Father,
\n
\nI abandon myself
\ninto Your hands;
\ndo with me what you will.
\nFor whatever You may do I thank you.
\n
\nI am ready for all,
\nI accept all.
\n
\nLet only Your will be done in me
\nas in all Your creatures.
\nI wish no more than this, O Lord.
\n
\nInto Your hands
\nI commend my soul.
\nI offer it to You
\nwith all the love of my heart.
\nFor I love You, my God,
\nand so need to give myself,
\nto surrender myself
\ninto Your hands,
\nwithout reserve,
\nand with boundless confidence,
\nfor You are my Father. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat a challenging prayer! But in reality, it is just a\nvariation of the prayer that Jesus taught us. We are so familiar with the Our\nFather that we sometimes forget how radical the requests are!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is it so hard to surrender ourselves into the hands of a\nloving Father? He knows our hearts better than we do ourselves. His providence\nis so much more trustworthy and reliable than our own flimsy foresight. He is\ntotally in charge of our past, present, and future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is the challenge! If God the Father was Lord of my\npast, that means that He willed for me to be harmed in those ways. And\nif he willed such a painful past for me, then surely it\u2019s just a matter of time\nbefore He will harm me again in the future\u2026 Blasphemous thoughts, you say? If\nwe tell the unfiltered truth, most of us will admit that we have often felt\nthat way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unhealed pain of our past fills us with anxiety and fear\nof our future. It also causes ongoing pain in our present, as we \u201coverreact\u201d to\neveryday situations that keep poking at old wounds. Well-meaning Christian\nfriends urge us to \u201cmove on,\u201d \u201cforgive and forget,\u201d and \u201cleave the past in the\npast.\u201d But that is not how human memory works!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our memory is a marvelous and mysterious gift. Without it we\ndo not know who we are. We\u2019ve all seen TV shows or films in which one of the\ncharacters develops amnesia. Disconnected from their past, they are disoriented\nin the present, and incapable of knowing who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMemory\u201d translates the Latin word memoria<\/em> and the Greek word anamnesis<\/em>.\nBoth words have a strong sense of \u201cmindfulness\u201d in the present \u2013 not just\ndredging up the past. From our Jewish fathers in the Faith we have inherited a\nsense of \u201cremembering\u201d holy events like the Passover in a way that makes those\nevents present here and now. Every Catholic Mass prays an anamnesis<\/em> prayer that calls to mind saving events both past and\nfuture: the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, as well as\nhis coming again in glory. We enter God\u2019s eternal memory and the healing it\nbrings.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMemory is the root of our identity. Memory is what makes the virtue of Hope possible. The more integrated our memory of the past, the more our hearts can expand in a deep desire for eternal life \u2013 not merely as a future reality, but as something substantial that is present to us here and now. For the Saints, the joy and peace of the Kingdom is present in every moment of surrender to the Father\u2019s will. They become the Kingdom, visibly present and active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I recently returned from my annual retreat. I was blown away\nby my reading of Wilfrid Stinnissen\u2019s book Into\nYour Hands, Father<\/em>. It spoke deeply to my desire to surrender to God the\nFather and be blessed by Him. I wept over the pages about surrendering our past\nand allowing it to be healed by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\nStinnissen makes a shocking claim: \u201cWe receive a completely\nnew past.\u201d As you allow your wounds to be touched by the wounds of Jesus, \u201cthe\nhealing goes back into time and transforms the very moment when you were hurt\ninto a moment of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How is that possible, you ask? Surely you cannot change the\npast! True. The past no longer exists. But our memory of the past abides,\nand is often laden with lies. It is partial and fragmented and distorted. It\nneeds to be taken up into God\u2019s eternal love and truth. Jesus teaches us that\nHe is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He makes all things\nnew \u2013 even our memory of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember that our painful memories are often from the point\nof view of a very frightened little child. Even secular therapists can be quite\nskilled at helping an adult to go back in time in order to coach the hurting\nlittle child into seeing a much bigger and happier picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faith can do much more. If we ask and seek and knock, God will reveal Himself in our painful memories. He was there blessing us. Our sorrowful memories are then transformed into glorious ones, and we discover our deeper identity in Christ. Our wounds become like the wounds of Jesus, radiating risen glory, and a source of healing and blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Healing of our Memory is not an erasing of the past \u2013 quite\nthe opposite. It is a plunging into the whole truth about our past, found only\nin the Father\u2019s love. Our past becomes more God\u2019s past than our own. We reach a\npoint where we truly give thanks and praise God for our past, because it is\npart of an amazing story of a child of God who is fearfully, wonderfully made.\nHealed and integrated, our memory opens us to an abundance of God\u2019s blessing in\nthe present, and a total freedom to surrender our future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many of us go through life carrying heavy burdens from our past. Maybe we cannot shake off shame and regret over our sins and failings. Maybe we struggle to believe that anyone would actually love us for who we are. Maybe we keep clinging to bitterness and resentment towards those who harmed us. Maybe we … <\/p>\n
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