I have mentioned before how I have spent most of my life believing I had to earn God's love. This spirituality has helped me realize that God loves me always and completely, even when I sin and turn away from Him. It is still hard though for me to believe I do not earn God's gifts. For example, last week when taking a trip, the flight my husband and I were on was overbooked and the airline asked for volunteers to give up their seats, offering a travel voucher plus a direct flight to a city which just happened to be our final destination. Instead of flying on a 5 hour flight then having to get on another plane for 2.5 more hours, we flew 4 hours on a direct route. Plus, the flight we were supposed to be on ended up delayed getting in 5 hours past the original arrival time. PLUS, my suitcase made the exchange of airlines, which the attendant did not think would happen. Very special graces indeed! Yet, I still tried to put myself on a "deserving" pedestal for these bestowals. On our trip back home, we were again bumped from a full flight, as our assigned seats were claimed "broken" [we were never given an explanation of what that meant] and again received travel vouchers. We now have credits for future flights, which we can use for the future trips we have planned. God freely gave us special graces, which were certainly undeserved by us, His unworthy children.
It was by no mere coincidence that God had my prayer group reading the following section in the book The Gift of Faith this week:
"It sometimes seems to us that we should win God over, that we should merit His love. But He loves you because you are His child, not because you are worthy. Agape is love that creates, that loves you not because you are worthy of being loved, but to make you worthy of it. Agape desires to create an ever increasing good in you. Someone who has received special graces from God is surprised that these graces have been bestowed on him. But agape love descends on the unworthy - descends on us all - because we are all unworthy and we all need this creative love that creates good. The anguish for God, who is love, is that He cannot pour out His love fully, that he cannot boundlessly flood the human souls with this love. God is continuously seeking open hearts on which He may pour out His infinite love without limits." [1]
God has once again shown me how much He loves me and desires to bestow graces upon me - gifts I will never - nor can ever - earn. Slowly, my skewed thinking is changing. Makes me wonder how many other special gifts I have missed out on due to my closed heart. But also, makes me hopeful, that with my Blessed Mother WE can learn from these lessons, so WE can open my heart more fully to receive God's infinite love without limits!
[1] Tadeusz Dajczer, The Gift of Faith, 3rd. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012), 245.
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