Are you the one?

Are you the one?

A woman was searching for a birthday card for her husband.  She saw one that read. “Darling, you’re the answer to my prayers.”  Thinking this might just be the right one she opened it and read, “You’re not what I prayed for exactly, but apparently you’re the answer.”  How true to life.  We may pray for certain things and yet what we get may be quite different.  Is that any different from our experience of parenting?  We know in rearing our children that what they what and what they need are often two different things and that giving them what they want can sometimes be disastrous.

The Jewish people, John the Baptist included, expected a very different Messiah from the one they got.  Some wanted a fierce warrior king who would expel the Romans and rule the people righteously with a  strong hand.  Others, John included, wanted a fierce judge who would smack everyone into line.  All wanted the healing and liberation that Isaiah described.  But nobody, nobody expected Jesus.  He looked fairly, well, ordinary.  He did not force people to follow him rather he lured them, he spoke to their hearts.  What he wanted was not conformity to his rules but conversion to his way of loving. He calls, lures us today in the circumstances of life but don’t expect it to be ‘relaxed and comfortable’ rather he calls us into the fullness of life, and sometimes that takes a challenging path.

Loving Father, your desire is for us to come to fullness of life.  Give us the wisdom of your Spirit to embrace all circumstances trusting that Jesus our brother is there helping us.  We ask this in his name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris,