My Aunt Betty has been working with me on putting my faith into action and trusting God even when things aren’t going as I’d like. Below is part of our last spiritual direction session.

Betty: It’s time for you to really pray into and consciously work on watching where your focus goes. Does your focus go towards hope, life, and faith or does your focus go immediately toward fear, pessimism and depression? Sometimes people can get into a bad habit of focusing on the negative. You’re going to need the Lord’s help. You’re not going to be able to do this simply because your human will wills it. You are going to have to cry out to God to strengthen your faith, so that you begin looking at things first and foremost with faith. Some people will look at bad things and go into fear rather than going into their faith. Faith says, “Okay, God’s working in this. God is permitting this. God is speaking to us.” Some people can’t handle the fact that God allows bad things to happen to good people. So, my response to that is, “Take a look at where your attitude is.” We need to be strong enough to face the hard things, but face them with faith. Don’t put your head in the ground.

AM: I’m still struggling because my feet hurt so much. I’m finding myself really discouraged with it. I keep going for prayer for the healing of my feet and they aren’t healed.

Betty: That has been staying with you, hasn’t it? Have you asked the Lord what good He wants to accomplish through this?

AM: Well, Father Ben told me it was intercessory for Y, and that it was an honor. But I’m kind of like, “Okay. It’s been over two years now. I’d like to be done with it.”

Betty: You have that tendency to want to tell God how and when He should do things.

AM: It’s hard, because of the fact that it was a mistake that caused the injury.

Betty: Okay, stop. Take a look at that. That might be the reason you’re not getting healed. Usually, I find that God seems to heal people more when they’ve learned what they need to learn from the happening. I really do believe that God looks at life as not so much what’s happening to us, but what particular thing do we need to learn? Then when that learning takes place, it’s like it’s okay for him to heal it. So, the way I look at life is, “Okay, show me what it is I need to learn, so you can heal this thing.” I think that is an ok attitude, because I’m not in rebellion. I’m just saying, “If there’s something I need to learn, help me learn it.” Suffering has a purpose. It’s meant to bring us closer to the Lord. So, keep that in mind that if God, who loves us so much, does not run immediately and lift that suffering from us, then there’s something here to learn. That’s my theory. See the way my brain works is that God is so loving, so merciful, that if it was really good for me to be healed, he would be doing it. “Oh, okay. He’s not doing it. So, it’s not good for me to be healed. Okay, Lord, show me what it is I need to learn.”