Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - March 4, 2021
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
Jon’s story:
Jon says of this story that it is “maybe a cautionary tale, but also a testament to God's grace and mercy.” Even at five years of age living with his family in rural North Dakota he knew he wanted to be a priest. Two years later the family moved to Minneapolis where nuns and priests further abetted that desire. They got him admitted to a boarding school for young boys with the same desire. But after his alcoholic father died he dropped out of that to support the family as the oldest of seven children.
This also marked the beginning of a “20-year temper tantrum against God” over the death of his father. Not long after his father’s death a baby sister died of a brain tumor, and his mother killed herself. All the more was he, the eldest child, the major support of his five younger siblings. His temper tantrum meant that he did not attend church, did not pray and “mostly yelled at God”.
In the midst of this alienation from religion, there was he says, a failed marriage, many affairs and alcohol abuse. And, “as always happens, an angel in human form was sent to direct him” to AA for treatment for alcohol abuse. This First Step “. . .was the beginning of the Spirit reawakening faith in my soul. I got sober enough to see how destructive my marriage was for both of us and got a divorce.” Though sobriety was like a stock market graph, up and down, eventually it become his lifestyle. In timely fashion “God’s grace brought Carol, a cradle to grave Presbyterian, into my life.” For the first time God was now central in a relationship. Ultimately the Scripture-based preaching in Carol’s church and their relationship to ‘angel” pastor Rev. Angela and the congregation led to their marriage. Instruction in Reformed theology, the baptism of their son Paul, and membership in the church followed. As he professed that "’Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior’ all desire for drink left me and took that burden off my shoulders.”
Another segment to follow tomorrow.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
