March 5, 2017
I can tell you from my personal experience when you start to realize that God is supplying your heart’s desires it’s a little bewildering. The first thing that perplexes you is why. “Why me?” “Why now?” “What did I miss?” Sort of like David when God told Him He would build David a house. The first thing David asked was, “Why?”
Another perplexing thing is the form God uses to answer your prayers. God is answering many of my prayers and He is doing it in the form of a magazine about God. I never prayed to run a magazine someday. As far as I know I never even considered it. I didn’t even like English in school. What I did pray for was a return to my former relationship with God, to hear the wonderful things about Him, to be in a position to write about God all day, to be God’s scribe, to have people return to Him, to live a more integrated life with God, . . . And in answer, (even though I didn’t realize it at the time), God told me to start a magazine. And for that I am incredibly thankful.
But still a little perplexed because in my wildest imaginings I wouldn’t have guessed this would be the form the answers to my prayers would take. So it took me awhile to realize God was granting my desires. If you go to the Godfest page you will see a bullet list of prayers of the heart God is answering in the form of a magazine. If you had to come up with one thing that would satisfy those desires would you have come up with a magazine? I wouldn’t. But this is classic God: taking all of these little various pieces or strings and tying them together, so they are all answered/end in one thing/point. Because God does it all so neatly it’s hard to recognize they are being answered. When God first suggested a magazine I was truly bewildered as to why and clueless that my prayers were being answered.
Adding to the perplexity, some things are obvious answers to prayers, but some are not. As I said previously God was granting me desires I didn’t even realize I had because I had quashed them so long ago. When it isn’t readily apparent you find yourself trying to look into your heart and wondering if this was something you truly desired. So I can really see why at different points in her life, the Blessed Virgin Mary would ponder things in her heart. Because with all I’ve been learning I can confidently say God was granting the Blessed Virgin Mary the desires of her heart. It does make me wonder what was in her heart of hearts that would result in the Christ child?
I can’t say for sure, but one day I was nattering on in my mind about how nice it would be if God saw things my way once in awhile. I think I was going through one of those periods where God is getting you somewhere that is good for you. Once He gets you there it’s all good, but the getting there is not always pleasant. This is especially true when you can’t see where you’re heading and you have some attachment to what you’re leaving. Anyway, I must have been going on for some time because God finally interrupted me and said, “I”ll only give you those thing that we both agree are good.1” And that I think is the key to the Blessed Virgin Mary’s heart. A heart so perfectly formed all the desires held there aligned completely with God’s and could be wholly answered in one form: the Christ child.
This is another thing Christ won for Himself at Golgotha: a people after His own heart. A people whose desires of the heart could only be answered with God.
1 There really is no difference in the end result. God is still not going to give me something that’s not good for me and deep down I truly don’t want what God rejects as good. In addition, God gives us the grace to get us where we do appreciate and want what He wants, so we end up calling the same things good anyway. What that episode did was let me know God cares about what I want, too. Salvation is more inclusive than forgiveness of sins, but about bringing the entire person to a place where the life of God and man join together. Sometimes Christianity just doesn’t feel like that.
The Word(s) in My Life 