“Doubting, asking questions, struggling to believe — these are not signs of human failings, but are human experiences. The challenge for us is, perhaps, to continue to engage our struggles, to face our fears, to wrestle through the night — and, during those dark nights when we cannot feel or believe that God is present with us, to continue the work that was set before us.” ~ Comments by Beth Richardson, in “From the Editor” note, Alive Now – March 2016.
In this same note, Beth talks of doubts and tells of Mother Teresa and the doubts she describes in her own private journals and letters. This Time.com article about the book of Mother Teresa’s life – Crisis of Faith – is fascinating and includes this comment:
Martin of America, a much more liberal institution, calls the book “a new ministry for Mother Teresa, a written ministry of her interior life,” and says, “It may be remembered as just as important as her ministry to the poor. It would be a ministry to people who had experienced some doubt, some absence of God in their lives. And you know who that is? Everybody. Atheists, doubters, seekers, believers, everyone.”
WOW. Guess it’s not surprising that the saints of our age – even you and I – might have a little doubt, when saints before us have some of their own! As “way show-ers” of today, with prayer and purpose we can allow God-in-us to help guide our thoughts and actions, even in those times when intimacy with God seems almost absent…
Enjoy the day, filled with the Spirit!
HUMOR
- Christian Playbook humor links – updated on 7/17
PRAYER OPPORTUNITIES:
- For People Critically Ill, or Facing Great Uncertainty (bottom of first page shown HERE)
- Celtic Daily Prayer
- CP Prayer Page – containing LOADS of possibilities…
Lectionary Texts for Sunday, July 19, 2020:
- Genesis 25:19-34 and Psalm 119:105-112
- Genesis 28:10-19a and Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
- Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19 or Isaiah 44:6-8 and Psalm 86:11-17
- Romans 8:12-25
- Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
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