In the last few months, Our Lord has taken me to my very limits physically, mentally, and spiritually. He took everything that I thought I possessed or controlled away from me. Being the spiritual infant that I am, I could not understand what He was doing. I grew frustrated and angry. I was sick, exhausted, heartbroken, and deeply wounded. As my health deteriorated, my relationships crumbled around me, and my family was struggling. I felt like I was standing in a barren wasteland and all of it left me dumbfounded.
When Lent began, and for weeks, all I heard in prayer was: “I’m calling you to endure this suffering with My Sorrowful Mother in union with Me on the Cross.” The answer I was being given was the Cross. That terrible, beautiful, agonizing instrument of love, redemption, and freedom. Truth be told, at first I didn’t want the Cross at all. I tried to flee. I cried. I yelled out at God. I fell into spiritual blindness and could not see the next step in front of me. Yet, this is precisely what I asked for. My husband reminds me frequently that I prayed from the depths of my heart to become a saint. This is what that path looks like. The path to sanctity is the Cross. …