I Truly Believe God Spoke To Me...But I Need Help

[danspada]

Hello everyone, I have a story to tell, but it’s so long I don’t know where to start…so I will give the super short version.

My Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer in January 08, doctors gave him 3 months, and beyond medical explanation he is still with us today. So I have been praying to God to please let me have the wisdom necessary to learn everything he wants me to learn from this experience. Since then I have experienced so many amazing things that have brought me even close to Him. One of the things I constantly pray for is for Him to let me know what he wants me to do. And then the other day it couldn’t have been clearer, it was as if everything in my life had led me to that point, and the clarity was just amazing. I believe God wants me to help those who are suffering and dying in Haiti.

Here’s my problem though, I am sure this is what I need to do. I have reached out to a local non-profit “The Haitian Health Foundation” and they have ideas on what I can do. I started an online cause (if you’re on facebook please join and pass it to your friends apps.facebook.com/causes/205211?m=6b07e9f9) (if you’re not on FB and would like to help please donate or send to a friend causes.com/fb/donations/new?cause_id=205211&fundraiser_id=43206196&m=d1da8f61)).

My problem is fear. I am afraid to fail. I have waited for this kind of clarity, and I trust in the Lord, and I continue to think Peter sinking in the water because of his lack of faith. I don’t want to be like, but I feel like I have a big mission, and big expectations along with it. Sorry if I rambled on, I just felt like I needed to express all of this. Thanks for listening.

 

[Trishie]

Hi, you are very welcome to CAF, and I praise and thank God for His action in your life.

Just to be sure you know, we’re not supposed to give private revelations on the forums, so your ‘short version’ was a good choice.

If you are clear that you ought to pray for the sick and the dying then that’s a good ongoing act of charity towards others.

it isn’t a matter of succeeding or failing in praying for others. You pray. It’s not that you need to seek proof that your prayers bear fruit, if at any time God wishes to let you see some apparent result in order to encourage you, then He will, but otherwise, if called to pray for anyone, then do pray.

When on Ash Wednesday 1980, I received a conviction that a particular part of my vocation is in praying for priests, I thought about how, and began to write a prayer I could say each day, but ultimately I knew, and decided the the best way I could pray for priests each day is through God’s own great Prayer, through the great prayer of the whole Mystical Body…ie, through daily Mass.

I was heartbroken when a couple of priests I knew left the priesthood. I’d prayed so hard for them but as another priest wrote to me at that time, “Free Will is a two-edged sword pointed directly at the heart of God.” Even with our best prayer, sometimes prayers don’t seem to fruit…but only God knows what He does with our prayers. Once, once yes, a priest’s vocation was saved directly because of God’s grace in my prayer and action…and if I never did anything else, there is a priest still a priest because I was in his world.

There is no question of your succeeding or failing, however apparent ‘failures’ there may be, because it isn’t about me or about you if we owe a particular part of our human responsibilty to particular others. In fulfilling such a vocation we are merely servants, merely instruments, so it is not our work or our failure or our success. The work and the grace is God’s.

 

[Trishie]

I don’t know if the following will mean anything or will in anyway inspire you own prayer in any sense, but while scrolling through the pages of my writings I stopped at this one.

Reparation through suffering
God of all peoples, please receive from all ages the sufferings of the innocent and the contrite, in reparation for the sins of the guilty!

Behold—
*the bereaved and the deserted…the hopeless and the despairing…the displaced and the poverty-stricken…the injured and the physically sick…the mentally and the emotionally ill…the retarded and the incapacitated…the frustrated and the afraid…the isolated and the elderly…the addicted, the imprisoned and the persecuted. Behold those young, to old, sinned against by injustice, misunderstanding, abuse and neglect…those whose hearts this world has broken…those crushed by remorse and racked by misery and sin…those with lives empty of purpose—all persons with suffering within or with suffering imposed from an external source! *

Please receive their pain, grief and loneliness, their weariness, anxiety or desperation—in conjunction with the spiritual, mental and physical anguish of Your Son, as reparation for all the sins of humankind.

God, through Your love of Jesus, please bless and welcome the sufferers! Hold them gently in Your arms and comfort them. Heal them, claim them, and fill them with Your life and peace.

Please accept all the undirected suffering of those who do not know God. Receive this suffering in atonement for all offences against You and any person. Allow Your mercy, compassion and power to release humankind from bondage to sin, suffering, and death.

