One of the reasons I love our road trips so much is that the car times end up being mini little retreats for Mike and I. We bring along our Magnificat magazine which has the daily mass readings along with reflections on them and we can have our prayer times in the car. We make sure we are loaded up with Catholic Lighthouse Media CD's which are 1 hour talks from some of the great apologists of our time such as Mother Teresa, Benedict Groschel, Peter Kreeft, Matthew Kelley, and many more. We have good music, we have the Rosary, and there is quiet time too. In the past when Faustina and Jude were not in the picture we were more able to read aloud to each other articles from First Things and from different books. That is not as much of a reality now. But from all of our trips, I distinctly remember spiritual themes that have come up while listening to different talks or reading different things. This past time we listened to an excellent talk on the Eucharist and its Jewish roots from the Old Testament; last summer my thoughts were forever changed about the meaning of the Last Supper and what Jesus was really saying when he said "Take this cup from me". Really, it is all quite fascinating, inspiring, educational and it all makes sense, which is probably the most amazing aspect to me as I put puzzles of the pieces together as I continue to learn and learn and learn more about my Catholic faith and tradition. I do feel refreshed spiritually after returning from longer driving trips (believe it or not!).
God was certainly with our family and with me on this past outing. There were two days in particular while we were in Glacier that I was having a terrible time. I was not peaceful at all and tears were often right beneath the surface as I struggled. Yes, I was 'having fun' and enjoying everything, but there are always those layers to person which when examined reveal a true portrayal of a person's state of being - and mine was having rough time. So, I prayed - pretty much for 2 days and I did not experience any sense of relief.
The day we left one of our favorite campgrounds, outside the west side of Glacier National Park, we decided to go walk around the town Kalispell, Montana in the historic section. We wandered into a used bookstore and I fell into my normal habit of looking at the kids section of books. Immediately, my eyes fell on this book "More Little Visits With God". I was thrilled because it is a book that I grew up with, loved, and I don't ever remember seeing it anywhere else. My parents had a tattered old soft covered version that was held together with a rubber band and this was a brand new beautiful hard cover copy.
It is a classic old school book written in the 50's that has probably 200 one page incredibly simple stories that each teach a lesson about God. (I mean, really, it has a story entitled "Why Sally wanted to be spanked."!In the story, Sally tells her friend that spankings are good because we want to belong to God and in order to belong to God we need to be sorry for our sins. Spankings help us be sorry for our sins. This has been especially helpful with our daughter lately while she is 3 years old!) There are no pictures in this book except a few pencil sketches, there are a few questions at the end of each story to review what happened, and each story ends with a prayer pertaining to the moral of the story. Anyway, I knew we had to get it and was even happier to find that it cost $6.50.
After we had an excellent lunch in town, we hopped in the car and I started reading a few of the stories to Faustina. I read one, then two, then three and she kept asking for more. Well, as it turned out, I know that finding that book and reading the stories was really the Lord blessing me and answering my prayers. They are such simple stories about love, forgiveness, relationships, etc and I was flooded with new convictions from the Lord and overcome with the peace that I had been looking for. It was as if the Lord himself was sitting me on his knee and reading me these stories and I really was the little kid. I was blown away by the simplicity of the truth in the anecdotes. Life, for adults I think, often becomes so complicated and messy that it can be hard to see truth sometimes. I was thankful for that blessing and it was yet another window for me to see how God was caring for and loving me.
No comments:
Post a Comment