Come with Me

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When I was in graduate school, part of how I coped with difficult classes was to take really hard fitness classes at the YMCA. That helped me to release my stress and also showed me that I could do hard things. If I could get through that Boot Camp class, I could write that paper. And the class I loved the most was, in fact, a Boot Camp class. I loved it because the instructor would always do the hardest exercises first, so I knew that if I could get through the beginning of class, I’d be golden. The other reason I loved it was that, when she asked us to do all the hard things, she would do them with us. “Come with me,” she would say when we were all standing there dumbfounded at what she was asking us to do. One second I was thinking, “I don’t think my body can do that,” and the next moment I was on the floor, doing a push-up and a plank jack and a burpee.

That class was, and was not, like real life. In real life, there’s no guarantee that we’ll experience the hardest things first and get them over with. Our personal hardships may come, ready or not, when we’re young or when we’re older. Difficulty may come all along the way. One thing that’s true, though, is that we know God is with us. When the hard things come, God accompanies us, and God is there all along way. “Come with me,” God says. And we do. That doesn’t stop the hard things from coming, but it does mean we’re not alone when they do.

This assurance of God’s presence with us is what I notice in all our readings this Sunday. In the First Reading, Moses asks the people to recall how God has been with them throughout their history. He tells them to keep the commandments, and they can do that; they can follow God wholeheartedly because God has been with them through all of the hard times and good times too. In our Second Reading to the Romans, Paul assures them, and us, that we have received a spirit of adoption, that we belong to God. We suffer with Christ and are glorified with Christ, just as Christ suffers and triumphs with us as we journey through our lives. In our Gospel from Matthew, Jesus sends his disciples to go and make more disciples, baptizing and teaching people. How can they do this? How can we do this? Because Christ is with us always, until the end of the age.

All these readings help us to enter into Trinity Sunday, a feast my community also calls Providence Sunday. And for me, what these readings and this feast confirm is that God is with us. We belong to God. We live our lives of faith and do challenging things and grow through our lives, and all along God provides for us. God loves us and cares for us and guides us and helps us to grow.

And how does God do this? God guides us by speaking to our hearts and helping us to deepen our faith. I also think God is present to us in all the ways in which we accompany each other as God’s own community. Much like the Trinity, which is relationship, we are in relationship with each other and with God. We help each other to grow and to move through the hard times and to find God in all of it.

Part of the way my community responds to God’s love and care is by surrendering to it. We call this “abandonment to Providence.” Now, the word “abandonment” can have some negative connotations. To be abandoned by someone can leave us bereft, and people with abandonment issues are afraid of being left alone. However, God will never abandon us and leave us alone, and that’s why we can surrender to the movement of the Spirit and trust in God’s providence. And that’s why we embody God’s providence as we care for people.

We certainly don’t do this perfectly, and I’m the first to admit that surrender is a constant challenge for me. The only reason that I can move toward abandonment to Providence is because I’m in a community that helps me to do that. My sisters, and our lay associates too, are constant witnesses of God’s Providence. Their trust in God helps me to trust in God. And I hope my trust is helpful to other people too. In the ways that we are community for each other, there’s a mutuality and a care that helps us to live into God’s providence together.

That said, we are not a utopia, and any sister or anyone else living in community would laugh me right out of town if I said that community was perfect or easy. It is neither of those. We bring our humanity and our limitations and our brokenness. But we also bring our earnest seeking to live this life well. And that means something. It means a lot, actually. God doesn’t ask us to be perfect; God does ask us, all of God’s people, to be in relationship with each other and with God. And so, we strive toward that.

On this Providence Sunday, the invitation I hear for all of us, in religious community or some other form of community or family or group, is to trust God’s love and presence with us, to trust it so deeply that we can surrender to it. We can accept what is and also work to change systems because we know the world can be better. God comes with us, and we accompany each other. Like the Trinity, we are one. And we live this life together. Amen.

 

For reflection:

  • Have you ever had an experience of accompaniment, one in which others were with you, present to you, as you navigated a hard or significant time? What was that like?

  • Have you ever felt God accompanying you during a hard time? How did you experience God’s love and care?

  • Have you ever accompanied someone else? Maybe you were a mentor or a spiritual companion or a friend. What was that like? How did you experience God?

  • What helps you to be able to surrender to God’s providence, to God’s love and care and presence?



By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Sister Leslie Keener, CDP is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Board of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, meaningful conversations, and dancing.