Remember God...

“In all your works,eiither at home or at the place of your service, do not forget that all your strength, your light and your success are in Christ and His Cross; therefore, do not fail to call upon the Lord before beginning any work, saying: Jesus, help me! Jesus, enlighten me! Thus your heart will be supported and warmed by lively faith and hope in Christ, for His is the power and glory unto ages of ages.”
St. John Kronstadt

I Don't Understand Me

…I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7:14-15, 20

Sometimes I do wish I would stop myself before I do dumb stuff. Nothing major or anything like that. But I seem to have the talent to do random nonsense that knocks me off my game, ruins my peace and sends me back to square one mentally.

Lord have mercy.

Someone Asked This Question Recently

Please understand that I am sincere and really want to know when I ask "why?"

What reasons are you grateful for? For what reasons are you grateful? I don't know LOL.

I'm in another "what difference does it make, if I can't manage to be faithful now, I will just be an unfaithful Orthodox person." mood.

I know this wasn't addressed to me but I have to respond. It's compulsive!

Honestly, though, I am so grateful to know what my path actually is. "Remember God. Say your prayers. Go to Church. Forgive your brother. Keep the commandments." I've heard that same thing so many times from so many people since I've studied Orthodoxy. For some reason, it was so complicated before. I had to be so careful that I wasn't doing this that or the other thing. That I believed this or that or didn't believe this or that. Blah blah blah ad nauseaum ad infinitum.

It's such a relief to not have to do anything but "Remember God. Say your prayers. Go to Church. Forgive your brother. Keep the commandments."

Even though it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

Now I have a map ((the words of the Fathers ancient and modern)), a light ((the Church and Her Traditions)), people to travel with ((y'all )), a connection with people who have already arrived ((the saints)) and a goal beyond "getting to Heaven" ((the aforementioned list)).

I love Orthodoxy!

And now I am crying. ~toddles off to find a tissue~

The Hardest Part

“Remember God. Say your prayers. Go to Church. Forgive your brother. Keep the commandments.”

Assimilating the Gospel

This seems to be the consensus.

I left on my trip to the monastery with one goal in mind: to find out how to live a life pleasing to God. Don't get me wrong, I don't think I am some kind of god-forsaken abomination or something like that but I do want to be more than average. I want to have the Lord look at me and say "Well done."

I've been struggling to figure out how to do this though. I've read so many biographies and theologies and theories and whatnot trying to figure it out. Then we went to the monastery and, as I said, my plan was to figure it out.

Fr Thomas Hopko is the presiding priest at Holy Transfiguration Monastery. His homily on the Sunday of our visit was on the calling of the believer. He said that all Christians have a calling, not just ordained priests or monastics ((who are not ordained, by the way, but are considered laymen)). The way to discover our calling isn't to wait for major signs from God. God, Fr Thomas said, will tell me what He has in mind for me. But He wants me to fulfill my original calling to become a saint first.

How do I become a saint?

Remember God. Say my prayers. Go to church. Forgive my brother. Obey the commandments.

Then I will know what He wants of me. His good, acceptable and perfect will for me.

And after that?

Remember God. Say my prayers. Go to church. Forgive my brother. Obey the commandments.

It's really that simple.

But it's the hardest part of the whole deal, you know?

Not One Word Lost

“Remember that not a single word is lost during prayer if you say it from your heart. God hears each word and weighs it in a balance. Sometimes, it seems to us that our words only strike the air in vain, and sound as a voice of one crying in the wilderness, no, no it is not so!….The Lord responds to every desire of the heart, expressed in words or unexpressed.”

St. John of Kronstadt

I read this quote today on the blog, Mind in the Heart and felt glad. Sometimes it is all I can do to just remember that God knows me so intimately that all I have to do is whisper to Him and He will hear me. I take so many things onto my own inadequate shoulders and try to figure them out in my head and wonder how this and that and the other things are going to work out...

Not my job.

And sometimes I just need to remember that when I am not praying, there are people praying for me. My friends and family, my priest, monastics, the saints gone before, the Theotokos. The communion of Saints is not just a nice concept developed to give us the warm squishies. It's real. And it's amazingly comforting when I feel like all I can do is reason, rage or weep.

I am so thankful.