I would like to preface this entry with the following: I have had this blog for almost a year and this will be my first entry. I never knew what to right about or if what I had to say was of any interest to others. I have, however, been encouraged by my dear friend Natalie "to get blogging girl." Thanks Nat...I am an all systems go!
Due to the path that I find myself on I often find that I put myself in a category that allows me little room for error. I am supposed to be stronger and tougher than everyone else...kind of like Marines only in the spiritual world-ooorah!
There are many things that I struggle with on a pretty regular bases. I am open about some of them-thank you Tracy. But there are a few things that I struggle with and only openly discuss in the confessional-is that an oxymoron?
This Saturday I went to confession and after stating my sins as the good Catholic that I am, I proceeded to tell the priest that I am not supposed to struggle like this. How am I going to do the work of God for his church if I can't beat these sins (so to speak). How fitting, the priest would tell me, that I should make such a statement of "being tough, stronger than falling to sin" on the eve of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul...isn't God great?
Saint Peter and Saint Paul are, what I consider to be, two of the most important men of our faith. But yet, they were just as weak and woosy as I am.
Saint Paul was a great persecutor of the Church and her people. It was only upon being struck blind that his heart was fully converted and he followed the path of God. Although I have never "persecuted" the Church or her people it was only at the point in which I lost everything, like Paul, including the will to live that my life was truly Gods. When I was saved from myself I was given the greatest freedom. It was no longer up to me but up to God...and I am good with that :) In that gift of freedom I am able to follow Christ where ever He leads. It is no longer about what others think of me but how I can love them right where they are as Christ would will me to.
Saint Peter...I am most like Saint Peter. The heart is there and I try so hard but seem to fail every time. In the garden, while Christ prayed in his most human state for the cup to pass from His lips but in the end for the ultimate will of the Father in Heaven, Peter slept. How many times have I slept through something God was trying to teach me, or while in prayer for someone in my little "black book?" More importantly, Saint Peter denied our Lord three times in Christ's darkest hour. Every time I sin, weather big or small (in my measure only) I deny Christ. BUT- like Peter, Christ gives me the opportunity to love Him, to tend for and feed His sheep. What grace, what mercy!
I will struggle all the days of my life until God calls me to the other side of heaven. Maybe my Marine Corp friends are the ones who taught me that you have to be tougher and stronger-thank you Devil Dogs! But I am comforted to know that even when I am not tougher and stronger and I am more like Saints Peter and Paul then Chesty Puller I am able to humbly enter the confessional and receive guidance to help me become tougher, stronger and the grace for a fresh start to do so.
Saints Peter and Paul-Pray for us!
