Perhaps the mid-afternoon heat was to blame; the woods were strangely silent.
But, as is so often the case, my head was not silent; words were marching double time like a high school band at drill practice, treading the same patterns over and over again. Unlike the band, moving toward a flawless performance, I found myself miring down in a rut of ugly thinking that threatened to trip up my soul.
Looking up usually helps me, on so many levels, and this day was no exception.
I've been reading the book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta, compiled and edited by Brian Kolodiejchuk, a Catholic priest and friend of Mother Teresa.
Her determination to be the light of Jesus in the lives of the people she cared for, despite her lifelong struggle with deep internal darkness as revealed in her private letters, has been particularly challenging to me.
...The light that you give must be so pure,
the love you love with must be so burning,
the faith you believe with must be so convincing that in seeing you they really see only Jesus...
In her words,
“It is only when we realize our nothingness, our emptiness, that God can fill us with Himself. When we become full of God, then we can give God to others...”
I felt a deep longing to follow her as she followed Jesus, to receive these words of hers as a personal challenge, a soul stretch to last a lifetime:
and thus make your life something beautiful for God.”
Mother Teresa