I Just Don't Understand You, God
Last night, I went to this dinner talk with a group of girls that I went on retreat with last year. We listened to two talks about the Blessed Mother, diving deep into her role as the Handmaid of the Lord.
There's a lot that I could talk about from these two talks, but I wanted to focus on something that I pondered a great deal on, namely Mary's trust in God.
In the second part of the talk, we read a tid bit from Adrienne Von Speyr's book Handmaid of the Lord. and One quote in particular struck me, and made me reflect on my relationship with Christ.
"The soul of the Mother is completely simple... not in and of itself but rather by virtue of the nearness of God which allows her to give herself again and again in such a way that everything complex and incomprehensible is taken over by God..."
After reading this, my mind almost immediately went to the things that I find incomprehensible in my life. Of course, I thought about my disordered sexual desires. I reflected on how, at times, I can get so caught up in asking the question, "Why? Why me? Why must I suffer with something like this?" These are questions that torture the soul in many ways, questions that are heavy, deep, and often don't come with the answers that we would like.
I figure the Blessed Mother could've asked these questions as well, should she have wanted to.
But she doesn't. Recall that Mary herself says that she is the Handmaid of the Lord. The Lord has the freedom to do all that He desires within her, and she freely gives Him that freedom.
She doesn't fixate over or torture herself with those things that she may not be able to understand. She gives those things over to God, and trusts in His infinite goodness.
Many of you have taken the time to reach out to me, to ask my advice on one thing or another, to speak with me, or just take the time to get to know me.
Most of the time, I ask why on earth God would allow me, such an unworthy and unfaithful servant, to be blessed with these gifts. I fixate on my sins and my mistakes, allowing them in my mind to become my identity.
While I'm busy doing this, the Holy Spirit could be trying to give me the graces to know what to say to you all, what advice to give you, how to thank you, or just how to best radiate the glory of God to you. I can't let that grace in if I'm too busy filling myself up with questions and doubts.
God cannot fill us with Himself if we are already full of ourselves; this is a lesson that I'm learning to this day.
Von Speyr, later on in that same book, goes onto say this about Mary:
"She places her soul so much at the Son's disposal that he can use it as he wills. And he not only forms her nature with its natural qualities in order to exalt them but he also uses her as a vessel in order to pour his entire divine nature into her and form from her a mother for himself."
Mary gives everything over to God to allow herself to be used by Him for His glory. That's what we are called to do!
I'm not Mary by any means, but Christ still desires to make a vessel out of me in order that His will may be done. I can't imagine what Christ would do with me if only I would be brave like Mary, and just say Yes, but then again, I need to leave the incomprehensible with God.
What our Lord does with me is His business. I just pray that I will be open enough to allow His will to be done in me.
And now, during this season of Lent, is a great time to focus on leaving what we cannot understand to God, and letting our desire for control die so that He might fill us with the desire to do His will completely.