Tenderness and Relationship with God

[Mark Dohle]

Tenderness and Relationship with God

January 20—Le Fresne church. . . . “Don’t be afraid of being too tender. Or of saying too much to your beloved. Complain about yourself. Say to Him, ‘When will You heal me, My great friend, of this or that?’ So many things in you are unworthy of Me. Humble yourself as you think of this. Hide all your ugliness in My heart. It’s a hospital, you know, and doesn’t one sometimes come out of a hospital cured? Trust in Me with all your heart since I am your great friend. You remember the keynote for the year, ‘Hope in Me.’ My help never comes to an end, and I never cease to watch over you. I am infinite and I am love. So lose yourself in Me, trusting Me to guide you. Be the little blind child who skips joyously because he is holding someone’s hand. Oh, learn to be joyous since you are Mine and open your heart to fullness of peace. Keep your glance ever ready for Mine. Don’t let anything preoccupy you unless it be your work for My kingdom.”

Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I (Kindle Locations 1910-1914). Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition.

Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I (Kindle Locations 1907-1910).
Pauline Books and Media. Kindle Edition.

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I have trouble with tenderness, the feeling makes me feel vulnerable, or without defense. Perhaps that explains so much about my own issues with God. I will often say to myself, or when praying, express to God that I seek deeper union. Yet, often, more often than I like to admit, I will often find some excuse not to pray, or to even give God a glance. This points out that I really do have a way to go. Perhaps I will live to be 200 and by then it will work itself out. However, I doubt it.

I can be very brittle inside, at times haunted by anxieties that I do not know where they come from. Some of it is my fear that things will fall apart, or like the saying goes: “The center does not hold”. It is based on a fear of chaos, and even worse, in my case, ‘nothingness’. I can’t really tell you what “nothingness’ consists of, since I am not sure it can be understood, any more than the concept of the ‘infinite’, for some that means ‘God’.

I remember when a young child, and into my early teens, upon waking in the middle of the night, would have this intense feeling that I was both ‘nothing’, as well as ‘infinite’. I feared them both and would say around 11 and younger, would run into the living room seeking some company. Usually my Mom, who liked to read through much of the night. I would try to tell her what I felt, but nothing could really be said. What can you say about ‘nothingness’, well nothing. About the infinite, well perhaps it being ‘no-thing’ is the twin of ‘nothingness’.

This would express itself on how I would relate to certain topographies. For instance, when around 5 years of age, I believe, my parents took us to one of the caves for a tour. This was near St. Louis, Mo. In the cave, they had a deep small pool of water. In the water were lights that would go down in a row deep into the well. It seemed endless, without bottom, and I went into a complete panic. I thought if I would fall into it, I would sink forever and disappear…..a fear of nothingness. My mother took me outside in order to calm me down.

As I get older, and as my wrestling match continues, I find that God is winning, and for that I am grateful. Yet, when I experience God’s tenderness, I find my inner self changing, melting, being reformed, or unformed into something I do not know. This fills me with dread, as well as anticipation.

As trust grows in God’s revelation of ‘Agape’, my fears will creep up and try to protect me, or perhaps a better way to look at it is to keep safe within my refortified cell. The door is heavy, the lock inside, yet it has never slammed shut, I don’t want that. My soul is like a desert, tenderness from God is the water, the life-giving water than I seek. Even if I do fight it.

So I pray to grow in love. Over the last few years, to my surprise, I started to pray to ‘die of love’. It sounds very sentimental I know, but there is nothing maudlin about real love. Look around, and see how truly loving people live! Not always a site that is attractive, but yet it is also something we all long for. For it is love that does heal, gets me out of my head which is always overthinking things, and this overly long essay does points to that.

Yet, God’s love still pursues me, and I would think, all of us, nothing special about me. Of course, I am unique, but we all are, each of us a beloved child of God. More than can be understood, so perhaps one reason I long for and fear the Infinite, is that I can’t control it, manipulate it, or even find ways to shut it out. I can metaphorically speaking, turn my back on God, but that seems absurd and well, for me, a stupid thing to do.

God exists, I can’t make myself believe otherwise, so I have to find a way to deal with this Infinite Love, and the best way is to abandon myself to this love, even if I do not understand, and even if I at times fear what I do not understand. I do understand isolation, fear, hate, but love, well I am still in the first grade. –Br.MD

“My help never comes to an end, and I never cease to watch over you.
I am infinite and I am love. So lose yourself in Me, trusting Me to guide you.”
Bossis, Gabrielle. He and I
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