Read this week’s excerpt from Bumping into God: “Dreams and Grace” here.
If you want to embark on an interesting exercise, write the story of your life. Write it quickly, without thinking about it much. And write only for about fifteen or twenty minutes. This will force you to hit the highlights only—the events that are most important to you.
Then, go back and read your story, and ask at each turn, Where was God in this event, or this conversation, or this internal experience?
The fact is, God is present to us throughout our lives, regardless of whether we recognize God at the time. God is in the person with whom you felt safe during a chaotic or violent childhood. God was in the recurring dream, in the job that taught you how to speak up for yourself, in the friendship that revealed your emotional minefields, in the accidental meeting that bloomed into a marriage or a new career.
If we believe that God exists, then we must grapple with the question of how God relates to us. Is the Divine wonderful and yet distant from us? Is God around only when we’re behaving like good people—and does God leave the scene when we’re misbehaving and showing our worst side? We’ve all known people who rewarded and punished us by staying with us or by withdrawing their presence—do we see God as relating to us in that way?
St. Ignatius of Loyola—and many other spiritual pilgrims before us—discovered that God’s love and presence are constant and unchanging. No matter what we are going through, and no matter how we’re responding to what we’re going through, God is with us. And as we gradually come to believe in God’s enduring care, our view of everything will be transformed. We will be able to see our life histories as having multiple layers. There’s the experience we went through, but there’s also the interior growth of understanding, patience, wisdom, and so forth. And sometimes we go through something so difficult and painful that possibly the only “benefit” we see is the fact that we survived at all. Still, God has been with us in the enduring and the survival.
Also, we can look back on relationships and ask, How was God present in that person? We believe that people are made in God’s image, although in some people that image is more evident than in others. Even in people we don’t like there is some remnant of God’s image—are we willing to see it? If we do, we can’t simply write off people as hopeless or no good.
Are you willing to see God’s history intertwined in your own?
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If I write a quick history of my life, I don’t think I would have time to mention individual conversations.
My mother always said that I was a solemn child, but like my father, when something made me laugh, I really laughed. I observed my world as a child and have several memories that shaped my view of the world. One is the time that I finally was able to use the green soap in the house of a neighbor. I was sure that the bubbles would be green, but they were white just like the Ivory soap at home!
I don’t remember very much about the rest of my childhood or even my high school years. A few memories here and there. Sometimes I wonder if I am suppressing something. However, there is one memory that changed my life. It was early fall and I was playing in the asparagus. I had a little nest that looked straight up into the clear blue autumn sky. The sun shone warmly on me. I didn’t know how to explain what happened, but many years later, in the Christmas liturgy, these words explained it “Your eternal Word leaped down from heaven” into my heart. I knew there was a Good God even though I had no words.
My father died when I was 14. I was sick in bed with the mumps, but he came to see me before he left. I saw him clearly like a photo. Being 14, which is an age of seeking, I spent many months deciding whether I could believe in a God who would take my father from me. At some point, I became comfortable that God’s will was good and that He was giving me something to make the world a better place. Not that I have ever counseled teenagers who have lost a parent or done anything that seems at all related. It is still mysteriously His Will. When I decided that there was a Loving God, then I needed to decide what religion was the right one for me to worship him. Since I live in the US, Christianity is the primary religion and, that seemed to me to be a sign that that’s where I should seek. So, I had to decide whether I really believed in Jesus. I decided that there were so many thousands of people who did good in His Name, that He had to be real. Looking at churches, they all had faults, did not follow His teachings so I decided that the Catholic Church, being the first, was the place to go. My mother was extremely anti-Catholic so I didn’t want to start a family fight, but I wanted to be baptized. I joined the Presbyterian Church because it was closest to family church (Dutch Reformed Church on Mother’s side; Quaker on Father’s side). Eventually, I met my husband, who is a cradle Catholic, and converted to Catholicism. My mother could tolerate that because she firmly believed that husband and wife should share the same values. I love the Catholic Church because there are so many ways that one can be a good Catholic. Contemplatives and missionaries; rich and poor; married and celibate; from sinners like thieves (who confess) to those who tithe or take vows of poverty. And all are bound together in the Eucharist – they are the Body of Christ.
