Surrounded by boxes that couldn’t be unpacked until the basement was dry and mold-free, with several other complicated and expensive problems with the house to deal with, our 3rd baby in 4 years due in less than 6 weeks, my husband working long hours and traveling frequently to open new offices in several states, and knowing no one in our new area, I was feeling more than a little overwhelmed.
“I don’t understand, God,” I whined, “I prayed about this! I was perfectly happy to stay where we were, but I really thought You were telling me that moving here was Your will and I trusted You. So why is this so hard? Why is nothing falling into place?”
And then the “still, small voice” (1 Kgs 19:12): “What makes you think that this is not My will for you? Because it is difficult? Because you do not have everything just as you think it should be? My dear daughter, My will is that you — and all my children — join Me in heaven one day, and in order for that to be possible sometimes you must struggle and you must suffer. My Son was born in a stable.”
Now I love stories about 11th-hour divine intervention: the surprise check that comes just in time to pay the bills; the mysterious benefactor who saves the day; the miraculous changes of fortune that are so common in the lives of those who radically seek to do God’s will and entrust themselves to His providence. But I must be very careful not to assume that when God appears not to hear my prayers and there is no miracle to smooth my path it is because I have failed somehow. I must not become unwilling to abandon myself to God’s will unless He promises in return to smooth the way for me.
When Mary, an unmarried teenage girl, offered her fiat she did so despite being “greatly troubled” (Lk 1:29) and probably well aware that her acceptance of God’s proposal would entail suffering and hardship on her part.
And so it did.
Did Mary doubt God as Joseph prepared to divorce her quietly? When she mounted the donkey for the long journey to Bethlehem at just the time when her child was to be born? When the inns were so full that she had to give birth in a stable? When she and her brand-new child were unable to return home safely and instead had to flee to a foreign land?
How did Mary’s perfect faith respond to the crises that presented themselves in her life — crises which, at least as far as the Gospels record, do not seem to have been miraculously resolved?
We do not have many of Mary’s thoughts or feelings recorded, but we know that she was sometimes troubled (Lk 1:29) and anxious (Lk 2:48) by the way events unfolded around her and that more than once she “pondered” or puzzled over what had occurred (Lk 2:19, 51).
What Mary must have understood, and what we must keep in mind when life is difficult and God seems not to care, is that God’s perspective is different from ours and what seems to us unquestionably right or good at this moment might not be so in the long run. It is only our Heavenly Father Who sees the whole of eternity and knows at each moment what circumstances will draw us closer to Him and offer us the safest, surest path to heaven.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Sara Fox Peterson is a wife, mother and writer. You can read her (more or less) regular column at http://www.catholicmom.com/nfp.htm.
