Prone to wander…

This week’s cover story in Time magazine is about a new book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. The book is a collection of correspondence between Mother Teresa and her confessors and friends over the course of her life. The article asserts that many readers will be shocked to learn Mother Teresa struggled with her faith and suffered an absence of the presence of God in her life for many years. The article is definitely worth reading and I plan to read the book as well.

What the book publishers are hoping is that readers are actually encouraged by Mother Teresa’s struggle. Here is a woman who was held up as a paragon of faith. She accomplished greater good than almost any other person in human history. She was truly selfless. All of this she did in response to a call from the Lord, and she persevered even when she no longer felt His presence emotionally. The editor of the book hopes people who feel similar things are encouraged to persevere as well.

In just the few excerpts I read in the article, I definitely feel that encouragement. As I said in the previous post, I feel like my faith is constantly wavering. Well, maybe not constantly, but there are regular intervals where I’m not really emotionally connected to God. During those times, questions often arise about His existence and my relationship to Him. It was quite an encouragement to read that am I not alone in those feelings. And that those feelings are no excuse to give up or leave the faith. It’s just a natural part of the Walk.

Skeptics will say (and have said) that the absence of emotion Mother Teresa felt (and I feel) is a wake-up call, proving “God” is simply an emotional response and not a real Being with whom one can have a real relationship. I can understand that opinion. It actually makes a good bit of practical sense. But since when is love practical?

I’m still thinking through a lot of this, so I don’t really know how to end this post. I’ll do it old-school and close with a hymn:

“Come Thou Fount”

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

Peace. Out.