When You Let Yourself Be Duped
A beautiful blessing of this week was that Serra turned four years old. Here's a photo from her tea party on her birthday!
Welcome to Word for the Week, the series in which I:
share my experience of hearing God’s Word in Mass last weekend,
explore what I believe the Lord is calling me to do about that Word, and
ask how this Word might impact your life, as well.
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Last week, only our son, Jamal, accompanied me to Mass at our new parish, near to our new home. The liturgy was very simple. No singing, it was held in a gym, and the priest was the only person who said any words into the microphone. But it felt like home. I have chills as I write this. (Which is obviously from the Holy Spirit, because I’m in Arizona right now! Not. Cold.)
It felt like home! At Mass, I was able to see the last four years in a new light.
For almost four years, I felt like I’ve been visiting Arizona. It was a transitional time for so many reasons. Yet now, my family has this sense of rootedness. I believe the Lord has prepared us for this blessing for a long time, and our new home is a physical sign of that invisible reality. And our parish is part of our home! Technically, our home is an extension of our parish home!
Two words stood out to me among the readings from our new home parish:
“I have let myself be duped.”
“Renewal of your mind.”
As I asked the Lord what He wanted me to do about those words, I experienced consistent healing (renewal!) in my thoughts. It’s like God and I are playing a mind game, but it’s a great game in which both of us win! This has been supremely refreshing. As I’ve shared many times, my mental health journey has been very difficult over the past several years.
Even though the postpartum depression has been completely gone for over a year (thanks be to God!), I have had lingering symptoms of unhealthy brain patterns. Sometimes those faulty coping mechanisms impair my hearing comprehension or they create repetitive thinking (OCD). There are other adverse physical symptoms, too, like hyperventilation.
I’ve known for a while I can control this! But it’s been hard to choose health consistently.
So why have I continued to struggle? I asked the Lord about this problem a few weeks ago, and I believe this is the answer: to let the Lord renew my mind again and again! Whereas normally I would struggle with life changes like a new home or sending our kids to school, every time I felt weighed down this week, I’ve been able to turn to the Lord. And somehow He lifts my mind!
It’s as though the Lord wanted me to leave some mental “baggage” behind at our old house, and to start fresh in this new chapter with a clearer mind and heart than ever before. Yet it had to be in His time and through His strength. Who would’ve thought God would call me to the desert for so much healing? That was tricky, in a beautiful way.
In the midst of a year that our culture has deemed as lost, God is working some of His best wonders. That’s definitely His style! “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped.” How is God calling you to let him “dupe” you today?
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