Totus Tuus

Vulnerable.  I have been feeling extremely vulnerable… and I hate it am honestly so scared. At the risk of sounding a bit over-dramatic (for possibly even this entire blog post… so please spare me of your judgments,) I am afraid of having the Lord be too real with me in this discernment.

Now that the year is coming close to the end, I am now at a point in my discernment where the Lord is challenging me to be specific. If  I desire a specific answer, then I must be specific in my prayer intentions. (Duhh, Jessica!) However, for me… it’s not all that easy. This is because if I am specific with my questions and thus expect a specific answer in return, then what happens if His answer isn’t what I want to hear? That’s what scares me.

I am the type of girl who always has a plan. I have plans A-Z all figured out in my head, and if plans A-Z doesn’t work, that’s ok… because I will always have plans AA-ZZ. If you look in my planner It’s colour coordinated and filled with lists and dates. If there’s at least one thing that I’ve learned this year, it’s that the Lord’s plans are often much different than our own:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

For the past while I’ve really been unpacking this anxiety and what it stems from. I began to ponder… “If I don’t have all these plans, if I don’t have any self-security, if I don’t have the affirmation I seek from those around me, if I don’t have these worldly things, then what does that make me?” All that kept on repeating in my head was, “vulnerable, vulnerable. No one wants to be vulnerable!”

However, one night I was praying in front of the crucifix in my room. The Lord truly unveiled to me that our posture of surrender must not only be of joy and love, but also vulnerability. As I stared at Jesus nailed to the cross–covered in blood and beaten with a crown of thorns placed on His head–I couldn’t help but ponder just how vulnerable He must have been. In our calling to Love more  the Lord calls us to be vulnerable just as Christ was. I realized that in having both His hands nailed to the cross, His arms were wide open, as if He was preparing Himself to offer His loving embrace and mercy to those who come to the foot of His cross. It is in this encounter that His inexhaustible love and mercy literally pours out for us.

So If I am stripped of these all these plans, these worldly things and this selfish security, then yes, it does make me vulnerable. Even more so, it puts me in a position that ‘I must die to thineself’ on my own cross. But it is in my vulnerability that I become totally Yours and experience the fullness of Your love.

In retrospect, that’s all that should really matter. In all that I say, think, and do–I pray, oh Lord, that it may continually lead me to being totally Yours.

Jesus, King of Mercy, I trust in You.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.

Amen.

LOL. p.s. sorry… this reflection is a bit old. It took a while to bring myself to share it. I realize now that it should have been shared before advent. But perhaps then the Lord is asking you to prepare yourself to be vulnerable this advent season so that you may experience the fullness of a real relationship with the Lord.