You grant me compassion to desire to bring their pain to Your redeeming grace. Therefore, gather their tears, those fallen and those unshed. Draw them up into yourself through the sun of divine love, to purify them as a rain of mercy to fall upon the parched souls of humankind. Thus, we may grow in Your love and the earth may be filled with life and fruitfulness pleasing to Your divine purposes.

Our God, out of all the cries and moans and tears, hidden or revealed, from earth’s beginning, please hear our prayer. Joined as one with Your Son we all cry out—“My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?” Of those who torment and those who pass by uncaring and unseeing, we say—“Father, forgive them. They know not what they do and fail to do!” With Him we then cry trustingly—“Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit!”

God, please listen to our prayer, in union with Your beloved Son whom You raised from death to everlasting glory and joy. In Him who bore all humankind’s sins, please receive all suffering, struggle and sorrow that sin has brought upon our race.

Anything separated from God is meaningless, but in God, all becomes renewed and holy. Please accept from Jesus’ hands the suffering of every person throughout time, held within His own redemptive suffering. This that the whole price of atonement is met, and harmony is restored to Creation in the eternal triumph of Your Kingdom. Thank You, God of our redemption! September 8, 1980

 

[Trishie]

I was just actually looking for the following, still in response to your fear of failure in praying for the sick and dying

Praying for others actually brings one to the following scripture as the consequences of prayer are most often not quantifiable:

Isaiah says, “I was thinking: ‘I have toiled in vain, I have exhausted myself for nothing.’ And all the while my cause was with God, my reward with my God.” [Isaiah 49:3-4] For “the Lord is not being slow to carry out His promises…but He is being patient with you all, wanting nobody to be lost and everybody to be brought to change his ways.” [2Peter 3:9]

Praying for others requires faithfulness above all, and humble trust:

“The man who with his whole heart serves God will be accepted, his petitions carry to the clouds. The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds, until it arrives he is inconsolable, nor will he desist until the Most High takes notice of him, acquits the virtuous and delivers judgement. And the Lord will not…be dilatory on their behalf (and will) make them rejoice in His mercy. Mercy is welcome in time of trouble, like rain clouds in time of drought.” [Ecclesiasticus 35:16-19, 23-24]

 

[yinekka]

Hi Dan,

Have you talked this over with a good holy priest? I think you should do so and be guided by his advice.

 

[Viki63]

Hi Dan,

Have you talked this over with a good holy priest? I think you should do so and be guided by his advice.

Amen.

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Fear of failure is not of God, it’s of our own disordered fallen nature. Humility is better than success. This seems harsh but is true.

If God has a mission for you He will open the door. Mary did God’s will perfectly by way of humility and submission. Fear of failure is not the childlike nature Christ calls for.

Do your best, give God the glory, and accept all humbly as the will of God. Anything else could come as desire for vainglory.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Pray hard and pray that your priest gives you the right answer. Don’t be hasty about your decision because you may be wrong. Ask your priest and if he advises it’s ok then go for it. PJP11 kept saying to us, Be not afraid." Put your foot in the water and trust in God if he is calling you. God bless you and your in my prayers. Good luck.

 

[ahollars]

Failure itself is a matter of perception, and therefore open to interpretation. Failure is an experience we all need. One man’s failure is another man’s success. You’ll be fine.

 

[Monica4316]

If this is from God, it will not fail. He always finishes what He starts. But it might take a while and it might not always be easy, there might even be times when it seems the whole thing is falling apart but that’s just God trying to teach us to trust Him blindly. Don’t be afraid.

I also suggest getting a spiritual director or talking this over with a good priest.

But don’t be afraid

God bless.

 

[Marycruz]

Monica is right, if God gives you a mission it’s because he feels that you have what you need to accomplish it. You have to trust Him

Exodus 3
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, "I will be with you.
…]
Exodus 4
10 Moses said to the LORD, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

However, like the others users have said, talk to your priest just to make sure that God has truly given you a mission.

 

[Mintaka]

You don’t have to save everyone and everything in Haiti to serve God. In fact, sometimes we serve God best when we do fail – as long as we keep trying, or get back up and try again.

The other thing is that you can already be helping in Haiti by your prayers. You certainly won’t fail in that, and you’ve probably already started helping that way. You’ve also helped by posting those links and starting the Facebook thing.

And yes, talk to your priest and your family.