No Longer Wondering

So God and I have this agreement. When I come down to Gradual School, which is a Seminary attached to a monastery, if I am awake at 5:15 in the morning I go to morning prayer. I don't set the alarm or anything, but if I happen to wake up in the darkness of the night, or the bells that wake the monks up wake me up, I get up and go to prayer.

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you I am not by nature a morning person. I would sleep till noon every day if I could. When I get down here though something happens to me. I think in all of the weekends I have been down here I have missed morning prayer maybe three times. Ususally I wake up on my own just before the bells.

I used to wonder why God was playing such a stinky trick on me, until this year when I have been in such turmoil over my job and my health and everything. It seems as though the psalms and the readings of vigil and lauds have been so comforting to me each time.

Today especially they were such a balm, considering I had another contentious few days with my boss who is making it his mission to revise history so that rather than my deciding not to stay on in my job, now he decided way back last fall not to renew my contract for performance reasons. (all of this has come up since I told him I did not want to pursue the lower paying-more hours-including youth ministry position that he so graciously wanted me to apply for in replacement for the current job I have). If his scenario were true why in January February and March was he begging me to take the new job, before I saw what the job entailed.

I wanted to announce my plans to leave in December, but he asked me to wait until the new position was set, so in obedience to him I waited. I just wanted to leave the parish with some dignity and grace, but at every turn he has found fault with my work and is tearing me down, almost as if he wants me to quit or he wants to find a reason to fire me so that he can have the upper hand. In my mind that will negate the five years of service I have done at the parish.

Anyway, today's vigil and lauds were all about a balm, and being under attack for a time but in a while God would set things right. The message was repeated over and over, in the psalms, in the readings and in the songs.

I am often in awe, but never amazed at the wonders God does for me. Even when he has to drag me out of bed at 0 dark 30 to do it.

Pax