Kissing Jesus

For the past week I’ve been feeling a little empty inside, as though my heart isn’t totally engaged in what I am doing; maybe you could call it spiritual dryness.  It takes more of an effort on my part to smile sincerely, to participate fully in conversation, to feel real empathy for the suffering people who come to us seeking comfort. I attribute it mostly to fatigue. Last year, as new arrivals on Camiguin, we had ample time to rest and relax as we transitioned into our new house and lifestyle. This year, we returned to our mission house to find ministry projects already awaiting us! It felt like we hit the ground running, and, as a result, didn’t have the luxury of an adjustment period.

Yesterday I was feeling sorry for myself as I struggled to fully engage in all that was going on around me. I picked up Maggie, the three-year-old daughter of our missionary companions who are living here with us in Sagay, and we made silly faces at each other for a while. Then Maggie grabbed my cross and asked “What is this?” She held it up to my mouth so I kissed it, and then she did the same. Maggie is a repeater -- she often picks up a phrase or action and repeats it over and over again to a point of exhaustion -- so it was no surprise yesterday when she held the cross up for me to kiss a second time, and then a third, the two of us taking turns back and forth.

It was a moment of realization for me -- a moment in which Jesus Christ was inviting me to love Him even more. Sometimes we do not “feel” the love of God as tangibly as we might like. Sometimes following Him in faithfulness is purely a matter of the will, as we choose to say yes to God even though our natural tendencies draw us in other directions. St. Augustine says, “Believers are strengthened by believing.” I know this to be true because, as I make the free choice each day to believe in God and to serve Him, regardless of my human emotions or feelings, He increases my faith even more.

When Maggie, in her childlike innocence, held the cross to my mouth to kiss over and over and over again, I could feel my heart responding with a committed love - perhaps not the passionate ardor of someone who has recently fallen in love, but the stronger, deeper love of someone who has experienced the emotional highs as well the times of silence, of quiet togetherness, of simply “being” and not having to do or say anything to assure one another that love is still present.

I pray for the return of fervor and ardor into my heart, but I am not afraid of this quiet interlude, either. I know that during this time He is testing my faithfulness, the depths of my love, and so I respond in hope and with the surety pronounced by Simon Peter when the Lord Jesus questioned him:

“'Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?' And he said to Him, 'Lord, You know everything; You know that I love you.'" St. Peter, help me to love Jesus as you loved Him!