May grace and peace be yours in abundance through knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. // 2 Peter 1:2
I wish I could say there were times I’ve found myself holding back parts of my heart from the Lord. Unfortunately, those times are not necessarily in the past. I still find that there are places in my heart that the Lord is asking me to give Him, or even to others, but I’m afraid to give them up.
I fear what will happen to the empty space left behind if I offer my heart to the Lord. It has taken me a long time to fill that space and I don’t want to have to do that work again. Then, it hits me: there is a lot of “I” and “Me” in those thoughts and not a lot of remembering the mercies of the Lord.
The Lord asks for these parts and spaces within us that we have worked so hard to fill, so He can give us something even better. He desires to bring Saint Peter’s prayer from today’s First Reading to fruition and fill us with grace and peace in abundance (see 2 Peter 1:2). He wants to pour upon us and into us the precious and very great promises He has bestowed (see 2 Peter 1:4), that we might share His divine nature.
He asks us to empty the spaces of our hearts filled with shame, disappointment, fear, loneliness, bitterness—all the things that result from the works we do on our own without His grace. He wants to remove the junk so He can fill us with grace and glory beyond our greatest imaginations. He calls us to make acts of trust, placing ourselves in the embrace of our refuge and fortress (see Psalm 91:2).
He knows it’s a big ask. But He prepares us. He plants His life within us, protects us, digs out what is not of Him, and builds us anew (see Mark 12:1). He asks for some of the produce—not all (at least, not all at once)—and even with that little He makes us new wine.
Sister, what spaces in your heart is Jesus asking you to surrender to Him today, so that He can make new wine within your heart?
Sister Maria Fatima grew up in Rhode Island and entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in 2005. She holds a MA in Theology from the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Sister is in her eleventh year of enlightening middle school minds and drawing hearts to Jesus while teaching religion and history. She currently resides at the motherhouse in Ann Arbor, MI, having previously taught in Texas, Florida, and Ohio. She is a contributing author to our Lent devotional All She Had.
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