I have spent a lot of time trying to learn to love people, to use my gifts for the community and it has not been easy – I am a very critical, controlling, impatient, and early in my life, angry person. I have gotten into lots of confrontations and been hurt, but I am learning how to let the Spirit lead me. I have been a smoker for 50 years and now I have lung cancer. Why have I never given it up? I knew all the reasons; felt it was sinful for spending the money, knew about the harmful effects on others, etc. I tried several times to stop – even going for a week at a time when visiting my daughter-in-law who was adamant that I couldn’t even smoke outside the house because she didn’t want her boys to see that I smoked. So many other things I learned to change – why could I not let the Spirit heal me?
I have always felt since that the autumn day that God has a plan for me. I was fully aware of my husband’s faults before marriage, but felt that this was where I was supposed to be. I had avoided anything that would make me a teacher, but discovered that being a mother was a 24/7 teaching job! My children are all different individuals – one college friend who was a political science major described them as “bleeding heart liberal’ ‘conservative’ and ‘apolitical’ I did not follow conventional child upbringing – again trusting in knowing that this was the right thing to do. Of course, I made mistakes, but my children have all grown up to be engaged in life and love. I don’t feel I can take credit because I really tried to let them make their own decisions. I have stepped out in faith in volunteering – when the time is right, I get a lot done. Other times, it doesn’t seem to be my mission even though I would like to do it. I have had a very easy life as far as health, both mental and physical, and tragedy – God seems to know how frail I am and doesn’t give me the really hard stuff to deal with. I have learned, with Corrie Ten Boom, that even if I cannot see the good that God does in another, that I can trust that God does love the people who seem even evil to me. I let God be the judge; though I don’t hesitate to challenge what I believe is wrong.
Now I am at the end of my life – ready to go beyond the veil. I don’t want to leave my husband; I think that he needs me and I so hope that God thinks that way also! I pray now more fervently that the Holy Spirit fills my heart and mind and that I listen. Already as I recover, the noise and activity of daily life is obscuring the Spirit with my weaknesses, prejudices, opinions. It is right and just to give God thanks and Praise!
Betsy, you’re on a sacred and difficult journey, and I hesitate to attempt saying anything wise or encouraging because a person travels these paths alone with God, even though other people can lend some help and comfort. The one thing that comes to mind, though, is that God seems to welcome our wrestling with the Divine. Each of us has an area or two in which we wrestle, struggle, fail, and wrestle again. For you, one of those areas was the smoking habit. God has loved you through that struggle, and God sees your desire, not your success. And I think it’s clear–from the way you tell your story–that you have been God’s friend and that in many ways you have indeed followed after your deep desire to be in communion with God. I pray that you will feel the joy of that communion and gain courage from it in the days to come. All peace, Vinita
Thank you for your prayers that I feel the joy of the communion with God in all the people who are praying for me! It was the most real part as I lay in the recovery room. But, now that I am better – cooking dinner, dealing with wigs, trying to turn over my volunteer duties, persuading my children that I don’t want a ‘bucket’ list, paying attention to news – my mind is busy again and I have to concentrate to hear the Holy Spirit.
I am praying that I will be able to be there for my husband until he no longer knows to mourn. Since my daughter is here and can do many of the chores when I am not well, as long as the cancer does not attack something they can’t fix, I might be able to. In fact, it could be a blessing because my husband now has to care for me so that we are leaning on one another instead of my taking care of him. I just know that no one else can support him as I well as I will! But you and I know that it is not true so I do need to be prepared that God will call me home. A day at a time – if that happens, then the Spirit will lead me through it.