Hard to do...but so incredibly necessary.

Faith: you can have it if you ask for it.

How interesting and ironic that Francisco just posted about the very thing that was on my mind! It seems we have a bit of what I like to call "E.T. Syndrome" going on here, where one person feels what the other is feeling at that very moment. :)
      After some difficult personal struggles resurfaced for me this past week I too found myself desperate to let God take away the burdens that I feel like I have been carrying around as long as I can remember. I once read a book in college titled "The Sacred Romance" and in it the author references the Arrows that have pierced our heart at points in our lives and can remain lodged there if we don't allow God to heal us. I think this is an awesome description that we can all relate to. I can especially identify with it at this particular point in my life where I am faced with the harsh reality of some of the Arrows I still carry in my heart (and which have affected my decision-making for many years now) and the deeply intense ways they paralyze me.
     No one wants to live in a state of feeling like we are controlled by our sufferings, especially when we see how people we love are impacted. However, one thing I know to be true is that I can only find peace and (gradual) healing from sufferings such as these when I 100% trust God to do it. I see myself as a flawed human being, acutely aware of my own shortcomings, doubtful of my own abilities to what seems impossible, feeling inferior to those who seem to be able to love so freely in ways that I feel unable to. I sometimes feel like a slave to my Arrows.
    This is not how God sees me, or any of us. He has created us to love far beyond what we dream we are capable of and I believe that if we ask for it, not only does he help heal our hearts to be able to do so but he also places people at our side to nourish the process.
     At mass tonight the priest spoke to the notion we must strive for absolute faith. To have faith in God in all aspects of our lives, especially in those things we cling to control. This does not mean to pray and then say "but what if..." it means to pray and walk away...leave it 100% with God....trust Him. "This is when miracles happen," he said.
    I think I could use a miracle.

Let Go, Let God.

Currently, I'm much in the need of just letting God take over my life in places where I want to control, especially when that control isn't within my capacity. Trusting God and just placing our problems in Him sounds so easy, but when you like to know where things are going and how they're going to play out, it's so difficult to do. I thought I'd paste some quotes from where I found this picture. While the great majority speak on forgiveness, I think they're still prevalent to what the message is: Let Go, Let God.


“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”  - Paul Boese
“Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means moving on.”  - Anonymous
 “Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”  - Herman Hesse
“One problem with gazing too frequently into the past is that we may turn around to find the future has run out on us.”  - Michael Cibenko.
“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”  - Oprah Winfrey
“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.”  - Gerald Jampolsky
“Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?”  - Leo Buscaglia
“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”  - Osho

Though it may sound simple, I think the ever-smiling venerable Buddhist monk, Ajahn Chah’s advice sums it up best: “If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.”