Chapter 63
A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
O God, you are my God-- for you I long! For you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and without water.
So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your power and glory.
For your love is better than life; my lips offer you worship!
I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands, calling on your name.
My soul shall savor the rich banquet of praise, with joyous lips my mouth shall honor you!
have you ever felt like you're going through the motions of life without being conscious of what's going on around you? have you ever spaced out while tying your shoes, making dinner or filling up your gas tank and after-the-fact realize that you've completed your task?
if you've never been an astronaut like that, it may be hard for you to understand what's been going on with me for a while, but for the last few weeks you get where i'm at... actually, i'm not just talking about the mundane yet essential tasks of everyday life but also about my prayer life...
i haven't always been super-dedicated to praying every day but in the past four years or so since moving to houston, my prayer life has really grown... let's be real, my spiritual life grew out of necessity. i took the job in houston because i had been broken up with by a guy i dated for 3 years, and he moved on with his life pretty quickly. i was alone and sad in new mexico... never a good combination. so 600 miles was as much distance as i could put between myself and the situation at the time.
one day i just realized that God was the only one who could help me. i stumbled around for a while--after being away from the Church during college--looking for a way to get back in touch with God. ironically, my love for studying Scripture was borne out of visits to a friend's baptist church. for about a year and a half, friends and family waited patiently for me to discover what it is that i was missing and thankfully, i realized that i was missing the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. and so i came back into the Church and hit the ground running, so to speak.
ever since then, daily prayer has become part of my routine--reading Scripture, journaling, going to Adoration, participating in daily Mass when possible. i have come to really enjoy and look forward to opportunities to pray.
this past semester was really hard on me mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. i felt like i was being put through the wringer, things were coming at me from every direction. i couldn't make time to complete my reading assignments for school and always felt behind... kind of like in a dream when you feel like someone's chasing you... except in my case, the people chasing me were my professors--two priests and an italian woman! not exactly the people you want chasing you! lol
i guess what i'm trying to say is that my priorities shifted out of a need to get things done for school. i would stay up late to read or write papers, then sleep in a little bit later to make up the difference, instead of waking up to read my bible or pray. i also used to do a 3 a.m. friday morning hour at Adoration, and i had to cut that out, too, because i was just exhausted.
all of this has been in my mind all summer as i've been trying to re-establish a routine to make time for prayer every day.
i had heard of spiritual dryness but had never experienced it... until now. i'm not trying to compare myself to a saint, but i'm learning that the saints really are the best role models for Christians to aspire to... aside from Jesus himself, the saints can offer great examples of sacrifice, endurance, faith, obedience, the list goes on an on... i came across the writings of st. teresa of avila and have been reading about how she, too, experienced desolation in her prayer... for YEARS she prayed and prayed and felt nothing but her own desire to be close to God.
i feel like that right now, like i'm wandering around the wilderness searching for God without a map. like i'm turning over rocks and looking in the bushes for God, and i know He's right there somewhere. a twitter-friend reminded me that what God asks of me is obedience and faithfulness in my prayer life. hmmmm.
even though i feel like i'm going through the motions of prayer without hearing God in my prayers, i know He's there. and like st. teresa of avila, i've got to power-though this dry time in my prayer life... if she can do it, i can do it too, right?
please keep me in your prayers... i really do want to converse with God like i used to... perhaps He is trying to teach me something during this difficult time in prayer? anyway, just pray that i learn whatever He wants me to learn and that i remain obedient and faithful to His calling.
have a great week everyone! :)
~crystal
p.s. - i'm about 3 weeks away from heading out to spain for World Youth Day! please pray for me and the other FOCUS participants... i learned some things about this trip that i'm kinda sad about (mainly, we're not doing the camino after all) and i'm trying to come to terms with that... i'm still incredibly pumped about going to WYD as this has been a dream of mine for about 15 years! thanks for the prayers...
