Consider EACH for Who and What He Is (How I am overcoming my fear of praying)

As I sat before the Blessed Sacrament yesterday, I felt almost a sorrow come from Jesus. I heard Him saying, “Oh how I wish people would recognize My humanity, as well as, My Divinity. I am a person. I love being a person. I have the same desires and longings to be treated as a person as any one else. I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed people. I enjoyed just being one of them. All were made through Me and are loved by Me and I long for that closeness with which I hold them”

I thought, but Jesus, even though You are one of us, You deserve so much more than how we treat each other. We cannot escape the fact that You are the Good and Holy, blameless Man and God. That is when He laid on my heart the thought of the 3 types of honor/worship in the Catholic Faith. He said: “At least occasionally, think of me as those you offer dulia”. I think I understand what He meant. When we pray to the Saints He has chosen for us, we still do so with an understanding that they were human, and, therefore, maybe we feel a kind of closeness to them different from the closeness we feel to Jesus. We so often do not consider that Jesus was FULLY human. He wants to “fit in” with us just like we want to “fit in” with others. He wants to be loved as deeply and sincerely and humanly as we want to be loved. He wants to belong to our “inner circle” of friends.

The above is/was the purpose of this blog initially, but He had more in mind.

Despite the lack of readership, misunderstanding, and embarrassment this blog causes at times, I continue to write it for 2 reasons. First, as I have said many times before, even if only 1 person reads it and has experienced the same and, therefore, is helped by it, it is more than worth it. Second, and, never more so than this blog, it is cathartic and helps me to organize my thoughts, review in the future how far I have come, and, this is the biggie today, realize what I had not realized until I started to document. I started writing this particular blog because of something Jesus laid on my heart that I felt He wanted me to share, but as I was writing it, I realized exactly when things started seriously changing in my prayer life, AND the reason why AND, how He works sometimes without pointing out what He did until the appropriate time.

For years, I struggled to pray. Not because I wasn’t called to, or didn’t want to, or not even, because I didn’t know how to, but rather, because I was afraid to. It seemed every time I went to pray, I actually felt like I was offending Him with my prayers. I thought it was better not to talk to Him than to do so and offend Him.

One of the biggest fears of offense was my total struggle with understanding the Holy Trinity. I would address One Person of the Three, but then my mind would say – but that is One of the Other Persons Who does that. This would cause a vicious cycle of confusion and guilt. I wanted to honor, address, and thank each Person of the Blessed Trinity, but if I mixed up Who then was I insulting one of the Other Persons by not correctly acknowledging what He (the Other One) does for us. Of course, then that would lead to the confusion and guilt of disrespecting or misunderstanding that they are One – Period…. but then that would lead to: but if He wanted us to only acknowledge Him as One, He would not have revealed that He was Three in One. It is hard to explain in writing, but hopefully you understand in order to explain or understand the rest of this post.

When I first starting writing this post, it was, yes, to share what Jesus laid on my heart yesterday, but also I was going to address how we should acknowledge each Person of the Blessed Trinity for Who and What they are. As I was trying to come up with the words, He reminded me how and why I struggled with praying so much in the past, how much He allows and encourages me to pray now, and just WHEN that began to change.

Last year I was participating in a book study. I knew only 1 of the women in this particular group, and I truly did not “fit in”. One thing that kept me coming back was a recognition that everyone of us were at a different stage of our Spiritual Journey. I felt that each of us could learn and help each other like no other study in which I had participated. I felt that until 1 particular session. I made the statement that the Holy Spirit was my best friend, that I knew Him and His Friendship even before I knew Jesus. That He had been with me, working on me in a very poignant way since I was 3 years old.

You would have thought that I had said I was God myself the way they reacted. I had not felt such hatred, misunderstanding, disgust, or resentment from anyone for a very long time – much less the entire room. After a few minutes, I pretended to get a text and left. I only attended one more session after that. At the time, I thought the pain I experienced as a result was a lesson in humility, an acknowledgement/chastisement of my desire to be accepted rather than accepting, to fit in rather than being the person God made me, the desire to be loved instead of loving, and most importantly, for not recognizing that His Love is enough. I did not think about acknowledging the Holy Spirit and His work in my life could make a difference.

I am not saying that is not all true, but He reminded me of the words I said that day as I was writing this blog.  Then, He reminded me that it was immediately after that that my prayer life started changing.  Without realizing it, that very day, I started praying without letting my fear overcome me.  I prayed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit both as One and as separate Persons.  I did not understand the Trinity any better, but rather, I recognized the truth in the words I had spoken – the Holy Spirit IS my best friend… and best friends have your back… best friends love you no matter what… best friends understand you and especially your fears…

BEST FRIENDS HELP YOU OVERCOME YOUR FEARS!

Now those thoughts have triggered a greater understanding about another aspect of my “Friendship” of the Holy Spirit… but I will save that for another blog.   For now, I think I will just go pray acknowledging each Member of the Holy Trinity in those prayers while praising Them as the ONE True God 🙂

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