Good morning…
Last Monday, our Fab Five friend group shared lunch with nineteen year old Audrey DeShetler. Audrey’s nearly fifteen year cancer journey with neuroblastoma has brought her to a divine healing in recent months. “Audrey, you are well,” she sensed during a personal encounter with Jesus. Now she is living into the manifestation of God’s miracle.
Healing is happening. Small steps are evident. Audrey’s ability to yawn has returned. She’s walking more than using her wheelchair. She has regained her ability to sing. She’s growing a sustained ability to talk without losing her breath. She is not doing any cancer treatment or treatment for her damaged lungs, but she is doing a weekly regimen of physical therapy to help her regain her strength. She hopes to return to Notre Dame as a full time student in the fall.
“I’m just really impatient,” tenacious Audrey explained.
The word impatient reminded me of one of my favorite poems, so I sent it into our group text soon after we finished our lunch.
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Patient Trust by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ from Hearts On Fire
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
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Trying to digest the slow work of God, I think we can all relate to feeling impatient, in suspense and incomplete.
Like Audrey, will we accept the anxiety of “being on the way” and give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is truly leading us?
Do not forget to rejoice, for hope is always just around the corner. Hold up through the hard times that are coming, and devote yourselves to prayer (Romans 12:12, VOICE).
…Sue…
