Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

Wasn't going to write today. Too much to do. But then the doing happened, and I don't want to forget it. Got a retreat this weekend with the 10th graders and know my head will be filled and exhausted with thoughts about that...so gotta write right now...
Lots of things to do. This week had more than it's share of disappointments...but these days, I am older and wiser. And the wonderful readings from the last week in the Liturgy of the Hours helped a lot. All from the Book of Job.  

Been published on Job. Studied it with Bill Power, a wonderful Episcopal priest. My second-hand laptop computer crashed the day before I was to turn in my paper for him. I cranked up the font to 16 point, and still had only 16 of the required 20 pages to pass the course. Shoved in under his door, and left knowing my GPA would pay dearly for the unfortunate event. But it grated on me. Went beck to my home computer, rewrote the whole thing...properly, but about three days late. Put it under his door again. I didn't beg for time, I just wrote what I needed to write. He gave me an A...wrote "Wow!" on one of my passages, and I got the thing published. 


Never assume it's over until God says its over.


This week has been hard, but I just kept going back to Job and to the Psalms...forcibly reminding myself that what happens to me is really so insignificant.  I just have to keep doing what He tells me to do. Don't think too much about the changes, especially when they are changes I don't want. Give in to Him. Give it up to Him. Let Him run the show...


So I'm trying, but poorly. In Mass this morning, I thought about my cell phone, which I thought maybe got stolen. I thought about the 1111 pictures I have on my grandchildren on it and how I SHOULD have downloaded them ages ago.  I thought about all the hackers that would get into my accounts and destroy my life.  I thought about all the phone numbers that I never did bother to write down. I thought about all the people I had to see and the meetings I would forget.


And then Fr Henry came out and started Mass and looked up at the ceiling.  I had forgotten to turn on the lights over the altar.  More people kept coming in.  Did I put out enough Communion for everyone? And it is adoration today.  Did I get out all the things needed for that.  Fr. Henry kept looking at the Scripture passage.  Did I place it on the wrong page?  I didn't read today, I just assumed it was correct. 


Reading about the fig tree.  And Jesus turning over tables in the temple.  And Fr. Henry speaks about social justice, his favorite topic. I pray, I try to let go of all my thoughts. And then I remember, God loves me anyway.  


I remember I have to deliver Communion to someone I met in the hospital, a young boy with cancer.  I get what I need. Then I finally remember where my phone is...in the back yard. Hasn't started raining yet.  I'm not going to be out a couple hundred dollars to replace it, and I have everyone's numbers.  I begin to feel small for worrying. 


Then I get to the boy's home. Mom waits for me downstairs. We walk up three flights. I know how often they come to the hospital. I ask the young man and his mom, "How do you make the stairs?" "I use my crutches." he tells me. I am getting smaller. 


The passage I read from the Hours for him is from Job.  Job is angry with his friends, "No doubt the intelligence of the whole world will end with you!" He tells them. And the boy and I have a conversation about the entire Book of Job. Unmerited suffering. I look at the boy's leg, I look at his bald head from chemotherapy.  I look at his mother, who is tired. But the breeze up on the third floor is nice.  I am getting smaller and smaller. 


Why, God, this passage?  Unmerited suffering. I look at mother and son. Saying more here would be too much, but I have many reasons to know they have endured much and survived. I listen, I speak...oh please, God, make the words right.  I am talking too much. I give Communion to the boy and his mother.  

And the boy says to his mother, "Go get my Bible." And Mom finds it.  And then the young boy reads from a Children's Bible the entire book of Job for me. And his mother rocks while he reads, saying quietly, "Praise God. Praise God. Praise God." 


And I see how it all fits. And I am so small now, I am almost not there. The boy and his mom have hope. God brought it to them and I got to see it happen. 


I just wanted to write it down before I forgot it.  

Softly and Tenderly Jesus is calling...when we can't hear Him, when we don't want to hear Him...
calling O sinner, come home.


Now back to church.


Love, Cindy