be the center and functioning of it..which is love itself.  That is hard when I like to know what is happening and in control. 
For me I am afraid to be hurt...I am afraid that if I let go completely I will be crushed and duped by another. Thinking things were one way and they were another.  Yet again finding myself trusting how I feel and then finding that how I feel was not reciprocated.  I think that that makes love hard for me as well...the lack of reciprication! If I love another I want that love in return.  Basically, I want to get what I give out! I want to know that I am safe in sharing my heart...Love would not be scary, if I knew I would get a return. 


Sometimes I think, God allows the lack of return to see the heart risk itself--to see the heart sacrifice itself for another.  God wants to see what we are made of at times.  Not that he does not want to see us happy, but he sometimes wants us to see what we are capable of.  He knows that it hurts but by His grace he allows us to see the beauty of the risk to love.  As Christ died for us he took a great risk, that many of the people He would selflessly die for would not love him in return.  That they would scoff and walk away...yes, indeed he was dead on about that! The beauty of the risk Christ took and the example he is to us in our own risk is that, he opened the door for the most unlikely people to embrace the love he died for. So as for us, we learn to live when we learn to die and we learn to love when we learn to risk and be vulnerable!!


What a hard and beautiful gift!  I feel like God is all about giving us good things...he builds a place for them in each one of our hearts, through experience and disappointment.  Then we find one day that through all that stuff, that we felt was fair or unfair, unhealthy or not, a beautiful garden was cultivated, a garden transformed into great love! A love that can either be given or received!  I know that every broken dream, every betrayal, every heart break, rejection, abandonment,  etc all of it God uses to recreate the person that cannot be anything without him.   


The image i get from the words above are of a  potter and the potters wheel.  When you get your clay ready to be formed sometimes you use old pieces of clay to form the new mound to be placed on the wheel.  There is nothing wrong with those old pieces they were just part of pieces that were not strong enough or walls that were not thick enough or pots that were not centered.  What is awesome is that you can take that clay, save it and reuse it to make something again!! God does not throw away our experiences or hurts, he reuses them, and recreates new life from them.  He continues to build us and rebuild us so that we can learn to love and be loved properly.  


Love is scary because we really don't know what we are made of sometimes until put before the proper force!  So love is dreadful and yet beautiful, love brings so much joy and yet at the risk of bringing so much suffering and pain! I do have to say I will take the risk of the suffering, knowing the joy of Love if so sweet.  That although I hurt, at least I loved!