Happiness

For me, happiness consists in doing what I ought to do as the beloved of the Beloved because it is what I want to do.  It has taken many years for me to see that, and to work towards it, and even today I could throw it all away in an instant.  I could take a drink.  I could make a selfish decision, or deliberately hurt someone because they had hurt me.  I could get things out of order and not do what I need to do in order to be spiritually fit. 

Those things I must do include keeping watch on myself, in a gentle, loving way, to see that I don’t become too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.  (AA’s famous “HALT” expression.)  Those four things can send me spinning out of true very quickly.  When I don’t want to or don’t “feel like” following God’s will for me, I try to remember that feelings are not facts, and that the one thing I can count on about feelings is that they will change. 

But the bottom line today, for which I am so very grateful, is that I am never alone.  I can always reach out to my soul friend and say my feelings rather than acting upon them.  I can tell someone I am lonely or tired.  I can be courteous, kind, just and loving when my self-righteousness might urge me to be brutally honest.  I can go into my prayer space and listen for the One Who loves me.

I have these choices because someone loved me until I could love myself.  I have these choices because God pursued me all of my life until I stopped running and now….well, now I am happy.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have problems.  As long as we are alive, the world will throw us a curve ball every now and then.  It’s just that “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day.”

If you want to be happy, take the actions you would take if you wanted to change into the transformed you.  “Fake it till you make it” we say.  That doesn’t mean pretend.  It means take loving, generous, transformative action.  Put God’s will first, even if it feels like being asked to walk blindfolded and barefoot through a room full of broken glass.  Shake and snivel and shout at God the whole way, if you need to.  Whine if you must.  But never, never stop.  I will never be judged for not being a saint – only for not being me.  And so I try each day to live out of the ground of my being.  I try, I fail, I get up and try again.  And I maintain my sense of humor, because I am just an average woman struggling along the “road to happy destiny.”  Just a regular old gal.  A happy one.

Love and Prayer for all,

Sr. Patti+