Pruning, refining, molding...blah!

[Samson01]

How is one to be thankful, love Jesus, and do the right thing when life is such a nightmare? Which Saint was it that said " Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few"? Thanks.

 

[Trishie]

Yes, life is no fun sometimes and it sounds like maybe you’re experiencing some of that, maybe overwhelmingly.

Platitudes and words don’t actually help in the harshest experiences of the reality of injustice and suffering.
Personal support can sometimes help, which is God’s love through others whether acknowledged as such or not.

Loving Jesus isn’t actually an emotional experience but a choice. The emotional experience can exist, but it isn’t actually a measure of loving Jesus. It’s a subjective emotion or mindset.

“Loving Jesus” is the choices you make. Jesus demonstrated that love towards Him, and towards others, the two commands with which Jesus summed up all the commandments, is practical acts of kindness to others. If you read Matthew 25 verses 31-46, you will see that this is what He made clearly evident.

It was St Teresa of Avila/Jesus, Carmelite.

 

[Samson01]

Thanks Trishie. Love is a choice and detaching from things to better make room for the Creator in our heart is key I’ve heard, but what about being stripped away at our first move in His direction? Why the cross? Thanks.

 

[Trishie]

I had a lot of that kind of experience, and have felt the same puzzlement at times, a sense of betrayal. Probably like Jesus did when He cried out to the Father, “Why have You abandoned me?”

I’ve been through the whole gamut and seen some of my best intentions and best efforts undermined and misunderstood.I’ve sometimes been emotionally wiped out, and the challenge is to continue the battle even when you /I feel nothing positive and are/am exhausted. Right now I’m facing a major challenge and it can’t be resolved any time soon. It’s pretty leveling and my emotional response to God is very low. And my energy. I’m here, though,mostly posting to ‘support’ others in some form or other, not because I’m a ‘do-gooder’ but because of fellow feeling towards others in their difficulties. Thought separated and even isolated, we’re all in this together. My signature may seem sentimental, but it’s basically from my personal sense of our mutual human needs. I have a strong sense of my fellow human beings.

I don’t know that success is the result God is necessarily looking for, but that we get up again and try after all the failures and blocks. Can we get up again after the steam-roller has gone over us a number of times? I don’t believe God sends the steam-roller, life and people and circumstances, and even our misguided good intentions and choices can do that.

I guess lately to some extent I’ve been measuring the degree to which I fail to meet this challenge, against that of the newly canonized saint of my country, St Mary MacKillop. She had only the will of God, and the needs of the poor and struggling as her lie-mission, and she had so many human challenges, a difficult childhood due to a father who abandoned his family at a crucial time, (She admits to an unhappy childhood) health, finances, health, the opposition of others, even of ecclesiatical authorities and was unjustly ex-communicated for five months. She had strokes in later life…her instructions to those who aided her in her objectives remained, “Never see a need without doing something about it.” And she lived that, and trust in God, despite horrendous challenges.

Her diary has her 'crying myself to sleep. Was so weary of the struggle and felt so utterly alone … offered my weary heart’s trials to my God with the wish that he could do his will and make of me what he pleased." during one prolonged challenge;
and she later wrote, “I often think of God’s mysterious ways and how little I understood the blessings He was concealing within some early form of sorrow .”
I’m related to her, and I wish I could live up to her example better in my current trial which is the worst I’ve yet faced.

And I hope and pray you can get through all your roadblocks, and try again however many times it takes.

God bless, Trishie

 

[EmeraldWings]

Thanks Trishie. Love is a choice and detaching from things to better make room for the Creator in our heart is key I’ve heard, but what about being stripped away at our first move in His direction? Why the cross? Thanks.

why the cross? because it is completely devoid of self, it has no selfish motive, and therefore it is a perfect proof of love,
God has proven His love to us, and we must do the same for Him, but would we have been convinced of His love, if He only worked miracles? curing the blind, deaf, deformed, sick, lepers, etc. or if He only preached?
well, i think the obvious answer is, no, most people would not have been convinced merely at those things, which are external acts, and words which we are told “words are cheap”, although the words of Our Lord are far from cheap, but even God knows that there are many who are not moved by words alone…so, therefore, He had to show us He loved us by something completely devoid of self motive, something that was clearly done for love of us, leaving no question, because what else is worth suffering for? and who could go on motivated by anything else but love? any other motive would have broken quickly from the pain, but love is unbreakable.

so, that is one reason why God has chosen the cross,
another reason is, of course, because of our sins, we need to make reparation for our sins, and we can also make reparation for the sins of others,

and not only is it a proof of our love for God to suffer willingly and patiently, but it is a means to subject the body to the soul, so that we have control of ourselves,
after all, what good is a free will if you can hardly control it?

the cross seems harsh and cruel right now, but it can turn into something precious and priceless to you, because the more you learn to love God, the more you will seek to show your love to Him, and comfort Him,
that is another beauty of the cross, by it, you can comfort Jesus, by accepting your cross and uniting your pains with His, you can ease His pain and lighten His burden, and in turn He will lighten yours,
if you carry your cross with Jesus, He will help you carry yours, and you will both be comforted.

i think the best saint to read about to better understand the cross, is Saint Gemma Galgani, this book here is the best one in my opinion - tanbooks.com/index.php/Life-of-St-Gemma-Galgani

alright, hope this helps, take care.

