God's Will Revealed

I'm reading two spiritual books right now that keep saying the same thing - rather, they say lots of wonderful things, but I've been picking up on one recurring theme in both books. The books are He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. which I've posted about once here and Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality which I posted about once here. Both books have a very similar message that jumps out at me time after time. Here's one way that Mother Angelica put it:

"What is God's Will for me?" Somebody asked me that not too long ago. Honey, if it's happening, it's God's Will; and you have to correspond to it in the Present Moment.

And Fr. Ciszek says:

His will for us was the twenty-four hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances, he set before us in that time.

That is just one example from each book - there were many to choose from. With that message coming across to me over and over...well, it's been making me nervous. I've known that the Lord has been preparing me for something I just wasn't sure what. I had my guesses - something to do with my pregnancy and my husbands' job (he's in the mortgage industry, not too stable right now) toping the list. Boy, was I way off base as an unexpected twist occurred in my life yesterday and today. Let me explain...

I work at a local preschool - at a Baptist church no less - yikes! LOL. Actually, there are more families from our church than from the Baptist church and I currently work with 3 other ladies from my church and several other Catholics! I digress. Anyway, I started last school year and worked with a woman who is in her 24th year of teaching there! That means I was 10 years old when she started teaching...at this church anyway. So, needless to say, she's a little set in her ways and knows what she's doing. I'm there mainly to help out by setting out snacks, setting out lunches or packing up backpacks. That kind of stuff. I didn't really get to do any of the planning and certainly not any of the actual teaching but it was really no biggie as it was my first time ever doing anything like this and teaching was completely off my radar as something I would ever do...long story how I got there but totally a God thing. About half way through the year I had started thinking I was ready to branch out and have my own class this year...until I found out I was pregnant and proceeded to be so extremely sick. When I had my end of the year conference with the director, I told her to please leave me where I was so I could take it easy during the last part of my pregnancy.

Right before the summer session started they called and said they were short staffed and really needed me to take a class for the summer. I said I thought I could handle it for a few months and was excited about the opportunity to see what I could do, despite the fact that I was still really sick. I ended up getting a class full of extremely strong wills and a helper didn't quite grasp the concept that even though it was summer, it was still school and there were still things we needed to be teaching these kids like staying on their nap mats during nap time instead of playing which I'd find them all doing if I dared to step out of the room for even a second. So, it was a long, stressful, hot, nauseas summer and I couldn't wait for it to end! Oh yeah, and I would come home every day with horrible back spasms due to the highly physical nature of working with 3 year olds!

Fast forward to yesterday, the first day of school. I could finally take it easy! That lasted until about noon when I went down the hall to get something from the resource room. I came back in to find my co-teacher sitting on the floor with her legs out in front of her. I should have been alarmed at that point as she never sits on the floor but for some reason it didn't hit me. Then the kids all started yelling out, "She fell, she fell. She's hurt." So I rushed over to her and she said that she couldn't move. She called her husband as I ran to get the director. She kept saying that she thought it was just a pulled muscle but something told me right away it was going to be a broken hip...which is what it turned out to be. She's having surgery this afternoon - please pray for her and her husband, surgeons, etc. Pray that her pain be minimized and her recovery as swift as possible. Luckily she's in great physical shape and health. I'm always telling stories about how healthy she eats (she even washes her bananas before she peels them and eats the insides!). Last year she was on the floor doing the crab walk with the kids! I didn't even attempt that.

Please pray for me...that I accept this as God's will for me right now. Please pray that I can handle the physical pain and offer it up without complaint. I will think constantly of Fr. Ciszek working from morning to night in a Siberian labor camp for 15 years and know that I can handle working a few hours a day for a few more months until the baby comes! And please pray that I can handle the class and the planning without getting too stressed out.

So, I know that this circumstance, which is not how I would choose to have things go, is God's will for me right now. I can't say that I understand why but understanding the why is not always our job. Our job is to accept the challenges that God puts before us, to offer up the suffering he gives us, and to do our best each and every day to honor and obey Him. Sounds great - huh? Easy to type in a blog...hard to do in real life!

He Leadeth Me - Fr. Walter Ciszek

I have gotten the chance to read a lot lately. One of the books I'm in the process of reading is He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek a Jesuit priest who spent 20+ years as a prisoner in Russia. This book was recommended to me by one of my favorite bloggers, Jen at Et Tu?. She has a great post here that explains the book beautifully.

This book is so deep and meaningful. I am only on chapter 6 but that is because I have to think about and process each chapter for a while after I read it. This would actually be a great book to use for a prayer group or book club.

For example, last night I read about the time he spent in Lubianka Prison - known among prisoners as the place where men were broken, body and spirit. The prisoners were in cells by themselves 24/7 except for the 2 minutes they got to go to the bathroom and empty the buckets they used as toilets and the 20 minutes of exercise time they got if it was nice outside. Oh yeah, and then there were the times you got to go and meet with the interrogators...the next chapter goes into more detail about these horrific sessions. Other than that, it was almost total silence except for when a guard would slip you the tiny ration of food you got each day. Fr. Ciszek talks about how much he learned about prayer during this time. It was almost all he had to do to fill the time and keep himself from going crazy. He learned to:

"purify my prayer and remove from it the elements of self-seeking"

I don't know about you, but if I'm stuck in a room all by myself for hours and days and years on end with no interaction with other humans and barely enough food to keep a bird alive, I just don't think I'd be worried about purifying my prayer! But Fr. Ciszek was and explains so beautifully how to pray during suffering and trials, not for your own needs to be met but for the grace to offer up the sufferings and to endure them. Wow!

Another interesting thing he mentioned was that even with total silence, total lack of stimulation from any outside elements, and all the time in the world on his hands, his mind would still be distracted from prayer. At first I thought, well at least it isn't just me but then I realized that despite the fact that he was distracted by hunger pains, anxiety about his future, not knowing if he would ever get to leave this hell he was in, he figured out a way to subsist on prayer. I have none of these very real problems facing me - only self imposed distractions that keep me from prayer time with the Lord.

I hope to share more from this book. Like I said, each chapter is a new lesson...about prayer, God's will, how to handle suffering. It goes on and on. I got it from the library but am realizing that I'm going to have to shell out the bucks to buy this book because I can tell I will go back to it again and again as sort of a handbook or textbook.

I was happy to see upon Googling Fr. Ciszek that he is up for canonization. He is in the very early stages but you'd better believe that this inspiring man is going to become one of my intercessors!