Deuteronomy 8:2
Remember how the Eternal, your True God, led you through the wilderness these past 40 years. He did this to humble you, to test you, to uncover your motivations, to see if you would obey His commands. The Voice translation
And you shall remember the entire journey along which the Lord your God led you, for forty years through the desert, to afflict you, and to test you, and to make known the things that were turning in your soul, whether or not you would keep his commandments. Catholic Public Domain Version
I am coming to the conclusion that the Shepherd leads ” all the way”, all the time, on the Via Dolorosa. Whether it be green pastures, or still waters, or the valley of death’s shadow… the entire journey that He leads me on, the road that He walked Himself, is to “uncover my motivations“, and “the things that are turning in my soul”. For me, the green pastures and still waters have proven to have more power to produce soul turbidity than the creepy shadows of the valley. A bristling and smarting in the face of what my mind perceives as unfairness, an undue swiftness to retort in self-defense, these have exposed all sorts of shadowy creeping things that have begun to harbour and turn in my heart.
I declare unequivocally that I am an Israelite, not only spiritually, but literally. Like those forebears of mine on the way to the Promised Land, waters in my heart have by degrees grown murky.
And so the Shepherd has led me to a turning of my soul. I confess that it is not a very comfortable process. Yet I need to keep in mind …
…every dashed hope;
…every time a sharp tongue pierces my heart;
… for every thing that abases me, in my own eyes and in the eyes of others;
these are thorns in the crown I wear on the Way of Grief.
random ruminations 