Ahab

Dear LORD,

Forsaken, Never-ending, Novenas.

So, I just got four text messages tonight saying I had to respond by the end of today for a contract/job opportunity or else it would go away.  Of course, I was asleep the whole time, in preparation for this hour. Was this Your Hand, LORD? Was it Your Hand that the Google job offer went to my junk email on my hotmail account? So that I didn't get the Google job? Was it Your Hand that we built a demo for the Gov't that worked, only to have Lock Martin sweep in and take the contract on false hopes to only say later that it couldn't be done? From our working demo? Was all this Your Hand? to place me, here, now, before You on bended knee but pride ever unbroken?

Just like Lucifer ... Auclair: 'in the light' and Lucifer: 'the Light bearer.'

Or is it Your Hand that I still stand up, morning after hopeless, dreary morning, lamenting what could-have-been instead of praising You for what-now-is? In this, what is called, the God-forsaken-hour. But You do not forsake Your people, and Your Promises are sure. The only think that is sure is You.

And I look at myself and my narcissism, my me-focus, and see You promise a Savior and 1,000 years later the Incarnation, and I see myself as Ahab, living, hoping, dying, never seeing Your Promise fulfilled. Am I Ahab, wanting something for me and mine, not seeing myself as a tiny-tiny step in a journey of 1,000 years? What is my request for today, when Your Love is never-ending? It's nothing to You. It's a drop in the ocean of time. Yet You care every hair on my head, and when a bird falls from the sky, You know it. Why are You like that, and I am like this? Why are You infinite, and I, finite? And what is the point of me striving if today I hear Your Voice, but one day is 1,000 years to You? What do I pray for when I pray my Novena, then? That I get a job that pays the bills? That my business starts, succeeds, and prospers? Health and spiritual well-being for my family and friends, those that I love? What is this to You? What do I pray for in my Novena? that I be ready when my time comes? That not my will but Your Will be done? Immaculate Mary, her praises we sing, was 14 when You told her Your Plan, and she didn't say one thing about what her plans were or what she wanted. She said, "Let it be done to me according to Thy Word." And I see her example and am not inspired but am terrified. I am not filled with admiration for her self-sacrifice so much as I am filled with disappointment with my own selfishness. 

Martyrdom is "easy," saith I who am not Edith Stein, just one "yes" to You to die for You. This mortification-stuff, however, is hard, and I don't like the sacrificial aspect of in in the cost to me in my daily life. It's inconvenient, LORD, a cross I begrudgingly carry, like Jesus did, dying once for all. But not, because He said, "Not my will, but Thine be done." He Said it for me and for all, because He knew I don't say it so often when I must.

Yet, there is You. And miracles, both great and small, every day. There is the miracle of every day, me getting up and going out, when You know how much I hate it, LORD, preferring to stay in at home and wallow. There is the blessing of me singing "all of Creation" as I got into the car to come to pray here, and while singing, turn on the radio to have that very song accompanying me down the road. Then have Toby Mac sing "me, without You" to let me know You're laughing joyfully at how funny I am and how fun life actually is.

Help me find it. Help me find You.

I as all this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.