Taking life seriously.

Facebook can be a blessing and a curse. While I absolutely LOVE having the ability to keep in touch with faraway friends as if I was close, alongside being able to get information to loved ones about what's going on with us, I get really annoyed when I find out things I didn't want to know about other people... or when I hear things that make me sad about the direction someone's life is going. Worse yet, when I offend someone with it.
Using it, like any other "conversation," is a situation that can be either edifying or wasteful, even sinful. It's up to us how we use it. I'm certainly guilty of using my status updates and tweets to complain, when I could be encouraging someone. Or to talk about parenting, instead of actually parenting. It's all in how we use it.

Yesterday, one of my Facebook friends, a person who I have worked with and labored in prayer over on an unusual haunting, had a status update that left me basically confused. If it was about what I thought it was about, it was really disturbing, but she was unclear so it became a source of confusion. I prayed about it and hoped that it wasn't what I thought and that she would elaborate to clarify so I would feel better about it.
Today, I came home from Church really fired up about the Eucharist, and really thankful for prayer. In the homily (By a priest who has a tendency to reuse homilies and not necessarily pour himself into them) I was surprised and thankful to find a wonderful, clear reminder of the vitality of prayer-- that prayer alone enables us to SEE Christ and find Him in our daily situations, in the people around us. For that reason, prayer is essential to the spirit and something which cannot be ignored. If you want to know God, if you want to feel His presence, if you want to experience His love, pray. We all need this.
I thought about what prayer has done in my life, and the lessons I have learned that taught me how and why I should pray. In particular, through ministering to persons in need of deliverance I have learned that often earnest, sincere prayer is the only thing you can "do."
So I was very upset when I came home from Church fired up about prayer to discover that someone who had asked me for prayer and over whom I have labored--and I mean labored-- in prayer was basically not taking any of it seriously.
This is a person for whom I have sacrificed what costs me most as a mother: my sleep, my time, and my attention. These things are so hard to come by for me, and yet I felt it was worth it to stretch myself thinner for this person because I couldn't be like everyone else in her life, just sit by and shrug and say: "Not my problem."

Even today, long after this person had left us in the dust of their crisis, I continue to pray for them daily, offering up little sacrifices here and there and hoping for a peaceful, righteous resolution to a situation that has really been tough for all people involved.

That seems to always be why my husband and I put ourselves out there for people who are experiencing a demonic problem, whether we feel it is legitimate or not. First, because if someone asks for our help, we are going to do what we can for them. We care about people, and want them to be happy and well for eternity.
And second, if we don't, we don't know who WILL-- often times these people are involved in things which absolutely terrify them, which they want to figure out but which other people won't touch with a ten-foot pole, and very often their natural curiosity and/or desperation will get them into further trouble-- often leading them where there was no real demonic activity to a place where there is a serious threat that needs to be addressed for the sake of their souls.

I am overwhelmed by a pull I feel towards people who are scared and experiencing a haunting. I have been there. I know the fright, the exhaustion, the fear and amazement, the furious hunt for answers. If I can help someone like that, I will always do it.
The question, then, is how? In the past, it has meant many different things, and I expect it will continue to be like that, as each situation is as unique as each individual. Sometimes, all I need to do is sit in my house and pray. Other times, people want to be reassured when they are frightened, which can mean going to their house to comfort them or simply being available by phone or email, sometimes all night long. Often, priests and pastors want someone to come with them because they are nervous or uncomfortable in a situation. In the past year, it has been made clear to me by my wifely, motherly, and Carmelite vocation that my main apostolate is prayer-- and because it is only through prayer that these things can be addressed, I am grateful that that is sometimes all that I can "do."

For this person, however, I felt that I had really gone above and beyond what I was not only inclined but really "able" to do, driving myself- and my husband- to the point of exhaustion. I also happen to know that this particular case has frustrated at least four diocesan priests and our Bishop, alongside several Catholic families who have tried to help. Because of this, when I read this particular status and then later had it confirmed, I was both fuming mad and hurt.

Mad because the battle between good and evil is not a joke. Those of us who have been knowingly touched by evil will never look at the world quite the same way again.For someone to have experienced something like that and then to be able to just brush it off and take their religion lightly-- well, that makes me angry. SOULS are at stake here. For ever. This is not a game.

And hurt because I saw all the hours of prayer and sacrifices I had made on behalf of this person just evaporate with no fruit--- I couldn't believe that after all that not sleeping when I was in DESPERATE need of sleep, all those lengthy, repetetive phone conversations I had when I could have been cleaning, or resting or enjoying my family, all those times that I made myself stay up to pray rosary after rosary... all that, it seems, for nothing. It feels like total rejection of the worst kind-- and cast a shadow of doubt for me over my vocation. Why was I bothering with these people if they were not only ungrateful but UNCHANGED- If not worse off?

So there I sat, checking and re-checking this status to try and understand all the while weeping some pretty bitter tears of sadness and confusion. My husband happened to walk by and shook his head. "Are you still crying about that?" he asked. I nodded. He cracked a smile and said to me:
"Look, I hate to be campy, Barbie, but what does this remind you of?" He had picked my rosary up off of desk next to me and was dangling the crucifix in front of my nose. I shrugged and sniffled.

"It sounds just like what Jesus did." And he dropped it on the desk and walked away.

I sat there feeling utterly foolish. He was right!

Our Lord is amazing... he endures this for each of us -- including me--- on a daily basis. I could just see Him in heaven, saying.... "I sweat BLOOD for you! I was NAILED to a cross. It was excruciating. Even today I am interceding for you before my Father. Why won't you take me seriously??"
Those of us who pray daily: "Lord, make me more like You and less like me" should rejoice in a situation like this.... and continue to pray and make sacrifices for people like this person, who, so far, has greatly disappointed us. We are called to be Christ to people. But only The Christ knows where this person's heart will be tomorrow, next year, ten years from now. May it be close to his own.