Devotional Thought of the Day:

¹⁵  For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” ¹⁶  God’s Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children….. ²⁶  In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are. For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express. ²⁷  And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will.  Romans 8:15-16, 26 (TEV)

“The Cry to God as Father in the New Testament is not a calm acknowledgment of a universal truth about God’s abstract fatherhood.  It is the child’s cry out of a nightmare.  It is the cry of outrage, fear, the shrinking away when faced with the horror of the world.  Yet not simply or exclusively protest, but trust as well.”  ( From Celtic Daily Prayer, meditations Day 3)

He responded generously to Christ’s invitation to “take up his cross each day.” Escrivá’s aspiration, “In laetitia, nulla dies sine cruce” (In joy, no day without the cross) was a reality in his life.

In the last couple of days, i have had people marvel at the medical story of my life.  For readers that don’t know, I grew up knowing I live with a genetic time bomb.  Most died from it back then, without knowing they had it. Marphans turned you into a timebomb.  All of a sudden one day, their aorta disconnects from their heart, ti either tears or blows off, and they are dead.  Because they knew of it, and when the surgeries developed, I have had defibrillators put in , and replaced.  I’ve had two artificial valves put in, and my aorta has a sheath around it.

So I tick.  Which on Sunday led to people listening to the tick and saying “Crazy” (over and over – each one entering a room was made to listen to me – and that was each person’s response)

Last night, at a banquet for a crisis pregnancy center, several of the women wanted to touch my hand, because they considered me a walking miracle.

I’ve considered y situation over the years, more akin to a walking nightmare.  I’ve had many a night where I couldn’t sleep, and others where I ranted at God like a wolf baying at the boon.  I’ve dealt with every emotion common to man.  There was a break for a few years, then my son was born, to whom I passed on this struggle.  The pains and heart came back again, worse than ever, as I see my son examined every year.

If there is any depth to my prayer life, if there is any strength I have in facing these trials, it is because of the effect of prayer.  Not the recitation of prayers that were written for sharing on Sunday morning together.  Not the pious prayers of daily devotions.  But the prayers that arise out of my brokenness, out of my despair, out of my frustration with God, and with the complications of life.

No, the depth of prayer comes from those cries, begging for God to help us in this life of nightmares.  It may start like jeremiah, with a cry of anger, of protest, of WHY GOD!!! But that cry in all of its honesty, in all of its broken and barrenness is where we find the truth of Romans above.  That God is at work, that the Holy SPirit is comforting us, and conforming or translating our prayers, even with groanings that go beyond our ability to bring to our mind, to release from our hearts.

It is in those times when peace goes beyond our expectation.  When love fills our soul, when we know God is with us, caring for us.

I hate those dark days of the past, and I know some are coming in the future.  My body is broken, patched together and bionic, my soul suffers with it at times.  But I wouldn’t trade the one’s in the past for anything, for the result is, as described in the third quote – joy, and peace.   I will try to embrace the one’s in the future – with that hope, with that expectation.

For we know the heart of God, and He will sustain us.

Lord,  have mercy!

Coverdale, John F. (2014-07-09). Saxum: The Life of Alvaro del Portillo (Kindle Locations 2110-2112). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.