To no surprise, and yet still surprising, there’s a lot that has gone on this past week that the Lord has shown me.
So much to process but what it all came back to was community and love.
The events
My sister just graduated from high school and had her prom. On the last day of her exams, I went to pick her up from our now alma mater. I was able to say hi to a couple of teachers who influenced my siblings and myself throughout high school. One of our favourite teachers, who taught philosophy and religion is retiring this year. In a way it really feels like the end of an era.
This week past I had all closing shifts at work. We also had a time crunch with the Sports Praise event (our competitions part of our Regional Youth Conference) to which I was one of the Competitions committee heads. It was really difficult not being able to attend most of the final meetings leading into this big area event, as most meetings happened during the evening when I was at work. I felt more useless than anything and felt like I was so far behind in the simple tasks as I was getting used to a nocturnal lifestyle.
I had to try my best to beat the night clock after one shift and was able to attend a SFC sisters household. It wasn’t anything deeply profound and in fact I showed up really close to the end. Still It was the first time in months I was able to see some of the sisters.
Finally came the big Canada Day weekend. We had our Sports Praise, to which I had to run away to drop my parents to the airport. Afterwards we had a birthday celebration for a sister in my household. That lead to deeper conversations with a couple of sisters and brother that I never had before. The next day I took my grandma to church, then had a friend come over and spend the evening with me. The holiday Monday after was spent with a few close high school friends before I jetted off to sleepover at another sister’s house to jump-start a two-day mission trip to Windsor.
The tip of the iceberg
*Breathe* woo, yea. Just recounting the highlights I guess the week held a lot more than I realized. What really made me connect everything though was when I woke up on the holiday, home alone, and my favourite rosary – made a 3rd class relic by the hand of St. Francis Xavier – was broken!
I must have fallen asleep while doing the rosary. But how did it break like that!?! It’s made out of metal links so I took the integrity of the physical rosary somewhat for granted. I looked at it and at first I thought, there’s no way you can just throw it away!!! It’s been blessed, it’s a third class relic, it was a special rosary in commemoration of the 100th year apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and also… I really liked this one!!!
After my melodramatic grieving moment (I even “cried” about it on the phone with my dad) I was able to properly assess the broken link and realize it wasn’t actually broken! Rather somehow it just became undone. Disconnected.
In a way I can see how that related to my life right now. I believe the Lord separated my rosary that I may pause and realize what I’m doing with my life. My prayer life and everything is constant, which is good, but I took it for granted at how far I’d come. Seeing the rosary separated as such, I knew the rosary itself was still good, but it was not able to serve its purpose in such a state. Likewise each aspect of my life I can look at as if it were a decade on the rosary. They all need to be connected in order that I may have a complete, harmonious and functioning life.
So I did my best to reconnect and fix my rosary. And to my surprise, when I reconnected and held it up, I couldn’t even tell where it was that I fixed. It was just a whole united unit again, ready to serve its purpose. Except now I knew its value and strength even better than I did before.
My point
I still have work to do in reconnecting and fixing my disconnection within my family, work, service, prayer and social life.
It’s not to say that any aspect is gravely suffering. In fact I saw how important it was to see my sister go through these milestones in her life. It was a proud accomplishment not just for her, but for my parents, for her teachers and her friends, and even myself. Because over the years, whether we knew it or not we were supporting and helping each other grow. Likewise having the CFC community to share the tasks of service, personal life victories and struggles is a blessing in a unique way as it is friendships and relationships rooted in Christ. As well having others to help in physical needs such as providing shelter, food and other amenities that make it easier/possible to go on mission helps to put into perspective and remind me that, no man is an island. Humanity needs community. The Holy Trinity is a community, and out of community comes love. Love is what keeps us going and provides a sense of purpose in our lives.
So I’m excited to try and connect all aspects of my life, that I may be truly whole and Christ centred. And out of it I know the Lord will show me His love, and I pray I am able to give all the love I humanly can back to God through living my life completely.
In Christ,
Meagan Webb