Caged birds

You know when God is nudging you to do something but you pretend its not Him because it doesn't make any sense or truthfully you are a little afraid of the unknown....yeah me too...and then you ignore the nudging for a year and then instead of nudging He wakes you from your sleep and says "Go!".....yeah me too. I ignored God sending me to Notre Dame Mother house for a year, maybe even more and then on my walk the other day I tried to turn down my regular route and the whisper turned into something a little louder and I felt physically unable to turn the corner.That's when I decided to GO! and go I did. A little nervous but knew He was sending me there for some real reason on this JESUS FREAK journey and I better do what He says-it always works out better that way anyway.
                    Some people may not think of me as someone who hesitates when God speaks to them,i have been pretty bold in this journey of mine but this was different. He was asking me to go to a place that I have spent alot of my life INCLUDING this journey with Jesus "murdering" with my tongue. I have spent alot of time in my relationship with Jesus making it "okay" for me to blast the catholic church and all its traditions in the name of the "right" way to walk with God....how embarrassing this is for me to even write to you.But i need to share this with you because the lessons I was taught on my walk to the convent cut really deeply for me in a great way and I hope like with all of this blog that others can glean something from this journey He has me on.
               In my "righteous" "know it all" way I can sometimes be with Jesus, I have created a portrait of Him , a perspective perhaps that He needs to have the same relationship with everyone else like He does with me....oh I am so silly sometimes. I spent 13 years of my life attending catholic school and most of that time disrespecting the catholic faith, traditions and more importantly the people who are dedicated to this faith. Perhaps this has turned into more of a confession than a lesson......perhaps that s what He needs me to do , so hopefully the lesson sinks in....ouch. I used to make fun of the repetitive prayer, the fact that I could repeat every service before the priest did and i really didn't understand those poor woman called nuns who lived this horrible life locked up in those convents like birds in a cage...singing and praying but trapped. I had a grade 10 religion teacher who sent me to spend lots of time in the hallway for my disrespectful remarks in class.One time in particular I remember saying " you people are ridiculous.you torture a guy on a cross and leave him up there bleeding and I am supposed to worship this. Couldn't you come up with a nicer symbol?" Even as I write this I am once again convicted about what I said. Those words still burn. This was one of the things I confessed to God many years ago because I understood without the cross I would not be alive. The funny thing is though I never asked God to forgive the way I disrespected that nun who taught that class, I still held onto my right to think she and her religion was wrong. No wonder almost 10 years later God is still trying to nudge me about it.
       When I walked up to the large building on my walk it kinda felt like sitting in the confessional booth again, even though these woman did not know the secrets of what God was trying to teach me that day....sometimes when you are being convicted of something it needs to be so painful that you think everyone can read it on you like a scarlet letter. Sometimes, for me anyway,that's how He has to teach me. I asked if I could walk on the grounds and the sweet nun from behind the desk thanked me for asking and gave me a tag that read "visitor"....I really was a visitor to their faith for this morning. She leaned in a little and whispered to me "there is a little gate at the back of the building, turn right and you will get a glimpse of it. Just lift the lock and go in ...its the jubilee garden." She smiled. I felt like she knew what I needed. I felt like she knew what I did to her, her faith but like in a beautiful Jesus moment she forgave and extended to me a secret place where  I could go and be with Him. This will be one of the turning points for me in this journey of mine. A great lesson of grace from God through the very people I "murdered" all those years ago with my tongue.
                  I started to walk and at first couldn't find that gate until I walked a little further and there it was a little iron gate that opened up to a wonderful Eden, a hidden refuge, an oasis for my soul. I immediately felt a sense of peace as I walked through the gate. I began to see all the beautiful flowers and trees the wind was just a whisper and chipmunks and squirrels were sharing a meal together on the ground and as I looked up I had to sit down.......there above them was 2 cages with birds in them...I know!!! Crazy!! I thought at first that they had just placed the birds outside to get some fresh air ...I don't know..maybe they brought them in when the weather was bad or maybe they are a special kind of outdoor caged bird that I didn't know about.I also saw there was no door on the cage? I sat down....looked up...and saw the birds fly out...it seems the metal on the cage was just wide enough for them to go in between and fly away if they choose to but also so they could choose to enter the cage and sit on the swings and sing..................choose to enter the cage and sit on the swings and sing knowing they could leave whenever they wanted. Immediately after I saw two nuns come into the garden and began to smell the flowers and walk out of the gate into the world. Free to leave if they choose but choosing to come back to sit and sing and pray and praise. Free to love Jesus the way they do, the way they have been called to by God. Even as I write this the tears flood my eyes again..tears of repentance, tears of Joy tears of learning another lesson on this journey with Jesus. It felt like a release of sin from my heart and a removal of that scarlet letter i had carried of judgment.....so painful but so freeing. I stayed in that jubilee garden for hours and soaked in the Lord. I remembered all the things I was taught in Catholic school about prayer and how important repetitive prayer can be when meditating with Jesus, I remembered the commitment these woman make to God and although I may not agree with everything they do or believe it doesn't really matter. We are all here to glean from one another in this big family of God. I now wish for the kind of commitment these woman have and dare i say now pray for God to make me more like them in that aspect.
                                         As i began to walk home I noticed a rock in between the stages of the cross that read."All the works of God proceed slowly and in pain but then their roots are the sturdier and their flowers the lovelier"
      Perhaps not caged birds after all but Lovely flowers with sturdy roots.  Oh Jesus never stop teaching me and molding me even though it can be painful. Let me enter the cage of your love that protects me but never demands me to stay.