Is Anything Too Marvelous For The Lord?

I had just finished my lunch upstairs in the lounge. I really dont like leaving work during lunch to eat out. Why? Well, to get anywhere you have 10 minutes, which means 10 to get back. Now you are at 40, so that leaves a few to order and then maybe 20-30 to eat while looking at your watch to make sure you dont get back late. Throw in the fact that you cant really get into the talk and comfort b/c you know you have to get back to work. You also cant have a beer or mixed drink. I'd prefer to take a light lunch or microwavable panini instead. I prep, eat, and finish in less than 15 minutes.

Well, I just finished the panini and headed outside to the stone benches outside my building. Its a nice little padio to the entrance of the building. I sat there looking at my messages. I see a txt from my friend Blo and decide to give her a call. Blo is her nickname by the way......I chopped off the rest of her last name. No, it implies nothing more......pervs! : )

So I give her a ring and we get to talking. I'm surprised she answered her phone. She had txt'd me earlier and told me that she thought that "I should marry her." Anyhow, we're talking..... and then the call goes dead. I have T-Mobile and its rare, for me, to drop a call like that. I called back and automatically got her voicemail. I figured that she went into a tunnel. Then again her phone does suck.

I give it a second go and sure enough, I get her voice........ So I stop and look up to see traffic come and go. I see customers coming into the building for the various companies that are in the building. The majority are for Citi downstairs. I suddenly see my buddy K drive by on his riding lawnmower. K is an interesting guy-married, Catholic, mid 60's, very funny, playful...... He's one of the building maintenance people. I'll always remember him for saying to us in the elevator .....

Hey guys, did you know I've been married for 30 yrs and my wife still likes me!

Anyhow, he drove by and put up a finger as if he wanted me to wait for something. I was a bit confused, but I'd stay. A few minutes later he came by ......

"I want to tell you something," he says. "I know I've told you a lot about the problems I'm having with belief and faith and stuff."

I sat there just smiling at him and nodding my head. A couple of months ago, he was talking to me about a book he had read and that it caused him to lose faith in the Church.

"My wife and I went to..........." he goes on.

He basically told me that he went to a small church with his wife. The priest there wasn't politically correct..........he mentioned that Hell was for real and that Purgatory wasn't a picnic. He further pontificated how we will all answer to God for our sins and misdoings.

I was sitting and listening to the sermon he had heard on Sunday. The sermon made him realize how life should be taken seriously. He went on to tell me that as he was praying the Our Father, he opened his eyes to see himself literally off the ground. He couldn't explain it.

I was a bit taken back but I wouldn't doubt him. I dont doubt things that come through the spiritual! Maybe he was .................. I dont know, but I'm holding him to truth on this one.

"When you pray, you are in a different world. I truely believe that. And I thought I would just like to share that with you," he said as he finished. He was serious; he wasn't playing around.

He smiled and left to go back to his work. I smiled back and waved.

I made my way back into the building and to the elevator. I got back to my work, and it hit me. There was a reason for the ever so rare dropped call! Had the call not dropped, I would have still been talking to Blo on the phone. If I still had been on the phone, K would have never waved me down. Had he not waved me down, he never would have shared his experience with me. Had I not heard his experience, I wouldn't have pondered it and my faith wouldn't have grown that small grain. I believe that anytime someone experiences something positive when prayer or God is involved, it reaffirms, strengthens, solidifies, and reiterates our own in the smallest of ways.

I was glad to have heard him talk to me. Lately, I haven't gone to Mass like I should. I've missed three or four in the past month or so. I've been down. I've been indifferent.........the reality has settled in. I keep hearing that life is what you make of it, no one else can. Of course, but I was hoping God could help out. It goes back to L and college. It bugs me at times, and I lose hope. Now I know........its sad knowing that I've come to care less about going to Mass. Ouch! Never thought I'd say that!

I thought of Adoration. I've thought lately of not going anymore come new year. The presence takes me back to St Jo's in Bryan and how I begged................. I'm nuts! I just dont want to be reminded of what bugs me.......what haunts me............what burdens me! I'll go to Mass tomorrow morning. But I'm looking forward to this year being over! Too many deaths in the family, bad news, deviated sacrum (which I did nothing to throw it out other than lying in a soft ass bed for a whole day), my dog will be gone soon, coming to know of L's beautiful life, its all been tough. Dont get me wrong, I'm "happy" that she's happy now or so she seems. I'd never wish her distress or harm.

Then the fact of the situation, its timing......takes me back to another rare instance......

Back in June, I was haunted one Saturday morning..........I woke up early. She was on my mind. This waking up early was a common thing for weeks after me finding out her marriage, yada yada. So I got dressed and went to Mass that Saturday morning. I was in a gaze.........cold, indifferent, out of it. I seemed fine to anyone, but I was out of it. I hear the reading read by one of our parishoners..........it was about Abraham and Sarah.

By this time next year, she will be with child. Is anything too marvelous for the Lord?

I laugh at this statement. Sarah laughed when she heard the stranger (the Father) say that she would bare a child.............she was old and was impossible, so she thought. Sure enough she did bare the child as foretold. I, however, laugh b/c of the last statement......Is anything too marvelous for the Lord? Of course not, duh! I laugh now as I write this.

Of all the masses I attended, I rarely go to a Saturday 7AM one. I can count them on one hand! I cant help but wonder how I happened to hear this Mass much like how I dropped my call from Blo. Both were rare...........but both got me thinking. I was obviously meant to hear both. Both while rare, needed to happen for me to listen to something. Will I have a child by this time next year? No! Taken into context, what was to happen was not so much the child, but the fact that something was to happen that someone thought impossible! There is nothing impossible for God....I know this! I still laught, but.........

I wonder.