//Intentionally Live Life//
In My Distress
What Do I Want?
What are the desires of my heart? What do I treasure?
These questions ask more of us than to say what we prefer, want, or need at an immediate level. They ask us to ponder the things we want to want, the desires we wish we had, the treasure we may not value as we should.
When I ask myself what it is that my heart desires, I am always met with “things that show my weakness,” the things Paul chose to boast of in his enigmatic letter to the Corinthians. Paul’s inverted boasting echoes in the psalm where the Lord hears the lowly and the poor. When I look at my life and take stock of what it is that I treasure, I encounter my spiritual lowliness and poverty. I wonder if I am the just one whom the Lord rescues from distress. Do I seek justice to the point of distress? I doubt it. I know I am not Paul. The questions keep coming: Why do the just suffer distress? Why does justice require consolation?
These questions all emerge from pondering what I desire and value. In the Gospel, Jesus unites them, teaching that “where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” In other words, the answer to the question of what I value or treasure reveals where my heart is. This, in turn, reveals my desire for deeper conversion, a conversion of my own desire.
Seeking God in Suffering – When It’s Hard to Pray
When It’s Hard to Pray
DAY 8 | Mark 2:1-12
Some men came, bringing to [Jesus] a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. —Mark 2:3
Sometimes the suffering of life feels overwhelming, as if we are under attack and can’t find any relief. We may be debilitated by the grief of losing a loved one. Or maybe we are sick from a medical condition or treatment. Whatever the case, there are days when we feel the weight of the world on us. Lord, have mercy.
The psalmist here is feeling besieged by relentless human forces, along with the abandonment of his friends. He uses words like distress, anguish, groaning, affliction, forgotten, and terror. He fears that he will die at the hands of his enemies, and he cries out to God in agony. Lord, have mercy.
Perhaps you can recall a time you felt that way, when the walls and ceiling seemed to be closing in on you. While my personal suffering pales in comparison to that of people with chronic illness, I do remember feeling particularly burdened when—a few weeks after my second surgery for cancer—my husband had a heart attack and also needed surgery. In his recovery room, a compassionate nurse prepared a bed beside him for me to rest in as well.
Looking back on turbulent times, we can see how the Lord was with us and delivered us. God answers the cries of his people and shines his loving face on us, lighting up the darkness.
O God, you are my God, and I trust you. “My times are in your hands.” Help me not to let my life’s troubles cloud my vision of you and the hope that is found in you alone. Amen.
//Reframe Ministries//
Morning Offering – The Divine Heart is an Ocean Full of All Good Things
“The Divine Heart is an ocean full of all good things, wherein poor souls can cast all their needs; it is an ocean full of joy to drown all our sadness, an ocean of humility to drown our folly, an ocean of mercy to those in distress, an ocean of love in which to submerge our poverty.”— St. Margaret Mary Alacoque