I have, in the past, compared my spiritual life to the Three Little Pigs. I know, weird, but for me it truly does put my journey to God into perspective.
In my initial coming to God and learning of His love and forgiveness, my house (ego) was made of straw. It was very wounded and fragile built with no foundation. In His mercy, God blew my house down so that I could see my misery and how much I needed Him. He covered me with His love and blessed me with the faith causing me to grow in relationship with Him.
I recognized at that time that I had to build my life on Him the rock, but sadly, mingled within the rocks are still our stones of self-love. We may not even notice they are there. We may think we are living our lives in accordance to God’s will, we may even get a spiritual righteousness, but the truth is, as good as our intentions are the ego still sneaks in and we begin to believe, as the Pharisees did, it is “us” doing any good we may do.
In His mercy, God once again demolishes our “house” (ego), this time causing not straw blowing on the ground, but craters which penetrate the depths of our souls for Him to reveal to us our misery and descend deeper into our wounds.
It is painful, and heart wrenching, but it is necessary if we are to truly die to self for Jesus and Mary to live in us.
The more our love for God grows (itself a gift) the deeper He descends. Yet, I know I can never love Him as I should. In the past I asked Mary to teach me to love Jesus as she does, but I have come to realize that is impossible and so instead now ask her to love Him in me. To adore Jesus in me, to comfort Him, to embrace Him, to honor and glorify Him, and to keep me out of her way.
This increased knowledge of my misery confirms in me my inability to achieve anything good on my own. My depths of self-love are always there sneaking in to all I do. As much as I try to live in their presence, my human nature is always there to get in their way. God in His mercy makes known to me my misery repeatedly, creating craters in my soul, so He can then descend into them to live.
As painful as it is I am very grateful for this destruction of my self-built “house”. I imagine there will be many more craters in my life as I journey through life. Despite my best efforts “I” am always around to get in the way of God’s dwelling in me. As I learn to embrace and be grateful for these deep wounds where Jesus and Mary dwell in me, knowing the love they have for me, I become more willing to let go of “self” (not without some great battles).
In the end, it is this dying and rising of Christs life in me, these very very craters, embraced and loved by Jesus and Mary where good can arise from.
