About a week or so ago I watched a documentary about a nun, Sister Claire Crockett. The documentary was titled “All or Nothing” because she completely gave her all in each task she set out to accomplish. She gave God her everything with much joy.
It was a great reminder how we can find joy when we give our complete selves to God.
Surrendering has been a major theme in my life, over the years as I suffered through my health problems. I couldn’t carry my cross on my own. It was too heavy. I knew it. God knew it. I simply had to learn to let go and allow God to take over. As the desire for me to surrender even more has been growing, “all or nothing” has been on my mind even more so in the last week. In-fact it has been my emphasis for the week in my prayer time and throughout my day. “All or nothing Lord. I want to give you my all.”
Last Sunday as we sat down together as a family, I read to my husband and our children an article I had recently written about how suffering brings us closer to God. I have to admit, I think it was hard for most of my children to grasp what I was saying, which was how God called me to Him through my many years of ill health and lead me onto a completely different path than what I had originally planned for myself.
However, maybe the lesson wasn’t necessarily for my children, but one for myself.
This past Thursday, I collapsed after spending no more than half an hour planting some plants in the garden. I had sat down and couldn’t get back up as I was feeling extremely faint. I sent for my eldest who was inside. As he helped me walk into the house, I collapsed onto the floor. I remember losing all strength and not having any control as my body shook. Even though I wasn’t crying as such, tears were rolling down my face. I remember at the moment becoming aware of the full-blown scale of the meaning of surrendering to God.
All of a sudden I was the child and my children were the adults, as they hurried around me, helping me and comforting me.
To surrender even more so to God, I need to become small and child-like in my trust in Him. I need to completely surrender and detach myself from this world and allow Him to catch me when I fall so that he may pick me back up- as a child of his and allow Him to provide me with the comfort that I need.
God reminded me tonight, that one person’s suffering can bring others to God, by allowing them to serve us in love, when we are ill, as they witness our vulnerability. This then also allows the person who is suffering to see God’s love for them through the acts of kindness and love from the people around them. These acts of love and kindness allows God to work within our lives. Maybe my children didn’t comprehend the message in my article, but it didn’t stop God working within them, nor did it stop him from reminding me the love my family has for me.
God has also reminded me the importance of this cross of suffering. The importance of letting go and surrendering. I am blessed by my cross. “All or nothing Lord. All or nothing.”
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Image: GENOA, ITALY – June 2020: antique statue, beginning 1800, made of marble, in a Christian Catholic cemetery – Italy. Shutterstock/Paolo Gallo
