Sunday, June 28, 2009

Give and You Shall Receive!

This quote keeps on popping into my head lately at the most convenient moments! It is such a confusing quote, because a possession given away leaves a person with one less possession, right? WRONG!

God has made the truth of this statement abundantly clear to me in the past few days, in MANY more ways than one, as always! Everything is analagous!

On one level, there is the physical and spiritual service that one offers to others - the simple offer to help someone, be it by the extension of an arm when someone needs to be lifted up spiritually or mentally, or by the elbow grease needed to scrub that last piece of pasta off of the pot to finish off doing the dishes. When done in and with God, in and with TRUE LOVE in its purest form, these tasks become the joy of our lives! It seems an incredible conclusion, right?!?! But, as the angel from perhaps my favorite Bible scene EVER notes, "nothing will be impossible with God." :)

So, scraping food particles off a metal pot doesn't seem the most appealing thing to you right now. No worries. Step one: PRAY. Invite God in to work on your heart. His love is FREE, FULL, and TRANSFORMATIVE! The only reason why we even have the capacity to love fully is because HE LOVED US FIRST! Think about that: how are we to pass on this love effectively in a widespread fashion unless we are carrying AS MUCH OF IT AS POSSIBLE?!!?! Jesus' ENTIRE LIFE was devoted to the service of mankind - He DIED out of service to us, out of LOVE for us. And yet, He was still a MAN, so this is possible for us!!!

It's like being given a gift for no reason at all - because it's a Wednesday, or because someone felt like giving you a gift, because it reminded that person of you. Almost everyone has experienced this at some point. The person receiving the gift is SO surprised - smiling, joyful, filled with love at having received something after having done NOTHING whatsoever to merit it, and that person's reaction causes those same sentiments in the person giving the gift! BAM! Something from nothing! Give and you shall receive! :)

This is what God's love is to us - it's a gift that is given EVERY DAY! It's like waking up to a new gift every day. One day, it's a book. Another day, it's a card with roses. EVERY day, though, it's a personalized blessing. We are all blessed so much every day, and we get USED to it, coming to expect it.

Today, don't expect it. Rejoice in it. Realize it. Find it in the way you didn't expect to be given that compliment, or the way that someone else's happiness gave you happiness, too! Rejoice in the Lord!

It's so easy to complain about how terrible our lives are: "woe is me, look at all the bad things that happened today - I hurt myself and am in pain, I waited in line for something that never happened, things didn't turn out like I expected." The typical response is, "well, it could be worse...." But, this isn't really a good reason to rejoice. In fact, it might even make us feel worse. So what a good reason to rejoice? Thinking about throwing away a gift is a pretty good reason to rejoice. Also, think about God's reasoning for things: why did you hurt yourself? Maybe God wanted you to SLOW DOWN. Why did you wait in line? Maybe God wanted to teach you PATIENCE. Why did things not turn out the way I expected? Perhaps, just MAYBE God wanted to use you in a plan greater than you could ever design or even imagine, and you, yes YOU, are His choice for the task. The only one who can accomplish what He wants for you to do. THE ONLY ONE. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope"-style. Makes it kind of hard to turn down the offer of being treated as such a precious resource, hard to NOT REJOICE in being considered so important and uniquely the man or woman for the task, huh?! :)

So, when we pick up our gift in the morning, do we REALLY want to say, "awwww, sweet! Roses!," and shove them aside, putting them in a vase and leaving them on a windowsill for us to see, or do we want to feel the compulsion to give a gift to someone else? Typically, when others treat us with love, we want to "spread the love," right? And EVERY DAY, we are loved more than we can imagine by Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. There is SO MUCH love to pass on every day!

Suddenly, what all of us want seems dwarfed in light of what God wants, and BINGO - dish washing becomes a HIGHLIGHT of the day! Not because of what it is, but because of HOW it is done. Each dish is an offering to God, because He asked for it, and you say "yes" to His request each time!!! Whoah! TOTAL 360, right?!

And God's "yes" encompasses more than just a simple "yes for today" - it requires follow-through in every single area of one's life, every day. Imagine the things God can do with you if you turn over ALL CONTROL to Him! If all your actions are governed by the litmus test of "is this what you want me to do, God?" It's amazing the things that are accomplished when one pays attention to God rather than shoving Him to the backburner!

But [and this is where it gets complicated], giving is not enough. The giving has to be done with a heart full of love, freely and fully, joyful only in loving another as best they can through the task. Don't get me wrong - sometimes it's REALLY hard to love certain people. This is where "give and you shall receive" takes on many different meanings.

Giving love is not always the comfortable, feel-good donation of our time or talents. Sometimes it involves offering graciously - and *gulp JOYFULLY - the left side of your face when someone just cruelly slapped the right side. It is often so disarming that people don't know what to do! Sometimes it requires that you give the gift of the benefit of the doubt to someone, however tempted you may be to assume something. It is often so untrue that you would have suffered great embarrasment having believed what you wanted to! Sometimes you need to offer your heart on the altar of sacrifice to someone else, however scared you are that it is too weak to handle it. It is often capable of more good than we could possibly conceive, because Mary works through our hearts and makes them her own!

God can handle anything. If someone is going through tough times, and you are worried about whether or not YOU can handle their emotional turmoil and help to carry them, just remember: "give and you shall receive!!!" When you want to turn back from God's call because it is too difficult or painful, "give and you shall receive!" Walk firmly knowing that the grace of the Holy Spirit dispensed through Mary can give us a NEW heart, Mary's heart, and her heart is capable of greater love than we can imagine.

It's time to get real with God, to stop all the half-hearted efforts at loving. Trust in God, and His love will surpass every miracle of creation by working wonders in the world THROUGH US, His own creation! And it all begins in PRAYER and the EUCHARIST!!! The importance of prayer (especially the Rosary!) and attending Mass CANNOT be overstated here! God can't love you or talk to you unless you let Him in!!!

Then, the smallest, littlest ways of love are the ones that St. Therese will definitely smile on, and the ones that will please God the most. These ways will be quiet, humble, and full of grace, like our Blessed Mother. And God is drawn to anywhere that He sees our Blessed Mother's graces!

Love is a continual circle that never, ever stops, but it depends on each one of us to keep it going in a larger and larger circle every time! :)

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