What a day.
I went to adoration and read from this little booklet written by Anne the Lay Apostle. It is messages from different saints straight from Heaven. Flipping through the book I came upon a message from Saint Julie. I’ve never heard of Saint Julie but decided to read what it is she had to say: “If you are well trained spiritually you will respond efficiently to anything that comes your way. Each region will see different changes, of course, and each soul will have specific help for his experiences. Receive every life experience as something directly from the hands of our Jesus and you will not object. Try that today. Each situation that occurs in your life is directly from Jesus. He wants to teach you something. He wants to introduce you to someone’s suffering, perhaps to encourage you to become more prayerful. He wants to draw you further into His heart, or perhaps He wants to teach you patience. Do this with me today.” ~ “Direction for Our Times; Volume 7” Anne the Lay Apostle.
I read this message at roughly 4:45am and then came home, went back to bed and had the craziest dream. When I awoke to the dawning of day I remembered the dream and vaguely remembered Saint Julie’s call to receive every experience from Jesus but I didn’t remember much else of what I’d read.
Later that morning I received a phone call from our neighbor who we carpool with in the mornings to school. She’d had a bit of concern with Ryan this morning when he kept bringing up his opinion about the Easter Bunny and despite her warnings to remember that there was a 6 yr old in the car he pushed forward declaring there was no Easter Bunny and just about declared that Santa wasn’t real either. Somehow she thwarted that statement but I could tell she was pretty upset by him being so vocal and not recognizing what seemed to be an obvious fact (her living, breathing daughter right there). I completely understood and assured her I would talk to him about keeping stuff like this quiet when little children are present.
By 1:30pm I had an appointment with one of our priests. He’d called me in the day before and I was curious as to what he needed to talk about. Well nothing could prepare me for the closed door discussion. Earlier in the week I’d met up with someone I hadn’t seen in literally 5-6 years and asked a question that was more appropriate (possibly) for a friend than for a minister. I don’t know how else to explain that but basically I didn’t have my ‘ministerial’ hat on and wasn’t THINKING when I blurted out a question to her. At the time I was so oblivious to my ignorance I didn’t realize I’d said something that struck a cord within her. But she’d gone in for her meeting with the priest and apparently went OFF about what I’d asked and what that question caused her to feel, etc. As the priest is telling me this I’m first stunned because I had no intent of being malicious, gossipy, or callous when I asked that question. And then the humility kicked in and I felt so bad…I wanted badly to call her right that second and apologize. I couldn’t believe I’d caused her to feel such pain. I had no idea!
For the rest of the afternoon I replayed our brief meeting and then my meeting with the priest and wanted badly to take it all back. Rewind and say the right thing. I couldn’t help but think about the blog I’d written last night, about how our words can abuse someone’s esteem and here the very next day I do the very thing I was soap boxing!!!! 🙁
I asked the priest to see if she’d be willing for me to call or email her and apologize and so I knew he was doing that for me but I could not sit back and allow the rest of the day to move forward. I called the priest and asked him to give me some form of penance if she refused my offer to apologize. He said, “Shannon, it’s okay. You did not have wrongful intent. You need to forgive yourself the way that God has forgiven you. I talked to her for two hours, she is OK. Let this go.”
After hanging up with the priest I couldn’t help but cry and cry and cry.
Then I reread what St. Julie had said, “Each situation that occurs in your life is directly from Jesus. He wants to teach you something. He wants to introduce you to someone’s suffering, perhaps to encourage you to become more prayerful.” Interesting how the ‘theme’ for today was teaching me to know someone else’s suffering. I also learned that Ryan comes by his BIG MOUTH honestly. 🙂
I do pray I get the chance to talk to her again. Tonight, God gave me the gift of spending time with another young woman whom I got to have some very meaningful conversation with and hopefully I encouraged her to see herself in the way God see’s her. Surely I’ve learned to pray for her.
Sometimes these lessons can be so hard. 🙁
Blessings
Shannon