What's It All About, Pauly?

I got up this morning and looked out the window. It was overcast and gray. It is definetely Good Friday, I thought to myself. It has always been a cloudy kind of day, as far as I can remember.

As I sat praying, I remembered how I had written a few days ago, about why God seemed to have abandoned Paul . I was reading the booklet, 'Everyone's Way of the Cross' and I stopped and had to say "My God, my God, why have I abandoned You? And so often?

From this booklet:
"My Jesus, Lord, obedience cost you your life. For me
it cost an act of will -
no more -
and yet how hard it is for me to bend.

Remind me often that in carrying my cross,
I carry yours with you.
And though I bear a sliver only of your cross,
You carry all of mine, except a sliver,
in return.

Lord, Jesus, how can I refuse?

I know what you are telling me.
To watch the pain of those we love is
harder than to bear our own.

To carry my cross after you,
I, too, must stand and watch the sufferings
of my dear ones -
the heartaches, sicknesses and grief
of those I love.

I do believe -
for those who love you
all things work together unto good.

Lord, what you ask is hard.
It calls for courage and self-sacrifice,
and I am weak.
Please give me strength,
Don't let me run away because of fear.

Lord, live in me
and act in me
and love in me.
And not in me alone - in all of us -
so that we may reveal
no more your bloody but your
glorious face on earth."

And that is what it's all about. This very holy season is our beautiful reminder of what our lives are supposed to be about.

Paul is still suffering from intense headaches and may also have a kidney stone. He has an appointment in Charlotte this next Tuesday and there may be another surgery. They want to see if they need to change the tube of the shunt and not have it empty into the stomach area, but rather further up in his chest. Supposedly, it is a better place because of his headaches being low pressure. His brain pressure was at a 6 when they checked it a week and a half ago. That is within the normal range.

He is also suffering from pain in his shoulder blade, which will be checked out by an orthopedist on 4/16. Help is on the way - but you are all too familiar that things move very slowly in the medical profession. We have not been able to set up anything with Shepherd Pathways yet. I have left a couple of messages for them, but have not heard back. It could be that this was Spring Break for the schools in Atlanta, so people may be gone on vacation.

Paul was only able to work on Wednesday for a couple of hours, but has not been back other than that. We have gotten up 2 times this week and thought we needed to head up to Charlotte on an emergency basis. But Paul would start to feel a little bit better as the morning progressed. He has had a stomach ache since Sunday, with the pain moving around. He said he was starting to feel better, than last night, the pain was back. We are hopeful that we will not have to rush up to Charlotte before his appointment on Tuesday and ask that you pray for Paul to be able to spend Easter at home this year. He was in surgery at this time last year and this whole past week has seemed like a repeat of that time. It has been a very difficult week, and the timing of it is just a vivid reminder that we are sharing in the pain of Jesus, Mary and the Apostles. In fact, Paul struggled to make it through the Mass of Holy Thursday and he said wants to be at the Stations of the Cross today too.

Please pray for his continued strength. He has actually cried a couple of times this week, due to the fatigue of enduring his headaches for over a year now. I was not surprised when he lost his patience on Wednesday night and in a very loud voice yelled out, "You don't know what it is like, day after day after day, with my head throbbing, my eye not working, my ear not hearing and the constant loud ringing in my ear, and the pain of my shoulder and my stomach and my face not working. It is so hard." I was wondering when all of this was going to get to him. I held him and told him that I could not know, but that I would stay by him until we resolved all of this. Jon came running downstairs, as it scared him to hear Paul yelling like that. We all hugged each other and cried. It has been a long time and we are tired. But again, the timing of Paul's outburst was what hit me. In this final week of Lent, as we remember the death of Jesus on the cross, we are reminded that we are called to the Way of the Cross too. And I remembered a particular event in my life about 6 years ago.
I was on a flight back from Iowa. I hated flying because I was so afraid of a crash. I literally was frozen in fear. After we got up above the clouds, I was thanking God for the safe departure. I was looking out of the windows, at the tops of the the intensely white clouds and could not believe the beauty of them. Then I noticed there was a long white cloud that looked like a pathway to heaven, since it was heading in an upwardly direction. I suddenly said to God, "I want to be on THAT pathway in my life. I don't want to be left below, please help me step up onto that pathway and make my way to you." As we came back down through the clouds, I noticed how dark the earth looked below the heavy covering of clouds. In contrast, it seemed so depressing and I asked God again to please help me remain on the higher pathway, even though I was in the darkness of the earth.

Today, even though the earth is cloudy and dark, I have the vision of that bright, white pathway and I ask God again, "Help me stay on that bright pathway that Jesus is on........just ahead of me."

Thank you EVERYONE for being ' Simon of Cyrene ' and not abandoning us through all of our hills and valleys. Your steadfast prayerfulness has been so powerful and has helped us carry this new cross for the past 18 months. Your prayers have kept us going in faith and trust.