Daughter of a Perfect Father

I've begun reading a book that has made me think a lot more about certain issues. It's honestly a book that I very much needed and so I'm thankful to the person who lent it to me. I'm not done yet. I still have half the book to go through. Unfortunately I don't have time to just sit and read. But there are a few things which I would like to discuss.

We live in a society that is quickly corrupting. I was talking to an old friend Sunday afternoon over coffee and we were talking about how humanity is quickly losing what you may even dare to say its "human-ness". Loving your neighbor as yourself is a concept that is so foreign to daily life. She, at the moment, is struggling with her faith. Not in God, but in the faith she grew up in. She no longer wants to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints but she cannot openly state that. It pains her to know that her family and friends will shun her. I personally can't wrap my mind around that concept. I know what the LDS church teaches and so I understand where the sadness would come from. The disappointment. The fear. But the anger and resentment? That I can't rationalize. I have no problems with Mormons. None whatsoever. They do a lot of things right. So this isn't about bashing a church I do not belong to. But what my friend was telling me just made me think. This is not a Mormon problem though. This is a human problem. An issue with us believing that "we're" right and "they're" wrong. A fundamental concern that we are not loving each other the way we are loved. I am confident that God does not look at me and see a Catholic and then looks at Jamie and sees a Mormon (Jamie is not the friend I was speaking about earlier, just to clarify any confusion). He sees so much more. He sees everything and He loves us without any conditions. There is no "we" and "they"! We are all part of the body of Christ. We are part of the same human family. Are we not called to be Christ-like? To give our lives for one another without question? To love even those who wrong us? In fact to love them more? Difficult as it may be, it is not impossible. Christ is our example. But there is this huge disconnect. God is not in our lives. He has become obsolete. And to those who call on Him, how much of their prayers and beliefs are just words? St. Therese of Lisieux said that "Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love at which we do them." How much do we love? Or are we caught up so much in ourselves and our selfish tendencies?

We live in a world that is focused on the concept of "freedom from". Freedom from responsibility. Freedom from religion. Freedom from getting old, from gaining weight, from rules, from structure, from this and from that. But that's completely wrong. We have it all wrong. We should be living our lives with a mentality of "freedom to". Freedom to love. Freedom to sacrifice. Freedom to experience suffering without bitterness. Freedom to be joyful. Freedom to learn. Freedom to not compare ourselves to the person next to us or the depiction of beauty that the media falsely portrays to us. Life is not about self-gratification. It is not about running a constant race and trying to get to the finish line first. It's about having the freedom to live passionately and love unconditionally. Even in the midst of pain and suffering. Of unwanted circumstances.

The book I'm reading is based on trying to answer the question "who am I?" How do I define myself? By my certain titles? A sister? A friend? A girlfriend? A cashier? A student? A Catholic? An Extraordinary Minister? A lector? An usher? A core member? Even by just my name, Stephanie Marie Gonzalez? None of those say who I am. But that's how we think. Unconscious as it may be we define ourselves by our many titles. But we are so much more than our titles and functions. We're more than the roles that we fill. We are first and foremost sons and daughters of God. We need to start right there. If we do not fully understand that at the very foundation this is who we are our whole life we will be searching for an identity. Searching for a meaning. Years over years we will find things that fill that void. That give us momentary peace. However it always fades. It slips past us and we get back on the hunt, searching for something that can make us feel alive and complete. But God does not want that for us. We are meant for more than momentary. We were made for eternity, but we cannot reach that without Him. We cannot fully grasp what beauty is, what love is, what joy and happiness and peace is until we are secure in Him. Until we know that above all else, He is our Father.

I am more imperfect than most. I am a bigger sinner than probably everyone who reads this. I struggle every day with so many things. Especially with my self-worth. Loving others I have down but loving myself is the most difficult thing that I've ever attempted to do. Perhaps this is a part of the cross that I'm asked to carry. I do however know that in the eyes of my Lord I am made perfectly and because of that, I do know who I am and who I'm supposed to be.

Thanks be to God.