Call to the Work of God

Recently, my husband forwarded to me a link to a video interview of Fr. Michael, an Opus Dei priest. http://www.opusdei.us/ssec.php?a=3316

Then he asked me, "So, do you have a calling to join the Opus Dei?".

"I don't hear it", was my reply.

"That's alright. I will keep on praying that you get your calling." I wasn't excited nor interested. My impression was: it is a big responsibility and sacrifice. I am not ready to handle more.

My husband, by the way, is a "cooperator". Having studied in an Opus Dei university in Spain. He said it will make him really happy if both of us will become active in OD.

Today, I'm beginning to think his prayers are very slowly working, though I haven't told him yet. I find myself being more conscious of things going on around me and the why and how I do things. In several instances, I found myself doing work while consciously thinking that I am doing it for the glory of God.

No, not every work yet; not everything. But I can slowly feel little changes in me. And I'm getting more interested in knowing about the organization and how its members are.

Will I get my calling? Or if I am being called (cajoled) already, am I going to resist the call for the convenience of the "easy life", or will I lovingly and joyously succumb?

We'll see...

Loving Fully, Living Fully

5 a.m. - not my usual waking-up hour. Especially not on a Sunday in summer.

I wasn't planning to wake up anyway. Just a quick trip to the bathroom and I'm ready to go back to sleep. Lying on my right side, I found myself thinking and reflecting about certain things that have been happening in my life lately. The most significant one -- my relationship with my husband. For almost a month now, we have found ourselves in love with each other again -- so much in love; loving each other like we have not loved each other before; loving like we did back in 1996 when we were still single and love was new. Actually, more than that; much more. Now that we have been married for 7 years and have been together for 10 years, the kind of love we have has gone deeper.

But sometimes happy thoughts trigger sad thoughts. Yes, I love him more deeply now, in fact, more than I have ever loved anybody in my life. But then again, it's still not 100%. I'd say about 95%. And it's not that I'm not capable of loving him 100%.

The truth of the matter is, I know now for sure that I am capable of loving someone 100% -- and that's the scariest part. That remaining 5%? That's the coward me holding myself back. I'm scared shitless.

Pardon my language; I just couldn't think of any word right now that could describe how truly scared I am.

Just what am I scared of?

I'm scared that if I finally let myself go to love one hundred percent -- to love fully -- that a day will come and my love will be gone with all my heart taken along with it. I'm scared that love, and all the good things and wonderful feelings that go along with it will not be here for a long time. Some good things never last, they say.

Oh I know that love isn't just about feeling good. Romance is just one of the nice things about it, one of the icings on the cake. Love is so hard to describe; my entire vocabulary and my limited ability of expression won't do it justice. I'd simply say love is like a bed of sweet-smelling pink roses -- long stemmed, with all the thorns in it.

Oh yeah. That's what makes love so good. All the joys as well as the sorrows, the highs and the lows, the pleasures and the pains, the rejoicings and the grievings, the laughters and the tears, the arguments and the agreements, the talking, dancing and the singing as well as the stillness and the quietness, the sins againsts and the reconciliations with God, the abundance and the scarcity, the friends and the adversaries, night and day, winter, spring, summer and fall --- all of these and more, experienced together, shared with each other. And experiencing all of these is experiencing life.

Love is Life. I understand now how truly good true love is. And I am truly scared that one day I will be staring at absolutely nothing -- love gone.

And when love is gone....it's like life taken away.

But isn't loving fully living fully??

And just what is better than living life to the fullest?

hmm...

I am not ready to face these questions yet and neither the answers and consequences that go with it.

It's now 7 a.m. I could still go back to bed.