it's just an illusion

I’ve been having flare up symptoms for days now. Much like our seesaw weather in Oklahoma, I keep telling myself that I’m okay, then stepping back to add, all I need is to sleep more, or sleep better. Or perhaps just watch that I eat healthier. Things will change when the schizophrenic weather settles down. Or maybe I’d be in a better place if I would just, exercise more, rest more, pray more.

While all these things can and do affect my body, not to mention my attitude, the frustrating and eventual truth is that sometimes I can do all the right things and still have a flare up. That’s simply the nature of autoimmune conditions in general—or any chronic physical condition, for that matter.

The bottom line is that I’m not in control, not ultimately.

Not only that, but thinking that I am – or can be – is simply an illusion.

“The answer lies in understanding that it is these things - and these things alone, here and now, at this moment – that truly constitute the will of God. The challenge lies in learning to accept this truth and act upon it, every moment of every day. The trouble is that like all great truths it seems too simple. It is there before our noses all the time, while we look elsewhere for subtle answers. It bears the hallmark of all divine truths, simplicity, and yet it is precisely because it seems so simple that we are prone to overlook it or ignore it in our daily lives.”

 

~ Fr Walter J. Ciszek, S.J. 

[He Leadeth Me, p. 40]

“…the fullest freedom I had ever known, the greatest sense of security, came from abandoning my will to do only the will of God. What was there to fear so long as I did his will? Not death. Not failure, except failure to do his will. ‘For if God is with us, who can stand against us?’…For to know that he directed me in all my actions, that he sustained me with his grace, gave me a sense of peace and courage beyond description.”



 

~ Fr Walter J. Ciszek, S.J.
 

[He Leadeth Me, p. 158-9]