Pearl of Great Price

 This week in atrium I was presenting the parable of the Precious Pearl to one of my children. It's important, in the materials for this parable, that the pearls that the merchant sells and the pearl of great price are the same size. The little girl asked, "why would he sell all these just for this one?" And I said, "Hmm, I wonder. What do you think?" She thought about it for a second and she said, "I would never do that, that's ridiculous!!" And I agree. The God we serve is absolutely ridiculous, outrageous, scandalous in His love for us. Thank you to little Grace for reminding me.

This week in prayer I was thinking about how many modern men think they can get to Heaven by "being a good person." It's very interesting to me that Catholics get accused of believing in works as a means of salvation, when our country, which was founded on Protestant ideals and was actually quite hostile to Catholics, is now full of people who think they'll go to Heaven because they're not Hitler. The Lord reminded me that He came to call sinners, and that only the sick have need of a Physician. "Good" when applied by a man to himself is relative and no one is truly GOOD but God alone. We don't get to go to Heaven by being less bad than Hitler, and we don't get to go to Heaven just by being kind to others. We have to respond to Jesus's invitation to drop our nets and come after Him: to enter into the rest of the Father. 

I'm wrestling a bit with waiting. I feel like I spent all of my 20s waiting for the Lord to reveal my vocation to me. I've tried to spend my 30s so far more concerned with being obedient to the present moment. I want to give the Lord permission to move. I want to get out of His way and see what He can do.