This Difficult Sainthood Business

It's been one hell of a "season" lately.

Those who know me well know I don't say that lightly. My health continues to go down the pooper; I've made more appointments and gotten more sympathy from no-nonsense medical professionals than I know what to do with. But the only answers are guesses at best, the only suggestions shots in the dark. 

I'm tired. So weary. 

I'm told I hide it well, which I suppose is good and bad. I don't need to spend my days constantly weighing down the rest of the world with my woes, especially if there are good moments to be had [and there are, so much more than the bad]. 

But bad moments are also part of this reality. Some days, this endometriosis pain is just a real bleepword--no euphemisms or platitudes about it to soften the blow. The daily, sometimes hourly game of Russian Roulette ("will my body tolerate this food again or not? Will the pain be better or worse if I ____?") is physically and mentally exhausting. 

I look back at other times I've unloaded about how "tired" I was and I think, "ha kid, you've got nothing on the tired I know now. If only you appreciated being able to stress-eat an entire bag of Reese's while you had the chance." [As I longingly eye my kids' trick-or-treating haul]. But the tired then was as real as the tired now (which I'm sure I'll also begrudge as the 'good old days' at some point in the future).

The real of this current exhaustion is overwhelming these days, stretching before me, flanked on every side by needs. So many needs. The dying plants need me, the dirty dishes and bathrooms need me, the children need me, the unanswered emails and texts and needs need me. All the while, my own needs are mounting and my capacity to meet them is shrinking.

I believe in a God of miracles, big and small. I know His reasons for both healing and allowing suffering are grounded in eternal wisdom, and His decisions are made for the good of my soul and His kingdom. So I continue to accept divine providence even as I continue to pray for healing, uttering the words of Christ over and over, "Lord, take this cup from me" ...if, only if, it be His will.

Oh, but the discouragement that creeps in when it is hasn't been His will. I've begged and pleaded, outright yelled at God, made demands and asked desperate questions: What now? What more do You want from me? When will this end? And in a whisper: ...Will it end?  I've 'offered it up' for everyone and everything again and again and again (and still again - even when I think I simply can't, but I try one more time). The second it's given to me I offer the suffering right back and say, exhausted yet adamant "it's Yours, so here! Take it and use it already!" And in all this tired and desperate asking, balanced with all the willful deliberate offering, it sometimes seems like I'm only given a bitter plate of more in return. More suffering, more limitations, more unanswered questions, more trying to draw some meaning out of it, more wondering if there could be any good in this, spiritual or otherwise. I feel like the weariness of it could swallow me whole.

Yes.

Bone tired. Spirit weary.

Yet somehow in it all, there is spiritual good. And it has taken deep, deep root. It is present, palpable, like an eye in the center of the storm. Jesus and I, we've gotten infinitely closer. (Or, I should say, I have, since He's been there all along). My soul feels like a war zone, yes, but it's one where spiritual mountains are being moved, and a deeply foundational, eternal city is being built at the core of my heart. And in it, there are so many moments I have never felt more loved.

It's a strange, elusive thing, this paradox of suffering and love.

The seeds that were planted at the onset of this season when I first told God I would try to surrender more, they keep being fed. Most recently, it was the words of Laura's workshop that were a bolt of truth straight to the center of my soul. She mentioned that when we're tempted to criticize or despair in our worn-out bodies, we can instead offer ourselves back to Jesus with His own words: "This is my body, given up for you."

And oh, how starved I was for this truth. Yes, it speaks to the beauty of a positive self image - the sacrifice of our body given for the life of another in motherhood and the vocation of marriage. 

But even more than this, it is a small shard of truth I can hold onto when I am once again in the fetal position, crippled by pain, at the mercy of a broken body that is derailing my ability to do both the things I want and even the things I don't. When I cannot see past the agony of the here and now, when I cannot fathom any possible good that could result from my present state of suffering, it is this whisper of a prayer that reminds me that even if I can't, my God still can -- if I but offer myself to Him. 

"This is my body, given up for You."   

It has also helped me see how stingy I still am in the giving, in this whole deal of striving for sainthood. Yes, I give--but reluctantly, selfishly, hoping for relief in return. I want the perks of an eternity in paradise, but gosh, I don't want to travel a single step of the hard path to get there unless it is forced on me.

This really hit me when we were talking about saints this past weekend in preparation for All Saints Day. "If you could be any saint," we asked the kids, "who would you pick and why?" I was promptly distracted, though, by the realization that all my heavenly role models dealt with suffering much more turbulent than mine and also endured a rather appalling death. I tried to think of any I could choose who might have led a pretty comfortable, uneventful life -- without much luck at all.

UGH. 

Not the lesson I was looking for.  

But these Saints were not dissuaded by their reality, because they loved God more than their own lives. 

This attitude is something that has taken [is still taking] me a long time to comprehend: to love like the Saints means to love like Christ; to love like Christ means to love at the expense of your own comfort, up to and including giving your very life.

Have you read the writings of any saints? In the midst of their beauty, sometimes I can't help but shake my head in bafflement at their words. They count suffering as joy [St. Paul], they wish to suffer for Love's sake [St. Thérèse], they choose martyrdom of their own free will [St. Maximillian Kolbe], and that's just the start. It's crazytalk. (Also known as heroic virtue--but clearly I still have a ways to go to make that leap). Of course, I wouldn't for one moment trade the spiritual depth I've gained from my increased suffering. Nor would I voluntarily choose it. I don't ever want more, even if I know it could well result in great spiritual fruits.

But somehow this saintly crazytalk which has always caused me to recoil is seeming less crazy the deeper I'm plunged into the reality of my own suffering. Though small compared to others, my suffering is still a heavy cross for me indeed -- yet the more I carry it as cross versus curse, the more meaning comes from it; the more the Saints make sense, the more I catch a glimpse of God's eternal purpose which, through the lens of my usual selfishness, is so clouded and obscure. 

"This is my body given for you."

I still pray for physical healing. I'll continue to seek medical treatment. I definitely won't be going in search of suffering -- and neither did the great Saints. But I want to respond more like them when I do inevitably encounter it. I want to not be so afraid of suffering I let my fear of it rule over my life. Like the greatest Saints, I want to be able to see it as simply another tool at my disposal to incline my soul toward heaven. 

Yes, I want, with my words and my actions, to want to be in that number. 

To better live the truth: that to love like Jesus means to pour out every last drop of myself for love of the Father, even when I wouldn't choose to, until there is literally nothing left. Nothing, that is, but the kind of death to self that by its very nature breathes a soul to true Life. 

And when I've been utterly drained to the last drop, I want to be open to the grace He has ready for me in reserve, the grace He desires to pour into my soul gently and steadily until it wells up into my weary heart and spills out into the world. I want to suffer better under my cross with my eyes more steadily on His cross, that I may be drawn more closely to the heart of Christ and lifted by pure Love.

So to Love who said to us, "this is My Body, which is given for you," to the Saints who offered their entire lives in the light of His example, to the God who gave me this corporeal life, filled with joy as well as suffering, I will try to better offer the same:

This is my body, given for You, Lord. Through it, may I allow you to mold me into a Saint.