Lent Reflection, Day 19, March 22

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
John 16:33

Additional Reading: Lamentations 3:1-33 (stick with this one, make it through the entire passage and you’ll be rewarded!)

I’ve been through some tests and trials lately and I think I’ve learned a lesson. Actually, I should say I’m in the midst of “learning” a lesson. I don’t live it yet, but I’m convinced it’s true: authentic joy comes from letting God love me the way God wants – whether it’s through illness or health, failure or success, poverty or wealth, rejection or praise. Yes, God can love me through illness, failure, poverty, and the like – not “in spite of,” but through these things, I can experience God’s love in a profound way.

It’s hard for me to say, "I’ll gratefully accept everything, Lord, that pleases you. Let your will be done." But I know that when I truly believe the Father is pure love, it will become increasingly possible to say these words from the heart. Sometimes God’s “blessing,” or God’s best for our lives will not come by him removing obstacles, or pain from our lives.

Charles de Foucald once wrote a prayer of abandonment that expresses beautifully the spiritual attitude I long to have. It seems good to pray this prayer often. These are the words of a guy who “got it!” They show the way I must go. I realize that I can never make this prayer come true by my own efforts; but by the Spirit of God living in me, I can begin to pray it and see it grow to fulfillment.

I know that my inner peace depends on my willingness to make this prayer my own:

Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you; I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more that this, O Lord.
Into your hand I command my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve and with boundless confidence.
For you are my Father.