Recently, a big storm passed through our area. Its 70 mile per hour gusts tore down trees throughout the county and sent debris everywhere. Thanks to our property’s seven maples, our backyard was littered with massive branches and sticks.
I enlisted my four oldest children. We were going to work hard and get the job done quickly before the heat set in. However, seven months’ pregnant and entirely too swollen, I had to tap out about halfway due to exhaustion and the heat. My children didn’t fare much better, much more interested in watching my neighbor transfer her “teenage” chickens to their new coop. An hour later, the yard still needed some serious TLC, and enthusiasm was essentially dead.
But the job had to be done. We had to rally. Bribed with lemonade and a snack, my kids managed to finish just in time for lunch and were proud of themselves for getting the job done (okay, mostly they were here for the lemonade).
So many tasks are like picking up a yard’s worth of sticks. They feel thankless, unnoticeable, monotonous, exhausting. We scrub toilets regularly, not because we find the job glamorous but because we value a clean home. The sidewalks get shoveled after a snowfall because we prioritize safety and the ease of getting our cars in and out of the driveway. Diapers are changed out of the love we have for the sweet babies we have been entrusted with. I doubt many people enjoy the routine tasks of adulthood; hopefully though, through discipline and the knowledge that the long-term benefit outweighs the short-term annoyance, we choose to do them anyway.
Recently, my spiritual life has felt like picking up hundreds of sticks in the yard. I haven’t been feeling excited, inspired, or particularly like the job has immediate value in my life. I feel, truthfully, discouraged and exhausted by the spiritual “work” I feel like I must do. Persisting in a dry prayer routine, attending my weekly Holy Hour, and trying to orient my thoughts and actions toward the Lord feel physically and emotionally draining—and the guilt of not feeling close to Him only compounds my feelings of overwhelm.
Most days, I find myself fighting myself to stay the course, to do my part to feel close to Jesus, to accept that God may be permitting this season of dryness to strengthen my resolve. I wonder if I am doing something wrong, if I need to shake things up, if I need to motivate myself with some spiritual “lemonade.” But what keeps coming back to me is St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Rules of Discernment, most particularly his famous fifth rule: In times of desolation, never make a change.
Even in this season of feeling distant from those good feelings, I do feel like the Lord is challenging me in my resolve. I have also been reminded that the absence of that good spiritual feeling is not an absence of faith but perhaps even a reminder that faith is not only formed by building a tent on the mountaintops with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah but by going back down to the busyness and the crowds and all of the challenges that go with them. In fact, persistence in the face of dryness can be a testament to faith and to the hope that continuing on this road with the Lord is, in fact, worth the payoff.
So for those of you who are still riding that Easter high, enjoy it! Now is a wonderful time to potentially take additional steps toward God, to invest in that joyful feeling of being close to Him. And for those of us who are still feeling a little less Easter and a little more Lent, I wanted to write this as encouragement for you—and for myself!—to keep going. We have the example of many Saints (St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Teresa of Ávila, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux to name a few—if you need to read some of their wisdom) to inspire us and build confidence that these times are not for nothing. In fact, as St. Teresa of Ávila wrote, “He wants to test you and see if you love Him as much at times of aridity as when He sends you consolations. I think this is a very great favor for God to show you.”
Friends, keep picking up the sticks and rest in the hope that satisfaction of a job well done awaits.