Being Stripped by God

Debated on this for victim soul or hermit blog. Really fits to both. A Victim Soul of the Sacred Heart of Jesus must be stripped of all that encumbers it to the vocational task. A hermit must be stripped of all that encumbers it to the vocational task.

The reason I left suddenly from the south of France, when on private retreat and had a gift given of a place to stay on the Mediterranean in a most beautiful cove, was a woman in tremendous suffering. That is a story unto itself. But part of it is that she told me things.

There are relationships that found me comfortable, but they were encumbering. I needed to send them on their way. It was a kind of parasitic thing.

I knew it was true. One of them I just let go, did not initiate calls. 'Twas for the best as there was nothing more to say, and what had been said was not getting through. Seems as if there were others, less major ones, that soaked back into the ground of earth. Then I realized I was to allow the Lord to bring those whom He chose and not to approach on my own initiative.

Now, within the last week, four major and five total relational sectors have been lopped off. One has dropped in a way that was unpleasant and brought to a head from my own sin. Another was an offshoot of that one. Two others were from my no longer simply being an affirming host; I no longer upheld congenially, faulty comments in conversation. At least, according to our faith, they were not on target. The final relational dropping was from one who initiated the drop sensing we had taken each other as far as we could. Well, I think it had gone as far perhaps a year ago, but it was one of those comfortable host deals, where the guests hang around not realizing the host is rather weary of it all. Finally the host says something or acts a certain way that the guests realize they aren't as welcome, as it stands, to remain. Sort of pointless.

But when the guests leave, there is yet a void for the host. A relief in a way, but a shock at the emptying out and just how still and silent is the place, with no guests chatting. There are no polite meals to prepare and serve--and by polite, I mean in serving what others want to eat (or hear...).

Then the host is alone with God to face itself. It is all right. Especially if one is a victim soul or a hermit, or both. The emotional ties, now broken, are what is painful only in the way in which some have been broken and in the way others have been stripped or removed themselves. The fact is, the host was somehow ready to send these comfortable guests on their way, but didn't necessarily have the courage or the tact to do it graciously, or to do it at all.

That is when the Lord steps in and does the stripping. He allows the host to bungle with some and has mercy after the confession of the sin of the way in which the bungle was enacted. But in others, He finishes off the work that would also, no doubt, be bungled by the host.

What is next? I don't know, but I must proceed in faith and not try to fill the empty place with other comfortable guests who desire to be affirmed, when victim souls and hermits are really not in the business of affirmation. We are in the business of suffering and praying, of being alone with God, and of delivering messages only if God brings someone who asks for the message. And even then, we must know that the Lord asks us to give that person the message for which he asks. And give it once, perhaps twice if the Lord asks us to repeat it. Only if.

The suffering for the victim soul and/or hermit, when being stripped by God, is in the humility that comes when one knows its ineptitude and cowardice, as well as its sinfulness on many fronts. It is a good suffering, and that, too, can be offered to the Lord for the very guests who have been sent on their way or who chose to leave, finding the accommodations no longer inviting or comfortable.

The suffering then, for the victim soul and/or the hermit, is to get up after the initial shock (like the breath being knocked out), and to keep going in yet more blind faith, realizing that we are the guests of God, and in His house there are expectations and truth, and truth in dealing with our own souls is not going to mean that we will be affirmed in whatever we choose to think or do. We will be affirmed only in truth, and that is in God's truth.

These Asiastic lilies bloomed Christ-blood red. Along came the wind one day, and the petals were stripped shortly after the photo captured them--already mature in bloom and ripe for stripping.