What is it?

I have been having some of the weirdest pains and I just can't identify why they are happening. I don't remember ever having so many sensations in my ovaries, tubes, etc. There were some short, cramping moments today and my body is just so hard to read.

I find that I am trying really hard to not spend too much time thinking about these things because it is just so hard to cast off fear.

It has just been such a spiritual battle lately.

Trust vs. Fear.

Hope vs. Hopelessness.

Faith vs. Feelings of Abandonment.

Trust has been so hard for me lately. I do trust that no matter what I will face, I will have consolation from God, but I am having a hard time trusting that I can find joy and peace if I don't ever get that which I have invested so much of myself into obtaining, through grace.

Sometimes I wonder how we have managed to keep going after the same goal for the last nine years. How is it that we have not given up? How is it that the dream has not died? How is it that the fire of our dream gets stronger and stronger, month after loving month?

Only by God's grace.

I think that the reason our hope is still alive is becasue we know that God is not done. We do know that God's best work is done in what we perceive as darkness. We know that God's mind will not change no matter how much we plead, but that he is there to hold us tenderly and remain there with us in the desert until we finally see the running stream. We know that our God makes a highway in the desert and that He will never leave us figure it all out on our own.

He loves us too much to leave us orphans.

This is what I know . . . so why does my heart still wonder and waver?

I talked with a friend of mine about fear today and she told me that she has never really experienced the kind of fear that I am struggling with in placing myself at the disposal of God. She did not say this in an ugly way, she just did not recognize this emotion in herself and maybe she has not been there . . . where she is at the end of what she knows to be real and then asked to go even further.

That is what I feel like I am being asked to do. Everything in my being wants to be self-preserving. I think that is why I am being called to ask for St. Gianna's intercession right now. I am having to learn from her motherhood. I am having to absorb her confidience that God gives you the strength to do all of the things he calls you to do. I am just so amazed at her courage. In none of the information I have read so far discusses any of the fear she could have experienced when being told of her compromised health during her last pregnancy. I have read that she KNEW she was called to the vocation of motherhood. In the describing of this calling, it felt very much like my own calling. I feel completely called to be a mother.

There is a passion to fulfill this vocation, there is no lukewarmness about it. It is a fire-engine red kind of passion.

I heard today that I need to love the "Blesser" more than the "Blessings". This called me to re-evaluate my desires. I think sometimes I get bogged down in seeking blessings and not being as thankful for the ongoing presence of the "Blesser".

This is my cross.

This is part of my path to salvation.

This is my suffering.

This will be my story of HOPE.

This will be my story of GRACE.

This is my story of LOVE.

I shall not hide in the shame of my cross, for this is what is transforming me.

I shall not curse this path, for it is surely bringing me to the Throne of Grace.

I shall not shrink in this time of suffering, for this is what is teaching me to reflect the love of the suffering Christ.