My Experience This Week

October 12, 2011

Why not, each week, share with you my experiences as a sinner, relate those experiences to the Word of God, and also relate them to Saint Padre Pio, the famous stigmatic priest? (By the way, we are all sinners; those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior are sinners who are saved by the Blood of Christ; those who have not accepted Christ as their personal Savior are just plain sinners. I am a sinner saved by the Blood of Christ.)

This week’s experience to share with you would be my inner moanings about having to clean up a loved one’s vomit and blood and having to wait on that person “hand and foot” after that person’s return from the hospital and major surgery. Please picture this: here is this very sick man, pathetic really, and here I am, inwardly complaining—silently, of course—that I have to clean up oceans of vomit, toss out a perfectly good Penn State rug because of the vomit stains, and clean up blood, empty regularly the person’s bottle that hangs from his body that drains the blood and fluids from the internal wound, etc., etc., etc. Then, to my surprise—but it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all because it’s happened to me over and over again that when I need a shove in the right direction, there is the Lord Jesus, smiling and nudging me ever-so-gently in the right direction, sometimes using the soft wings of my Holy Guardian Angel—anyhow, to my surprise, one day this week when I opened my Bible for my daily reading, here was the Scripture and Jesus’ own words: “For which is the greater, one who sits at table, or one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves.” Jesus serves; Jesus is the Servant. Then what am I supposed to be? A complaining brat or a smiling, cheerful, giving servant? You guessed it; I chose to be a smiling servant, but I first asked Jesus for His grace to achieve that goal because I knew I’d fail if I continued to try to do it on my own. (“God loves a cheerful giver.”) And I continue to ask for that grace each day, each hour, each moment.

Oh yes, without Christ’s grace and love, I am doomed to fail because of all my weaknesses. But God’s Word says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That means all good things He calls me to do. Therefore, for my encouragement—and yours, in case you are also, like me, being asked to do servant tasks, perhaps day after day after day—here are Saint Padre Pio’s own words: “The grace that is meted out to you from above is sufficient for you, because God’s power achieves its purpose by means of our weakness.” (Saint Padre Pio’s Letters, Volume One, page 1263)

May God richly bless you and yours, my dear friend!

Love,
Eileen
Eileen Dunn Bertanzetti


(If you wish, you can see more about my St. Padre Pio books on Facebook, at my blog, and at my publishers’ Websites: Our Sunday Visitor, Pauline Books & Media, The Word Among Us Press, Chelsea House Publishers)