“Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture.” Lk 8:5
There is rocky ground in all our lives, and while we have to acknowledge it and accept it, we should not obsess about it. Whether your early years were difficult and confusing, or your marriage was sour almost from the beginning, all need to find a way not to let our dark days dissuade us from living with joy and hope. Our parents or our partners may have disappointed us, but God cannot abandon us, and faith demands that we ask God to be the ground of our lives. Only then can we be sure that no matter how rocky life is or might become, God's love will sustain us.
Whether St Francis of Assisi ever reconciled with his father is not known. That we don't know about this suggests that Francis' choice to live simply and reject the values and wealth of his family was a death blow to the support he hoped for and which most of us yearn for from our families. While Francis was remarkably successful helping warring towns reconcile, it must have hurt him deeply that he failed to convince his father that his choice of radical poverty was of God.
Letting God find the good ground in our lives and asking for the grace to let go of our failures is an important step on our spiritual journeys. If we worry too much about the rocky ground, we will miss the good God is already doing within and through us.
Today, be grateful for the God has done in you. Let go of failure.
How has God surprised you on your pilgrim journey?
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