Not very long ago, on a late-summer’s eve I was on a walk and found myself sandwiched between the (nat’l) Mall and my little house on a hill. The sky was speckled with the 7 or so stalwart stars that refuse to be blotted out by the boisterous city lights. I was comfortable in my ramble listening to one of my new favorite tunes as the old moccassin-ed feet quietly bopped along the road. As should be expected, I caught a glimpse of the capitol.
 |
| [pictoral evidence of sight catching] |
It occurred to me how odd it is that I live in a city, far away from Texas, in plain sight of the capitol of Amurrica. I certainly never expected such things to be the way of it in my life, but you know what they say about telling God your plans.
Then the thought occurred to me that this is a part of my life tale that is strange (for me) and interesting and beautiful. It has blessed me, by the Mercy of our Lord, with much growth, healing and beauty that I never could imagine all by my lonesome.
And THEN I thought that my children [should I be so blessed as to have some little humans of my own to rear] might discover this strange fact about me one day and say with surprise “you lived right by the capitol of Amurrica??? I hadn’t the foggiest!” I mean maybe they will say something to that effect, though the lingo might be a tad more 2022 (that there is a lot of 2s) or whenever.
The point is that I remember the great surprise that came to me the first time I learned something about my parent’s lives that had absolutely nothing to do with me or our family life. It was an epiphany of sorts that they lived real lives before my siblings and I existed. Even before they were hitched. Strange indeed! To realize that your universe as a child (aka your parents/family) did not always revolve around yourself. Well, that’s something worth discovering.
 |
| how seriously cute is my dad?? so. cute. |
 |
| how groovy do my momma and her sweet sisters look? so. groovy. |
When you are born, the world revolves around you at least from your perspective. And to a degree, your parents lives (aka your universe) does seem to revolve around you. You have little to no care that you are sapping them of their strength, sleep, time, money, etc. etc. etc. You exist, they take care of you, that’s just the way it is and should be. There is no thought that they could be doing anything else but giving every waking moment to keeping your life up and running and filled with kool-aid, popcorn, and the occasional Strawberry shortcake jammies.
But (hopefully), there comes a day when you realize that your parents are people, too. And they existed long before you. And they had lives and interesting stories and experiences that did not involve you even a little bit. Because you didn’t exist then.
So I thought about how funny and strange it is that my kids would have to discover this about me. They won’t know a wink of it and most likely won’t care a wink about it for many many years to come. But it will still be there, waiting to be discovered by them when the light goes on as it did for me, and they begin to discover there is more to their momster than they thought.
One of my prayers lately has been for God to show me Who He is.
 |
| Who is this God Who gives us so much Beauty I want to explode sometimes? I must find out |
And lightning struck my brain as to why after all my life of having a relationship with God, I should still not know Him. It’s the same deal with the parents. Most of your life you don’t question who your parents are. You think you know them because you have spent your entire life with them. But then you have that moment when you realize you know only a wee part of them. There were years before you filled with their life, and you saw none of it.
And if that’s true of your parents, how much truer is it of my God? I have always known Him to Be. He is the life breath of everything I know and love and hope for.
He is everything, and yet for so long I assumed I knew Who He Is. Just based off of my tiny 28 years of experience with Him. How could Eternity be known in such a short time? 1,000 years wouldn’t begin to scratch the surface of our God. So how could the Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, and Lover of humanity be contained in my little realm of existence?
The answer: He can’t. By His Mercy He has shown me how little I truly know Him. How many limits I put on Him because I am too busy deciding Who He is for myself instead of asking Him to introduce Himself to me. To show me more about Him every day and to reveal who I am as well. Because I realized I don’t truly know myself. I have decided many things about myself based on lies, and I choose Truth now.
 |
| Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom |
My parents did live lives before they had kids, but one of the raddest things about God that I currently know is that even though we didn’t exist, He was preparing them to be our parents.
He sees our whole lives after all, and He alone knows what He will use our experiences for and how it will affect our future relationships. Just like before any of us existed, our Lord set the universe in motion and saw all of our lives intersect and how, above all else, how very much we would need Him. For every single thing. Just like when we were babies and needed our parents for everything. They loved us enough to give their sleep, energy, time, money etc. to care for us, though they had not one word of gratitude from us at the time. How much less does God receive the gratitude He deserves. He gave us existence and His only Son to save us. Yet how rarely do we look up from ourselves to thank Him, and to ask Him Who He is?
Of course we will never grasp Him fully, but He has a lot more to show us if we but ask and seek and knock.
Don’t we love to be discovered? I think to be discovered by another human and even more so, to be discovered and loved upon the discovery, well. That’s the best.
 |
| love upon discovery |
The most incredible thing of all is that Jesus waits for us in the Tabernacle at every moment in the Eucharist.
He Loves for us to discover Him, I think. To get outside of ourselves and find Him where He is waiting for us always. Discover Him in the Eucharist, and we have everything we need and could ever desire. And well, that is truly the Greatest discovery of all.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” John 6:51-58
For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.” John 6:51-58
 |
| I pray we all have the eyes of Faith to see Him where He always is |
Thus ends (maybe but prob not) the longest post of my posting career. But look, I’m not going to fact check that so if you find a longer post in my archives, kudos?
