Great Benefits of Being Quarantined

Let us use this idea of being “quarantined” to have a great encounter with God. From a young age I had to learn how to listen to God (my life depended on it). To save my life I fled at 18, the day after I graduated from High School, my Father (with a gun in his hands) was threatening to kill me.

I went to God in my special place by the family lake, asked God what to do, said good-by to my horse and fled. Yes, I went wayward for years but know it was God who saved my life. I lost my home, God was my home. He called me to come home with his voice of love.

And then so many times in my life-being saved from others that were threatening to kill me in bars, on the streets…so many times God rescued me through his still small voice. And then cancer, 3 brain surgeries. He met me — He was right there! I felt him, heard him, saw him as I felt his love pouring into my life. He gave me the strength to get up with joy and live my life abundantly. I remember, memory is indeed an exquisite gift from God. And now as I remember how he met me my soul is nourished.

Today, we are ALIVE!!! We are Breathing! JOY is here right now! Available to all who will take and see the Lord is good! Let us enter into solitude with delight and a great expectation for more of God. I have to be honest, I LOVE solitude. I see, I hear, I experience God’s presence in solitude.

Is solitude an easy solution to our ambivalent relationship with God? No, solitude is not the solution. It is a direction. Let us remember Jesus chose solitude as the place to be with his Father. When we enter into solitude we withdraw from our windy, stormy fiery lives and open ourselves to a divine encounter. The first thing I discover in solitude is my compulsiveness, restlessness drivenness, the urge to act quickly is replaced by a deep abiding peace….peace, joy and love-they become my new normal.

As today, this day in which we stand let us say as St. Patrick did: Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, and Christ above me. Let us persevere as we hear his gentle voice, feel the gentle breeze as we come to know the Lord of our heart, soul and mind, the Lord who makes us see ourselves as we really are.

“Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! “(Psalm 66:20, NIV)