TRUSTING GOD WITH ST. THERESE

Connie Rossini

On June 10, 1974, my sister Terri died in a car accident.

She was ten years old.

That morning, Terri had prayed for a safe trip for us all.

Why does God allow children to suffer?

Why doesn’t He answer all our prayers?

How can we trust Him, when we and our loved ones have been hurt?

How can we overcome our fears for the future?

St. Therese of Lisieux wrote:

“It is trust, and nothing but trust, that must bring us to love.”

In other words, if we do not trust God, we cannot fully love Him.

We cannot fulfill the greatest commandment.

We cannot become the people God designed us to be.

St. Therese knew what it meant to suffer.

She lost her mother to breast cancer at age four.

The sister who raised her entered the cloister when Therese was nine.

A short time later, an undiagnosed illness nearly killed Therese.

She struggled with scruples.

Her beloved father lost his mental and physical health, and the townspeople blamed Therese and her sisters for leaving him to enter the convent.

Spiritual darkness encompassed her for years.

She died a long, excruciating death from tuberculosis.

This saying of Job: 'Although He

should kill me, I will trust in

Him,' has fascinated me from my

childhood. But it took me a long

time before I was established in

this degree of abandonment.

Now I am there; God has placed

me there. He took me into His

arms and placed me there.

Yet, towards the end of her life she said:

Our lives might seem miles apart from St. Therese’s.

And it’s true, she was different from us in many ways.

But her God was exactly the same as ours.

St. Therese’s way to holiness is a little way.

It is a way suitable for the weak and sinful.

It does not require great deeds or lofty thoughts.

It does not require a perfect past.

But it does require that we trust God like little children.

We can learn to trust God as St. Therese did.

We can trust Him to forgive us.

We can trust Him for the grace to overcome temptation.

We can entrust our future and the future of our loved ones to Him.

Do you dare to believe it?

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Photo Credits:

"TautropfenRose2" by böhringer friedrich - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TautropfenRose2.JPG#mediaviewer/File:TautropfenRose2.JPG

Frutos de ''Rosa'' sp. de la Sierra de Valdemeca, Cuenca, España |Source=self-made |Date=29 oct 2007 |Author= Retama.

"Rote Rosenknospe 2" by Amada44 - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rote_Rosenknospe_2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Rote_Rosenknospe_2.jpg

"A Country Road In Jefferson County, Florida" by Oddman47 - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Country_Road_In_Jefferson_County,_Florida.jpg#mediaviewer/File:A_Country_Road_In_Jefferson_County,_Florida.jpg

All remaining photos are in the Public Domain.