439th Meditation
“Surrender to Me all that wants to overwhelm you; I am your Father” (Inner Word).
Is it not a great contradiction if, in spite of knowing our Saviour and experiencing the goodness of our Heavenly Father, we still seem to be down and depressed in life? Do we not know where to go with our faults? Are we unaware of how willing God is to forgive them if we sincerely repent?
So why do we walk around despondent, why do we often lack natural and spiritual joy?
Perhaps we continue to carry burdens that we should have given to the Lord long ago. Indeed, He Himself tells us: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).
This does not mean that the crosses will disappear from our path. But how do we bear them, united with the Lord, or do we try to overcome them by our own strength?
How do we deal with melancholy and gloomy thoughts and feelings? Do we rush to the Lord to tell Him what is troubling us and allow Him to touch these feelings, softening them or even eliminating them altogether? Or do we give them a place in our soul so that they take root and diminish our joy of life, making us more and more depressed, damaging our soul and making us a burden to our loved ones?
Do we allow our Father to free us from these thoughts and feelings, or have we become so accustomed to them that they have a kind of “right of citizenship” in our soul?
The Lord invites us to come to Him with everything that burdens us, especially those thought constructs and emotional states that are directed against love, against life, against ourselves and against other people. Perhaps even against God Himself?
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” – St Paul exhorts us (Phil 4:4). But this will only be possible if we bring before the Lord all the morose and obscure states of our soul, all our shadows and sins! Our Father’s invitation still stands….