"For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last" (Luke 13:30).
I closed my eyes kneeling on the carpet in this hotel side-room where the conference had Adoration for the weekend. My knees were numb and maybe so were my toes, but I closed my eyes and just moved from one rosary bead to the next.
I asked Our Mother in prayer to please help me be little, to be last, to set aside my insecurities or better yet, even to heal them. Here I was one of the event speakers and yet, I felt uncomfortable being in the limelight, anxious that what I had to say would seem obtuse or ill-conceived. I meditated on her life with Jesus in Nazareth, her hidden and holy life, and I felt more peace with each Hail Mary.
Your hidden life may be behind a barista's apron or a mother's top knot, a double-breasted blazer in court or a child's read-aloud book in the classroom. It may be that your life is in the public eye, but woefully misjudged. It may be that your life is lonely behind this screen you're reading on because you don't have what everyone else does, all those people in first place with their fiddle-leaf fig trees, perfect curves, handsome husbands, and rose-colored linen sheets.
Jesus sees you. His gaze never falters from you in the back of the line, hemming and hawing, fidgeting or listless. We do not save ourselves. He draws us up, close to His Sacred beating Heart. He loves us into forgiveness, in our invisible sins, weighed down by our heavy crosses.
Take your last-placedness to Mary in the Rosary today. Ask her what it's like to let Him draw you close, to heal your every insecurity. He loves you and me so much more than we can ever imagine, and that love has nothing to do with getting ourselves to the front of the line.
LOVING GOD, LOVING OTHERS
A NEW WORKSHOP
COME BACK TO FIRST LOVE