 

[Samson01]

Both of your replies help just by your preseverance alone. If I knew it would end in paradise for sure, I would be alright. But nothing is definite.

 

[Trishie]

That’s because it’s faith and faithfulness that is required of us, not certainty.

Here are some highlights from the life of the first Christian woman of faith

Unmarried Mary accepted the request to conceive her Child in a culture where her fiancé was forced to torture his mind as to how he could protect her…the child wasn’t his…therefore she could have been stoned to death.

Pregnant, she travel to give assistance to her cousin in the hill country.

Nine moths pregnant, journeying on the back of a donkey over stony roads.

Baby born away from relatives and friends, in an animal shelter.

Baby threatened with death. Escape as refugees to Egypt. Life as refugees with its uncertainties and fears.

Standing by seeing her son sticking his neck out and alienating authorities, but knowing He’s doing the right thing.

Courage to STAND UNABLE TO DO ANYTHING as her brutalized Son dies horribly before her eyes.

An Angel came to her at the beginning of this journey of faith and suffering…but there were days and years when all she had to go on was faith…and “she pondered these things in her heart.” This woman is now queen of heaven and mother of all

 

[Bob_Crowley]

How is one to be thankful, love Jesus, and do the right thing when life is such a nightmare? Which Saint was it that said " Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few"? Thanks.

Someone else has already stated Teresa of Avila was the cranky saint. I think the story is that she fell off her horse into a muddy creek, and probably ruined her clothes. I believe it would have been more than that, and it probably came at a very frustrating time. It was the final straw that broke the back of a well of resentment.

However the bit about “pruning” needs to be read in context - John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch in me that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

So if you’re being pruned, it is with the ultimate aim of making **you **bear more fruit. At least you haven’t been cut off, and thrown into the fire, which in the spiritual sense is literal ie. Hell and / or the Lake of Fire.

Bearing fruit can mean a couple of things - there are the fruits of the spirit - love, patience, long suffering etc. And there is the fruit of bringing others to Christ.

Since you are a part of the true vine, you will be pruned. None of us like it when it happens. I sure don’t - I complain loud and clear at times.

What makes it difficult is that no explanation is given, other than by faith. I think the Book of Job is one big fable from start to finish, but it serves a purpose. In Job, God did not tell him what was going on, and that a cosmic wager was being fought with him as the dice and God’s reputation as the stake.

Nor can I think of many great Christians, Catholic or otherwise, who have not suffered in some way as part of their ministry. I’m not sure who it was (I think AW Tozer, a Protestant), but someone said, “I doubt if God can bless a man greatly unless he has first hurt him deeply.”

 

[EmeraldWings]

Both of your replies help just by your preseverance alone. If I knew it would end in paradise for sure, I would be alright. But nothing is definite.

ah, i see…well then what you need to do, is simply pray, and meditate on it, God will help you, you just have to be patient,

whether your life ended in paradise or not, wouldn’t it be wise to err on the side of caution? simply for the sake that it would all be worth it if you did get to heaven, and if not, then you would have no regrets anyways, but if you did not err on the side of caution, and died seeing that you indeed could have made it, then you would not beable to go back…so we only have right now,
but you can be sure you will make it to heaven, if all you do is love God, and keep His commandments, because God said so, and God always keeps His promises.
but don’t try to do it alone, if you do then it will be unbearable, you have to ask God for the strength and graces to carry your cross and be good, you can’t do it alone, so just pray, and don’t worry about tomorrow, just focus on the good you can do today, and ask help with the crosses of today, and leave tomorrow in Gods hands.

i don’t expect even these words to help you, but i know God can help you, so keep praying, and i will pray for you to,

ok, take care.

 

[Samson01]

Thanks for the replies. Seems I have more belief then faith, which is not something I considered. There’s no doubt the Lord has me under His thumb and at times I want to be left alone. I’m quite frankly afraid to pray for anything in particular because the answer never is straight forward or how you would expect. Lets say I pray to get out of debt, I might find myself disabled and on a fixed income as an answer…That’s just an example not real at this time, but seems that is how it goes. The only consulation is thinking I am paying for my sins now, then later, but despair isn’t far behind. I know we all have our crosses to carry, I just don’t get why He did it that way. Why not kick butt with a battalion of Saints and Angels the first time? Too spare the just? To make it a loving choice? I don’t need an answer, just making a point. Existing is hard enough without an enemy rip-roaring through humanity and causing more problems…I don’t have to tell you all, but this world is a mess and disgusting.

Just lost all train of thought. Samson.

 

[puzzleannie]

How is one to be thankful, love Jesus, and do the right thing when life is such a nightmare? Which Saint was it that said " Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few"? Thanks.

well one could remain resentful and accusatory to God when he works through Christ and the Holy Spirit to make us fit for heaven, but then of course, we would remain unfit for heaven. Since we can do nothing on our own, it simply makes sense to let God work in us.