The whole Truth of the matter

"A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you’re doing.

Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what He’s calling us to do."

The above is a small quote from Bono's prayer breakfast speech in Washington. (The entire speech is worth the read)

For a long time my journey, my walk with God did not feel natural, didnt feel like a part of me, like it was part of the whole of who I was or part of the whole of what "it" was. Not to say it wasn't real and of course it is all part of the journey, it is all part of what has brought me here, I know a complete contradiction, crazy!

Ok let me back up...
I was raised catholic and from a very young age I was very sensitive to the vioce of God. I loved visiting the convent with my aunt and I love going to church with my grandmother and lighting candles and I found comfort in confessing to our priest, I loved christmas eve midnight mass and Lent and Easter sunday and I loved all "ideas" of God.
I can remember a time I think I was about 10 and a lady down the street had chidren into her home for bible story time. We would sing and well, I remember the singing most. I remember her downstairs den was full of young kids and I loved being there. I even went to her church a few times, I don't remember what church it was but it was my first experience of "passing communion" and the wine in little cups!

But for whatever reason as I became a teenager "the world" crept in and I formed a layer of fog between me and God's voice in my life. I don't look back and say I was a "bad" kid but I tried it all... I think it was the result of living in an achoholic home with an abusive father and having had suffered some other abuses. I think I began searching and trying to find ways to feel better and that fog kept me from seeing clearly what the answer was, so as a result I grew up with God walking beside me (i know that now) but never reaching out to take his hand.

After I was married and had my daughter, I began yearning for meaning and understanding which led me back to church. It was not the church of my youth but it was a place were I began touching and and feeling that familar comfort of God.
I spent many years, and many of them really good years and God put some amazing people in my life that have had a huge impact on my spirtual walk but at the same time it never felt like the whole of me and felt in many ways "wrong". Can I say that?

As I "converted" the message was......"You must leave all that you ever knew behind....it was all wrong and seriously flawed"...and I accepted that even though it didn't feel true to me. Because of this, I now mourn years that my mom and I could never talk of religous matters because I had, through my actions, told her everything she had given me in the way of "truth", I rejected.

Ok so now back to the beginning of my post.....

There have been two things in my journey that God used to slap my face and say "wise up young lady".....

One was my mother's death. The thought brings tears to my eyes and I am thankful for God allowing us to experience spiritual healing before she left me. As I sat in her church for her funeral and watched my husband and her priest together bless her life was an out of body experience. I kept thinking 'this is how it should have been all along" That it was not about us and them it is about Kingdom. I believe I am now in a place of no return. I am part of a community that sees itself as part of the kingdom and not THE kingdom. This is good, this is of God and has intregrated me back into a whole and not a split personaliy of it.

Two has been my work among the people of Honduras.

"I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. " Bono

I believe with all of my being that this IS WHERE GOD IS. In my work there I believe I am FINALLY about Kingdom work that is God ordained and God blessed. It feels like the part of the whole. I no longer am searching for a way to be where God is, I am there, and am about the work of The Christ.