Justifications

     Today marks one week since my first post.  I know I could justify my stopping this humiliation, but giving up justifications was a huge part of my transformation.  Of course, I am still a work in progress and still have the ability to justify anything and everything!

     After reading the lives of saints, I concluded and truly believe that judgement day is the premier showing of our life.  The only star in this film is the one being judged.  The only other person in the theatre, is God.  He will play our entire life back for us, and we will see every thought in our mind, every word that came out of our mouth, and everything we did, without the benefit of seeing why we had that thought, that response, or took that action.  OUCH!!

     This is when I began to look at me and just me!  It wasn't pretty.  A quote of St. Theresa of Avilla speaks of how a butterfly willingly enters its cacoon in order to become a butterfly.  True beauty comes from within and I was always consumed with how I looked on the outside to everyone.  Did we look like the perfect family?  Was everyone cooperating with my plans to make me look good?  I was all about things being about me, until the realization that at the end of my life, it was going to be just about me and how I cooperated with God's plan. So, I had to make God's plan, my plan, so that I could become a butterfly.

     That is why my book is just about my journey within myself.  I will not reveal anything about anyone else, not my husband, children, extended family, or friends, that could possibly justify any of my actions.  There can be no justifications.  Micah 6:8 tells us, "You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you:  Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God."

     The thought that God was requiring things of me was something new for me.  I was always requiring things of Him.  It never occurred to me that with all the blessings He has bestowed upon me, that I was to be a blessing to Him.  With every act of kindness, I blessed Him.  With every act of unkindness, whether in my mind or acted upon, I separated myself from Him.  God's Word and sacraments filled me with the desire to stay close to Jesus and follow, "the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6).

     The Holy Spirit was showing me that I was like a chamelion, changing my behavior to match whomever I was associating with.  When I was with family, I behaved one way.  When I was with friends, I behaved another.  With my church friends, I behaved holier than with my other friends.  I always justified my behavior using as my standard the people I was with.  Our culture is all about relativism, and that if everyone is doing it, it must be o.k.  But God only has one set of rules for everyone, no exceptions, no justifications. Jesus is the only Way.

     The purpose of my sharing my story is to encourage and support one another to stay in the presence of Jesus and make Him our standard for our behavior.  Only then will we know how to live obediently, value everyone, and experience genuine love.  This is my prayer through Jesus Christ. Amen.