Spiritual accompaniment

Easter: Christ has risen!

In Christ’s resurrection, we are offered transformation. 

We – in and of ourselves – cannot transform ourselves into the fullness of who we are meant to be.

….This is the fourth Lenten season in a row when I have experienced medical challenges – surgeries, etc.   This year, I broke my left foot on March 19^th.  

After March 19, I continued falling (mishaps with crutches, etc.).   In addition to a broken left foot, I subsequently sprained my right foot.  Ended up with medical boots on both feet.   Then….On the morning of April 6, I fell again (two boots makes navigation difficult).    I sent an email to a couple people about this, ending the email with “Anger doesn’t begin to describe…..”   One person replied with insightful observations about surrender.

It’s true.  I know it’s true – I reach such a point of surrender-to-God in 2016 with a subsequent transformation in 2016 (that surrender involved a homily at an Irish mass and a broken ankle!).

For Christ to truly transform us, we have to surrender ourselves and our greatest difficulties to God.

Surrendering doesn’t just mean some limited-scope prayer to God and “hoping” that something positive will happen.   It doesn’t mean we hang onto some aspect of what we supposedly surrender – as if what we surrender still somehow belongs to us.   No.   True surrender means that we no longer have possession (ownership) or control.

True surrender comes when we surrender our hardest challenges.  The challenges we don’t tell people about.  Challenges that we somehow feel tied to…..  Challenges that are eating away at our very being.

When we truly surrender these aspects of our lives to God and allow God to do whatever God wants to do (WE DON’T KNOW WHAT GOD’S GOING TO DO!), true and life-giving transformation of our very selves happens in and through God.  Galatians 2:20:  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

It’s Easter, Christ has risen!   A great time to surrender to experience transformation offered by the Risen Christ.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).