I don't know if any of you readers recall this, but I've mentioned before that there are FOCUS missionaries on my school's campus, and that I attended one of their regional conferences last year. I also don't know if you'll remember this, but I had a rough time at that conference. I had to face a painful truth about my relationship with my parents, and it weighed on my heart very heavily as well as testing my commitment to Christ and my faith. Bearing this in mind, you might wonder why I would be tempted to go on another one, especially one aimed at teaching FOCUS student leaders (which I am not) how to evangelize on campus. Quite frankly, I wonder that too, having returned less than 24 hours ago from that same conference where I again had to face a painful truth, this time about my relationship with Christ.
One of the seminars I attended this weekend was about how to evangelize effectively on campus by being able to build relationships with people and assess where they are in their faith relationship and where they think they want to be, and where they think God is calling them to be. One of the tools we were given is called The Discipleship Road Map, which describes different stages in a person's spiritual life, where they are on the road of discipleship with Jesus. As a non student leader I don't anticipate finding this particularly useful for others, since I am not evangelizing in the same way the student leaders are, however, it did come in handy for a little bit of self-evaluation.
Initially, when we were asked to place ourselves in one of the categories of discipleship, I put myself firmly in the "Growing Christian" camp. I met the profile of the "True Convert", and I have amended my life in the past year or so since coming back to the Church to behave in a more Christ-like manner. This doesn't really sound bad, but when I'd read over the entire chart, I realized that last year I might have considered myself a "Disciple", meaning that I was sharing the Gospel message with others, and that I was willing to make any sacrifice for Christ. It was difficult to look at this chart and admit to myself that I appear to have regressed in my spiritual life as a result of the dryness I've been experiencing lately. It hurt to know that though I could not control the timing or severity of the dryness, I was still fully in control of how I reacted to it, and for the most part that has not been well.
When asked to share with a partner how we had evaluated ourselves, I told mine this and proceeded to admit additionally that because it looks to me like I've been regressing from a spiritual high point, it's been excruciatingly difficult to face myself, my spiritual director, and God. I cannot help but feel as if this backsliding has been mostly my fault, and so I don't want to have to face myself and admit what seems like a defeat of sorts. My spiritual director also knows that last year was a high point for me, and he was always happy to prudently encourage me to grow in grace and faith as well as self-discipline, a quality I still need to work toward achieving. This year, however, my struggles in prayer and faith and my inability to do much of anything about them have made me want to talk to him about my situation less and less, because I know that if I were him, I would be disappointed about what has happened in my spiritual life. Much like everyone else, I hate disappointing people I admire, especially those who challenge me to grow because they have faith in me. Finally, I find it nearly impossible to face Christ, who has given me more than any human could repay, even given infinite resources and eternity to do so. To me, this regression is akin to failure, as if I could have done something to prevent it and I was either too obtuse or lazy to do it, and so I feel like I have disappointed Christ, who never abandoned me.
Thankfully, though, part and parcel of discipleship is taking up one's crosses to follow Christ, and I listened to a few talks about the necessity of bearing hardships in order to bring others to know God, and to advance His Kingdom on earth. Most of the analogies in these talks were put in the perspective of a relationship, typically the speaker's relationship with his family. He would talk about how whether it be with his wife or his children, the essence of that relationship was loving the other person more than himself. Having to get up in the middle of the night to discover a toddler playing with all his toys and sipping on an espresso he learned to make himself, changing diapers almost constantly because of a baby's tummy troubles, even giving in when he and his wife disagree on some nonessential thing were all sacrifices he made for the other person in the relationship because he loves them and is willing to put their needs and desires before his own. Love for another person is not always an easy, pretty, or desirable thing, but if it were, it would not truly be love.
This I realized this morning as I was looking back over the night before. Just as at last year's FOCUS Conference, I broke down in Adoration. I had spent a few minutes with a prayer team, asking them to pray for me to receive any kind of consolation the Lord was willing to give, and I wished desperately that I could feel anything. I couldn't, and so when they were done praying over me, I returned to the area where I had been sitting and cried in front of the monstrance. The similarity to last year was not at all lost on me, and so I looked up at Jesus in the Eucharist and asked if this was going to be my experience. Was I to be relegated to spending some time each year weeping over my faith? Was this to be the substance of my discipleship? I desperately hoped not, but obviously could not answer. However, I said to Him, if this was going to be something He wanted me to do, then I would accept it, and ask in return only the strength to be able to cry when I had to and carry on following Him. It was not a freeing moment. In fact, it felt much more like resignation than anything else.
What hit me this morning was the fact that this is love. When I confided in one of the missionaries on the trip back to Washington, he mentioned that part of love is not loving the other as you wish to, but loving them as they need to be loved. Just as Christ desired Teresa of Avila to love Him through a white martyrdom of dying to self in contemplative life rather than the red martyrdom she so desperately wanted as a small child, perhaps He was telling me how He wanted me to love Him, and it didn't fit the way I wanted to love Him. Perhaps this wasn't necessarily a regression, but a teachable moment in both discipleship and relationship, albeit a painful one.
You see, what I didn't realize until this morning is that love is not the warm fuzzies you get at the beginning of a relationship. Love is a consistent and willing sacrifice of self for the good of the other. Love perseveres when it is difficult to do so, when it is inconvenient, when it is undesirable, when it hurts. Love does not take time off to seek itself, because it is a commitment. Love is something you work at day in and day out because you are never done loving. Each day is a choice to love again, even if you don't feel like it. This is a tough pill to swallow as a young woman who is essentially still a girl, but I assume that it's part of growing up to discover that things are not always how you want them to be. Like anything worth having or doing, love does not come easily, and you have to make a serious commitment if you want it to work.
This discovery did not end my dryness. I still have no indication of when or if it will end, and though that is frustrating, I am willing to accept it. I say all the time that I love God, and I suppose that now He is calling me out to prove it. It is not a pleasant experience, but it is a necessary one. I don't particularly like it, but I want the fruit I know it can bear. Given enough time, I imagine that I will receive some sort of consolation, and the missionary with whom I spoke informed me that because of what I'm going through now the consolation will not be or feel the same. As with any other relationship, this is one of the sacrifices I am called to make for my beloved, and I will do it. Jesus said that anyone who loved Him would keep His commands, and He commanded that if anyone desired to be His disciple, he should deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him. I can't say it for certain, but I think that's what I'm trying to do. I think I'm trying to say, "Jesus, I love you."
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