Human Beings, not Human Doings

Today, we spontaneously took the day "off". I say "off" because we still somehow managed to do a full day of work, but still managed to spend a majority of the day just being. We had prayer, Mass, a meeting with Father, our team meeting, and planned and put on a formation night for our student missionaries... AND spent a few hours in Fort Collins with the FOCUS teams from CU and CSU going on a brewery tour, eating at Choice City, and playing pool downtown. It was great to get together with friends and discuss life and being a missionary and BE together.

Sometimes as a missionary, it's hard for me to take some down time. Since my schedule is so random I sometimes don't notice that within Mon, Tues and Wed I've already worked over 40 hours. When your job has eternal significance (bringing people to Jesus, possibly helping save their soul), it is hard to not do it 24/7 - if I take some time for fun or relaxing it feels selfish.

This spirit creeps into my perspective of the world, of my God, and of myself. It slowly turns inward and I begin to place my worth on what I do instead of who I am as a daughter of God. It is hard to tell myself that even if something is good, it isn't always good for me to do. That if I'm not living a life worthy of imitation, I'm actually having a negative effect on the people God has placed in my life. That actually God doesn't need me in order to save the souls on campus, but allows me to be a part of it. That it isn't in the things I "do for God", but in how I live my everyday life that people can see Jesus in me. In a recent FOCUS Blog article titled What I Wish College Students Knew about Joy, I read:

Too many modern Christians fail to stand up or to stand out. We are called to live differently, are we not? And not just in what we refuse to do, say, or wear, but on a far deeper level of how we live out our vocation to love with unwavering joy, peace and, dare I say, a sense of humor. All of the atheists, pagans, and anti-Catholics combined have not done as much damage to the gospel in our modern age as joyless Christians have done.

Prayer is the key ingredient to evangelistic “success” – for it is only through prayer that we keep this divine perspective, fan the flame of our joy, and laugh in the face of death.

So what do I wish all college students knew about presenting their faith to others? I wish all students focused more on the “good” in the good news. I wish students understood the importance of joy as a fundamental daily disposition and of laughter as the most effective tool to open a hardened heart. And I wish that other students would have modeled a vibrant, joyful, and authentically Catholic life when I was in college…it would have saved me a lot of years in my own personal prison.

My job is not about doing as much as I can on campus, but in doing well what I can while modeling a vibrant, joyful, authentically Catholic life. And today, God used my team to help remind me of that and force me to have a little holy leisure!