Do Not Be Afraid of the Storm

saint peter, fisherman, st peter, peter, faith, time

Recently people have been questioning me about the confusion swirling all around us. How are we to handle the confusion?  What exactly should we do?  When pondering this question I started to reflect on Mark’s Gospel about Jesus walking on water.

 About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. Mark 6:45-52

There’s an odd line in this passage which says that he meant to pass by them. The passage concludes with Jesus telling them “it is I” and then it explains they had not understood the incident of the loaves and their hearts were hardened.

These men had God in their midst. Jesus, the healer, the miracle worker, the storm calmer. But they did not fully recognize him. They continually looked for worldly solutions for everything they came across. In the prior passage, we see the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. In this passage, the disciples want to send the people away to eat, but Jesus tells them to feed the people themselves, and then they start talking about wages. They still don’t know who he is. And so he meant to pass them by. Love was standing right in front of them, but fear and distraction took their eyes off of Him. He exclaims, “it is I,” as if to say,” I am love and I am right here. Don’t you know I will provide?”

Jesus is telling us don’t be distracted or fearful because of worldly things. This is where we must surrender and trust so that Love does not pass us by.

A Personal Struggle

The following story illustrates what is happening to us as a society, and what will happen in the future to each of us with even greater intensity.

In 2002 I had a baby. A beautiful baby boy. It should have been the most joyous occasion of my life, but it wasn’t. Not through any fault of his, so if he ever reads this I do not want him to ever feel he did anything wrong. He is a gift from God. But I had severe postpartum depression and anxiety. Back then I thought it was purely a physical response to a drop in estrogen. Today I recognize it as a spiritual attack on the very essence of my motherhood.

I don’t think I can fully describe the types of thoughts that were flung at me during that time period, except to say they were awful. I was afraid I would go crazy and harm my child. I couldn’t be in high places with the baby or anywhere near knives. If I were near these things the thoughts assaulted my mind and I couldn’t control them. They were constant. I knew they were wrong and disordered, and scary. I reached out to my family and my doctor for help and all of them helped me but I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I decided the world would be better off without me.

Saved From Attempting Suicide

I was sitting in the bathtub and I was being barraged with the awful thoughts. I honestly knew the thoughts weren’t mine because they were so vile, but I didn’t realize where they were coming from and I couldn’t stop them, so I thought, I will just put my head under this water and never come up, and that will stop the thoughts. In that moment I got a very clear picture of my sister’s face. And I had the thought that she would be sad. So I paused. I looked to my left and a Rosary was sitting on the bathtub ledge. I hadn’t prayed the Rosary in a long time and I am not even really sure how it got there.  God had left me a weapon. A weapon to fight the demonic attack. He had shown me a face, a holy face that reflected His love, my sisters face. Where one voice assaulted my mind and convinced me to despair, another breathed life and love into me, and so began my long spiritual journey.

It was from that point on I began to climb out of the pit.  Within a year I was back to functioning. My faith life was a roller coaster, and it would be another 7 years before the murder of Veronica that really changed how I interacted with God and how to recognize what was happening spiritually.

In looking back, I can say that was the catalyst of my years-long path to a spiritual world view. And it was along this path that I discovered mercy and forgiveness can halt the assault on our minds. Confession is healing. Forgiving others is totally freeing. The Eucharist is God in us. We are called to love. Love cannot be separated from truth. I hadn’t believed that I was a beloved child of a King.

What Can I Do?

So in these times now when I feel confused or filled with rage, I know the thoughts are flung at me by the enemy. I do not have to listen to them.  I always start with the premise, when I am confused, angry, rage-filled, etc, of– what exactly am I called to do? I start here because this is a way to drown out the noise and confusion.  I look at what is in my circle of authority, what I am called to do, what I can control. I am called to love and pray for people that they flourish and are blessed, the way God blesses me.

I do not know the intention in other people’s hearts.  I should not assume I do know. I should never will the demise of anyone else like we see happening so much, especially in politics. I don’t get to judge the interior heart of another person, Christ does. You see, at the end of the day when all of this turmoil is swirling around us, and confusion is bred everywhere, I actually close my eyes, I drown out the world purposefully, to hear the still small voice. This is the voice that calls me to love. It is the voice that says, even in the blindness, I will be the light that guides. I must love the person right in front of me instead of wishing willful destruction on someone else.

Look Up During the Storm

God often seems to say, “look up” to me when I seem to be looking down. By that, I mean God wants me to see the goodness in people and in his creation.

I think we are currently in a storm and when this storm is over, we will all have had the ground come out from under us. We will realize how we all had a false perception of at least some things, and God will reveal the truth. I think about how we are standing on sand.  A real relationship is missing. My prayer is that all of us turn towards God when he allows the sand to get blown away, and we aren’t so invested in our own in our perception that we walk away from God as Judas did.

This is a time when good is called evil and evil is called good. While it is a global storm for sure, it is also an interior storm of thoughts and ideologies that are flung at our minds. We are sitting in a boat in this storm, and the Kingdom of God is at hand teaching us how to love, but He just may pass us by if we don’t recognize Him.

The Kingdom of God is a call to love. “Take captive every thought” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Be merciful because mercy is a conduit to love. This is Christ in us. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit extending love and mercy to our fellow man. It is an interior battle. Put on the Armor of God and be battle ready because love is the only way to navigate this storm and Jesus and his Mother shows us how to stop the storm and crush the serpent.

….I want you to be wise as to what is good, and simple as to what is evil; then the God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Romans 16:19-20

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2 thoughts on “Do Not Be Afraid of the Storm”

  1. Pingback: Weathering The Storms of Your Life +Genuflect

  2. Pingback: SVNDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

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