{"id":6863,"date":"2020-03-19T13:44:19","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T13:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/?p=6863"},"modified":"2022-07-16T01:12:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T01:12:06","slug":"praying-be-careful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/","title":{"rendered":"Praying? Be Careful!"},"content":{"rendered":"
Do you know what you’re asking for?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

\u201cTeacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s pretty bold of James and John, the \u201cSons of Thunder!\u201d\u00a0 In Mark\u2019s Gospel (Mark 10: 35-45) we hear about how these two practically demanded the choice seats in heaven.\u00a0 And yet, if we understand God as a Loving Father, he encourages us to be bold in asking him for what we need.<\/p>\n

Not always what we want\u2026what we need<\/em>. There is often a big difference! And receiving the gift always comes with a price.<\/p>\n

I decided to go big<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It was late New Year\u2019s Eve 2002 and I was snuggled in my terry robe on the sofa\u2014thinking of what my resolutions for 2003 would be.\u00a0 No more long lists of things that never happened or weight I\u2019d never lose. I wanted to make one, simple-but-profound resolution that was manageable.\u00a0 It would be nice to look back in the coming December and be proud of the year.<\/p>\n

What would that one thing be?\u00a0 Hm-m-m.\u00a0 I\u2019d been divorced and single for years and had come a long way in my walk with the Lord.\u00a0 Trusting him more, I’d made significant subtle improvements in my life. I was content, but I also wanted to be good. I wanted to be holy.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it!<\/em> I thought. I’ll simply ask God that, however he wills, I move closer to being holier this year. So, I prayed, \u201cDear Lord, in 2003, make me holier!\u201d<\/p>\n

God answered my prayer<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Be careful what you ask for . . . that was the year from hell.<\/p>\n

My mother died a horrible death in February.<\/p>\n

I broke up with my BFF of 15 years\u2014it was like another divorce!<\/p>\n

I almost lost my life-long friendship with my sister and her children.<\/p>\n

A big, new book contract I’d hoped for was canceled.<\/p>\n

The real estate market (my major income source) petered out.<\/p>\n

My income dropped in half and my rent went up.<\/p>\n

My paid ministries at the parish were terminated due to budget cuts.<\/p>\n

I developed gall stones and had excessive medical bills.<\/p>\n

My father\u2026the only man who\u2019d ever loved me faithfully and unselfishly\u2026 died in December.<\/p>\n

His death brought out all manner of angry, cold dysfunction in the rest of my family. With both parents gone, some siblings cut others off cold.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s more, but these were the major losses.<\/p>\n

I was a mess<\/strong><\/h5>\n

When Christmas came I was a mess. Exhausted, I found a quiet place and asked the Lord what the @#$% had been going on all year. I mean, really<\/em>!\u00a0 Looking back, I realized that everything I\u2019d held dear, everything that gave me a sense of identity, security, or purpose was either lost or threatened:\u00a0 parents, family, best friend, career, income, health, and more.<\/p>\n

Because I had been learning to listen, not just blabber to him, I carefully pondered what I knew.\u00a0 I knew what the Church knows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • God knows everything that will ever happen.<\/li>\n
  • But just because he knows ahead of time does not mean he deliberately chose or caused it.<\/li>\n
  • He does permit loss, pain, and suffering as part of protecting man’s free will.<\/li>\n
  • God doesn’t worry as we do, because he is bigger than the brokenness.<\/li>\n
  • He has promised us that if we turn to him he will draw out a much greater good<\/em> from the evils that befall us.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    God revealed his gift<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    So God permitted but didn’t make all this happen, and somewhere in it all he had a gift for me. I believe I heard him say:<\/p>\n

    Rose, dear daughter, you asked for holiness and I heard you. Holiness, after all, is <\/em>union with me, even on the cross. I didn\u2019t purposely plan these things you experienced; they were the natural results of living in this world. But I knew they would happen, and when they did I sent you graces to draw you closer to me. You opened up to receive them and you came closer. You leaned on me and more deeply found your ultimate security and love in me. Letting the other things go and, despite the sorrow and fear, you remained sane and even joyful. I\u2019m very pleased, and that\u2019s enough. For now.<\/em><\/p>\n

    I was consoled but, trust me, I didn\u2019t ask for anything quite so grand for the next year! And I\u2019m still working with him each year to let go of anything that becomes more important to me than him.<\/p>\n

    What about you<\/em>? What people, relationships, things, possessions, jobs, or bank accounts are you counting on maybe a little too intensely to make you feel loved, secure, and happy?<\/p>\n

    Would you go to pieces if you lost them? Or would that free you to desire more deeply the Love and Security that last forever?<\/p>\n

    Put Your RELIGION in Your RELATIONSHIPS by moving God back to first place.<\/span> Every day. Every hour if you have to. Put holiness above \u201chappiness\u201d.<\/p>\n

    ***<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,71],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nPraying? Be Careful! - Rose Sweet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Be careful what you ask from God in prayer; you may just get it and more. But there is always a surprise gift in it if you look closely!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Praying? Be Careful! - Rose Sweet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Be careful what you ask from God in prayer; you may just get it and more. But there is always a surprise gift in it if you look closely!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rose Sweet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-19T13:44:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-07-16T01:12:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/On-synagogue-steps-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"796\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rose Sweet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rose Sweet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Praying? Be Careful! - Rose Sweet","description":"Be careful what you ask from God in prayer; you may just get it and more. But there is always a surprise gift in it if you look closely!","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Praying? Be Careful! - Rose Sweet","og_description":"Be careful what you ask from God in prayer; you may just get it and more. But there is always a surprise gift in it if you look closely!","og_url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/","og_site_name":"Rose Sweet","article_published_time":"2020-03-19T13:44:19+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-07-16T01:12:06+00:00","og_image":[{"width":796,"height":520,"url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/On-synagogue-steps-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rose Sweet","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rose Sweet","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/","url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/","name":"Praying? Be Careful! - Rose Sweet","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/On-synagogue-steps-1.jpg","datePublished":"2020-03-19T13:44:19+00:00","dateModified":"2022-07-16T01:12:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/#\/schema\/person\/082fc4e6a45058bbc2295d0f0e9e7049"},"description":"Be careful what you ask from God in prayer; you may just get it and more. But there is always a surprise gift in it if you look closely!","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/On-synagogue-steps-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/On-synagogue-steps-1.jpg","width":796,"height":520},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/praying-be-careful\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Praying? Be Careful!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/","name":"Rose Sweet","description":"Catholic Author & Coach","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/#\/schema\/person\/082fc4e6a45058bbc2295d0f0e9e7049","name":"Rose Sweet","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/537951d584a4779ade3ff12c7b445f70?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/537951d584a4779ade3ff12c7b445f70?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rose Sweet"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/rosesweet.com"],"url":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/author\/rose\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6863"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10301,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6863\/revisions\/10301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosesweet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}