I went for a walk last night with my hubby after a quiet birthday dinner with him and we went to the convenience store-I confess it was to check a lotto ticket that we don't normally buy but we did when we were in Leamington recently, i justified it by promising God the little house we passed on the way there that needed a roof really badly that we would fix it for them if we won. I know its a little silly but anyway. We go in the store and i see on the shelf of magazines right next to the one that reminds me that i need to loose weight and the other one that tells me all about the dirt on the royal family i see a Time magazine special addition on Mother Teresa. I was immediately drawn to her face, her smiling wrinkled face that couldn't hide her FREAK...her JESUS FREAK. I just wanted to skim the pages but Tom insisted we buy it-I think he could see how strangely excited looking at the photos of her made me. It was like a spark inside me. I started to read it on the rest of the walk home and I am sure drove him crazy with the "oh my goodness did you know this....or that...wow amazing listen to this" I was immediately hooked on my new JESUS FREAK Idol.
I must admit to you i was a little ego driven by the fact that she and I share the same birthday and that she was the third and youngest child also in her family.....you know some divine connection. I will say that the knowledge of her birth order was encouraging to me you see third born last children tend to be risk takers, challenge authority and have a certain kind of built in rebellion to them. Yes even Mother Teresa! Of course I have heard of her before in fact lots of stories in Catholic school about this great nun who loved God more than i ever dreamed I could. But they forgot to tell us the best parts of her! The part where she HEARD the voice of God speak to her to tell her to go and serve in a place where no one would dare offer to go. The part where no one believed that she heard God and that they still thought she was crazy for going to care for the sick and the dying among the poorest of the poor. The part where her superiors at the order were not convinced she was prepared to start this ministry yet she took 15 months to lobby the POPE (incessantly) and then gained his approval. The part where her critics (yes she had them)and even some friends said she wasn't organized or planned enough to which she replied "We do not make plans, we do not prepare infrastructure, divine providence will guides us and in finding the means to support it". Wow what a FREAK...... what a JESUS FREAK. I am in love with her love for her great BIG GOD. I am in love with the moments she confessed to "darkness creeping in"and"longing to do more" I love that she didn't know how amazing she was. I love her humanity.
I know when we read about a woman like Mother Teresa we instantly compare ourselves by saying"she's a saint, I couldn't live like her,she was sent from heaven" Well we all were sent from heaven, we aren't supposed to live like her and as far as a saint "technically " no she actually isn't one-yet. What we can do is look at her life and celebrate the moment that God called her to her unique mission and she answered yes, with no idea what she was going to do next. That is the piece we can look at and say where is God calling me to? Is He trying to speak to me but my life is so loud I cant hear him? When have i felt a "call" to talk to a neighbour, say hello to someone on the street or apologize to someone I have hurt (whether they knew it or not) Where are the times in my life that i heard the call to give money to help someone out or invite someone to dinner or spend time with my kids. I know I have heard those calls and decided "not today or when I have time" You see not everyones call from God is a ministry to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta but if we all just answered the little calls in our life God adds them all up and connects them all up for the greatest call of His Kingdom....on earth as it is in heaven.
On this JESUS FREAK journey I am practicing listening more to those calls even if they just sound like a whisper. Its amazing what I heard when I turned off my t.v.......
We aren't supposed to be Mother Teresa and she could never be us but I love what she said "God doesn't ask us to do great things.He asks us to do small things with great love."
Mother Teresa......JESUS FREAK
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