Get a Different IPOD

A long time ago (when I was in college), I was blessed to have a wonderful Franciscan nun as my spiritual director.  Her name was (and is) Sister Norma Jean. I almost exclusively called her "Marilyn" though, thinking I was quite clever. (Marilyn Monroe's name was originally Norma Jean...They both had about the same color hair, anyway). I still get Christmas cards from her signed, "Marilyn," so I guess she didn't mind. We met monthly during my senior year, and I remember how she would always start the sessions with almost the same question: "What is God doing in your life right now?" She trained me to look at the happenings in my life not as random, unrelated events, but part of a grander story between God and I, as He was molding me and showing me His love. Ah, but I was broken. Now, I suppose that's not a surprise. Most people have icky things that follow them around for years, and I was no exception.  I told her each month about how I felt like a failure, or how I strangely seemed to be sabotaging the most important relationships I had. I told her how personally I would take a slight from a friend, coworker, or other student, repeating the event over and over in my mind.  I had a wicked awful tendency to brood over injury and poor Sister Marilyn listened so patiently while I did it. But she never let me stay there. Over that year, she helped me start to see that what happens to us in a moment, is only a moment, but how we think about those things, can fill and define our whole lives. When we are in the silence of our own heads, we choose what tapes to play (or what mp3s to listen to). These tapes, these repeating words and images that we choose to think about ingrain a mode of thinking into our whole existence. They can either set us free, or make us victims and slaves forever. She always said to me: "Don't Play Those Tapes!" But generations are moving on, and colloquialisms must too, I suppose. Many of us have virtual IPODs full of narratives that we play over and over in our heads that bind our chains and hold us and others where we were instead of opening freedom, mercy, and forgiveness to us. I suppose you could sit down and proverbially weed through your IPOD and get rid of the old "tapes", but in this case, it might be better to upgrade and get a whole new perspective. You may wonder if the tapes you are playing (for yourself or for your children) are God's voice trying to convict you, simply your own, or the enemy's. Sometimes God does have hard things to say to us.  But these are usually changes that we know deep down that we need to make. God will never tell us that we are not worthy of love, or that we are a failure, or that we don't matter. Don't stay lost in the past! Get a new "IPOD" and load it with words that will free you and give you the peace to step into a new day with hope.  (Hint: the Bible is a great place to start!) "For I know well the plans I have in mind for you-plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope." Jeremiah 29:11

God's blessing on you and your family this week and always, ~Mandie DeVries Director of Religious Education