Surrendering to God

Once there was a young woman from a rather poor family—let’s call her June—who had known very little happiness, and the outlook for her life didn’t seem all that promising. However, she unexpectedly ended up meeting the man of her dreams: a wonderful God-fearing gentleman who truly loved and respected her, someone who made her feel alive, and who also happened to be rich and successful. June could hardly believe it when he eventually asked her to marry him. After a beautiful wedding and a delightful honeymoon, they moved into his fabulous home. Everything seemed perfect—until tragedy struck. June became seriously ill, and after undergoing many tests while in the hospital, she was given the terrible diagnosis: her illness was terminal. The dying woman became furious at God. Late one night, while the hospital was quiet and almost deserted, June dragged herself down the long corridor until she reached the chapel, where she went inside and painfully struggled her way up to the altar. In the silence of the empty room she shouted, “God, You’re a fraud, a real phony. You claim to be loving, but every time a person finds a little happiness, You pull the rug out from under her feet. Well, I just want to let You know that I see through You—and I’ve had it.”

June turned around to leave but was so weak and unsteady on her feet that she fell to the floor. Down there her eyes noticed the words woven into the sanctuary carpet: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Upon reading these words, her anger left her, and she repeated the words aloud, saying them with sincerity. Then, while lying on the chapel floor, it was as if a voice were speaking to her: “My child, all this is an invitation to turn your life over to Me. You’ve never done that, you know. The doctors here can treat you, but I alone can cure you.” Moved by these words, June apologized to God and completely surrendered her life to Him, and some time later a miracle occurred—she was completely cured (Happiness is an Inside Job, Fr. John Powell, as quoted by Mark Link, S. J., Illustrated Sunday Homilies, Year C, Series II, p. 27). Most of our experiences with God aren’t this dramatic, but the underlying truth is the same: we are safest and most secure when we place our lives in God’s hands. Sin is a refusal to do this, and ultimately a dead end—but the Lord always gives us the chance to make a new beginning.

Have you ever made a serious mistake, messed up a relationship, or done something you afterwards really wished you hadn’t? Unfortunately, life doesn’t have a reset button—except in our relationship with God. Sacred Scripture tells us how He allows us to start over—particularly when, from a human point of view, all appears lost. The Book of Joshua (5:9, 10-12) describes the moment when the Israelites were finally about to enter the Promised Land. God’s covenant or sacred agreement with Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation would at long last be fulfilled, despite a lifetime of slavery in Egypt and, as punishment for the people’s sins, forty years of wandering in the desert. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:17-21), St. Paul speaks of beginning again in a spiritual sense. Anyone who is in Christ, he says, is a new creation; the old order has passed away, and all is new. Paul goes on to explain that this is possible because God was willing to be reconciled with sinful humanity, and in the Gospel of Luke (15:1-3, 11-32), Jesus tells us perhaps the most famous story of reconciliation. From a human point of view, the ungrateful younger son deserved to suffer, and his father, at the very least, should have punished him or imposed some conditions for taking him back. The father didn’t do this, for Jesus wanted to show that God graciously welcomes back every sinner who is truly sorry. The older son had trouble accepting this; his father pleaded with him, but we don’t know what happened next. It seems Jesus deliberately left His story unfinished, so that we can each write our own ending.

A priest was telling this Gospel story to a catechism class, and then asked, “Who was sad when the younger son returned?” A boy raised his hand and said, “The fattened calf.” That was probably true—but, of course, that wasn’t the point Our Lord was making. When God’s mercy and grace are at work, it’s not our role to be upset or offended; rather, we need to be aware of our own sins and of our own ongoing need for forgiveness.

Sometimes we are like the younger son: sinful and selfish. Are we willing to admit our sins, and to trust in God’s eagerness to forgive us? Sometimes we are like the older son: self-righteous and judgmental. Are we willing to be reconciled with sinners and to accept everyone as part of God’s family? Lent is a time for us to do both these things: to seek the Lord’s forgiveness, and to forgive anyone who has sinned against us. Each of these actions allow us to “wipe the slate clean” and to restore our relationship with God and perhaps also with the people around us. Our Lenten prayers, sacrifices, and acts of penance are meant to help us order our lives properly and to remember what’s truly important.

It shouldn’t take a life-threatening illness, such as June experienced, to make us surrender to God; we should be doing this all along. Our sins interfere with and sometimes even reverse this process, but God always gives us another chance. Let us make good use of this opportunity during these last few weeks of Lent, so that Easter may truly be for us a celebration of new life.