Day 28: Mercy Like the Spring Rain

Today I went to confession for the first time in nine years. 

I spent the morning weeding the garden with my husband, and it felt to me like an appropriate way to prepare for the sacrament.  Like my soul, the garden hadn't been properly tended for quite some time, and weeds had taken root that seemed to reach down into the very bowels of the earth.  We dug as far as we could into the dirt and couldn't find the end of them.  And so it seemed with the sin in my soul.

I had a lot to confess.  But the priest wasn't interested much in hearing about the depths of my sin.  I have a hard time seeing one act of impatience or one act of anger as simply one act.  Every time I raise my voice or lose my temper I feel it points to something deeply wrong with me, some sort of systemic flaw.  Father wouldn't let me explain this, and I was frustrated at first that he seemed to take everything so lightly.  So you yelled at your son, so you were bitter towards your parents.  No, I wanted to insist.  Can't you see, I yelled at my son because I'm a terrible mother, I was bitter towards my parents because I'm hateful and unforgiving.  Can't you see, can't you see what an awful human being I am, I who claim to love God?

But Father refused to hear this.  And then it occurred to me that if Father is as Christ to me in this sacrament, then maybe Christ too is telling me to take my sins one at a time, and to go easy on myself.  It's okay, you're okay, you're here, and you're sorry, and that's all that matters. 

While I don't believe in a loose sort of spirituality that proclaims it doesn't matter what you believe or how you pray, I do marvel at how Christ comforts each soul in the particular way that each soul needs.  Perhaps a libertine would demand a stricter confession - Christ would need to point out the existence of those tenacious weeds.  But I think Christ was being gentle with me today, knowing that I knew the weeds were there, that I'd tried to pull them out myself - and now He was telling me to relax.

"It is He who has rent, but He will heal us; He has struck us, but He will bind our wounds"  (Hosea 6:2).  At times we need to be rent by God's judging hand; at times we need to be healed by His merciful touch.  I found mercy today - can I accept it?

There is a spring rain falling today.  It has been warm and lovely and wonderful after a too-long winter.  I can hear it tapping on my roof and windows, and it has been a blessing.