Giving Our All To Mary (And Receiving Her All In Return)

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Life is hard. It seems like everything is a struggle. We struggle with our families and friends, we struggle at our jobs or even finding a job, we struggle with our weight, we struggle with our finances, we struggle with our health, we struggle with our fear of impending doom in the world, etc., etc., etc., In short, we struggle with life! We have moments of pleasure here and there, but for the most part, everything is an uphill climb and just when we seem to get to the top, another huge mountain is staring back at us.

Life is even harder when you try to live as a follower of Jesus Christ.  Christians have always been out of step with the world, but in our contemporary times, Christians are more at odds with the world than ever before.  In the past, for the most part, even though non-Christians didn't share Christian belief in obeying and serving God, they still more or less accepted, at least on a superficial level, Christian morality regarding sexual ethics, respect for life, respect for other human beings, etc. 

Mary: The Surest and Safest Way to Jesus

As I have previously written, most of my life has been one bad decision after another. This rocky road started for me when I was 14 years old and decided to leave the Catholic Church. It was all downhill from there. Since that first wrong turn, so many decades ago, there have been only two decisions in my life that have withstood the test of time: marrying my husband, and returning to the Catholic Church. As I have also written, even upon returning to the Church, I still made very bad decisions which took me in very wrong directions.

I have finally come to the conclusion that I can't trust myself. The theme of my life can be summed up by Proverbs 14:12: "There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death." I have also recently come to see, more clearly than ever, just how sinful and evil I really am. My sins completely distort my view of God and His Will.

Getting good counsel, reading all the right things, going to Mass every day, receiving the Sacraments - in other words, doing all the right things, still brings me up short because, even with the great, limitless mercy of God, a lifetime of sins has left me a spiritual cripple. I can keep going as I am, but my spiritual progress is long and slow as I fight my greatest enemy: myself.