Get Beyond Your Story

I had a wonderful telephone meeting with my new life coach yesterday. She lives in California, where I grew up, and she spoke to several women and men and not just me. As she spoke I had to think of how wonderful and beautiful the day must have been in San Jose'.

Do you know the way to San Jose
I've been away so long...

The words kept ringing in my head. I closed my eyes and remembered the ocean. Not the Jersey Shore, the beautiful and rugged coast of the Pacific. Home. And I instantly had a nagging feeling that I may very well have walked far away from the person I used to be, who once - as a 16 year old - spoke to a panel of businessmen at a tobacco company about giving me money to take Bibles to Russia. Where had the girl gone who said, "God uses teenagers, because they are too young to doubt," ?

When had the fear of trusting God entered into my life? When had I stupidly decided that serving the will and temperament of people was so much better?

She asked us each a question about where we wanted to be. Everyone gave an excuse as to why it was everyone else's fault that they could not get there.

"My mom was pushy and vindictive when I was young...Still is...So I have to spend so much of my time just keeping her happy."

"I grew up in foster homes..."

"Everyone else is more successful because they have some magic ingredient I don't have..."

"I am afraid that I won't impress people."

(The last excuse was my own - but because I am an introvert, I kept it to myself and only volunteered that I now live in Pennsylvania).

"Everyone has a story," says the coach. "Get off your story and give your level best for once."

Interesting. If there was whining, I did not hear any.

Everyone does have a story, and I started to think about the people in my life whom I have had a problem with on a continual basis. But I could never quite pin down the issue that irritated me so fiercely. Then it hit me:

They all have tremendous, self-pitying stories that they love more than the life the were meant to live.

My story? It's that I always live other peoples' agendas. I help every little dog and pony show that comes along, hoping to high hope, that eventually if I make life comfortable enough for them they will have the ability to calm down and then, hear God's voice (instead of their own or their mother's/husband's/spoiled childrens') and start making excellent decisions for themselves. Maybe, I always think, they will stop whining to everyone in their path and stop taking so much energy from the lives of others. Energy they could be cultivating on their own.

This never works.

So, instead, I work on myself, and this is my conviction (and I circled it in red):

I want to live my life squarely for the purpose God created me for, and NOT according to everyone else's agenda and tightly held opinions.

I mean, this is what made me beg a group of tobacco salesmen for Bible money. They were my biggest supporters.

And guess what this instantly made me realize? That I am good enough to do this, because less of my story, means less of me, and more of Christ. And anything good in me, is really Him. So how can I lose in serving Him and not everyone else?

I am surrounded by an abundant amount of Grace through the Sacraments and prayer, through the mighty cloud of witnesses who intercede for my best, and through Christ directly in the Eucharist and just on a long walk where it is He, my dog, and me, my eternal desire to do the right thing. Although, on today's walk, I will struggle with my desire to live according to His purpose and not that of 50 other people.

And I must be good enough as I am, because as I am, Christ died for me - even though I was, yet, a sinner (and always will be).

"We did not come to be successful. We came to do the will of God." Blessed Mother Teresa on her ministry to the dying in Calcutta.

She could do anything, because her conviction was simply to serve Christ and leave all the success up to Him. Now that's a story worth listening to.

I serve Him alone, and He will handle how successful I am at anything I do. That really takes a load off it all. Makes the little rat wheel, I have been running on, stop spinning for mother, sister, brother, and friend.

So, here is my question for all my wonderful, brilliant readers: Are you living God's purpose for you? If your life sincerely sucks, is tremendously consumed with schedules and stress, if you do not know how to even answer this question...Chances are, you don't know your purpose, and maybe, you don't even know God.

And you can know Him and intimately. In fact, whether or not we know Him determines whether or not we spend eternity with Him.

Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."

This is what I said to the tobacco salesmen.