"True devotion to Mary takes its rise not from below but from above: not from feelings of affection but from faith. In the first place it means clinging to God and accepting his design...God has willed to associate Mary with his work of salvation...It is not for us to set limits to the divine action or to dispense with the intermediaries God has freely chosen...In God there is room for every kind of superabundance."
- Cardinal Leo Joseph Suenens
taken from Through the Year with Mary (Edmisten)
I have never really thought of myself as the type of person that needs to be in control. On the contrary, I've always considered myself somewhat of an easy going, laisez-faire, go-with-the-flow type of gal. That kind of demeanor has always allowed me to be able to deal with whatever lemons life decided to throw my way.
Recently, however, I've realized that I am much more concerned with my life's outcomes that I previously thought. Perhaps it is my age (do people's lives really go downhill after 30?), my profession (what teacher isn't controlling?), or my status of being newly married (yes, it has been two years, but it's still new to me). It probably also has something to do with certain challenges that have come up in my life as of late. Whatever it is, I have this urgent need to be in the know about what is happening, or what is going to happen, today, this week, this year. I desperately desire to map out a plan for the next 5 years of my life. A plan for what? For life, I suppose. This concept is somewhat foreign to me, and I'm trying really hard to adjust.
What I am slowly starting to realize is that, while it may be all well and good to want to road map my life, I am not leaving room for His plan for me. Where is that supposed to fit in? Are my plans God's plans? Or vice versa?
He has a plan for me. And when I dwell on the fact that things aren't working out as I had planned, when I become bitter about not getting what I want, when I think that life isn't fair because of what I have to go through, I am limiting his plan for me. Not that I want to compare myself to Mother Mary or anything, but what would have happened if she decided to limit His plan for her? Through her acceptance of God's will, the miraculous happened.
'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' (Jeremiah 29:11)
He has a plan for me. And when I dwell on the fact that things aren't working out as I had planned, when I become bitter about not getting what I want, when I think that life isn't fair because of what I have to go through, I am limiting his plan for me. Not that I want to compare myself to Mother Mary or anything, but what would have happened if she decided to limit His plan for her? Through her acceptance of God's will, the miraculous happened.
It's funny how amidst difficult times in my life, I often refer back to my college years when I first realized how much loving and trusting in God was integral to my very livelihood. God's dreams for you are bigger than your own. I remember saying that phrase often back then, and it rings loudly in my ears right now. How easily we forget what's important.
Trust. Acceptance. Faith. Clinging to God and accepting His design. These might be the only things that are keeping me sane at the moment. I don't like not knowing what's ahead of me, and I am having a hard time relinquishing control. Though it is a daily struggle, I will continue to try and work at it. It's not my place to try and limit God's action in my life. In God there is room for the miraculous. That's what I'm praying for.
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