Divine Mercy Comes from Only One Place...

For those of you who are not aware, the Catholic Church celebrates a feast day called "The Feast of Divine Mercy." This annual feast day is always celebrated the Sunday after Easter and it began through St. Faustina Kowalska, who was a nun with tuberculosis in the early 20th century. St. Faustina was blessed with visions of Jesus. He came to her delivering messages and she kept a diary of everything He said. The Church read and approved of her diary and declared her a saint in 1993. The reason she is responsible for the Feast of Divine Mercy is because Jesus repeatedly told her of His infinite Mercy and assured her that it was available to all who ask. There is a one-line prayer that we say to Jesus of Divine Mercy and that is this, "Jesus, I trust in You." Short and simple.

The reason I am telling you this is that I have always been a believer in Divine Mercy and I have always participated in the special services the Catholic Church offers on this feast day. As usual, Andy and I went to the church that was celebrating this feast and we participated in the special prayers, worship, Penance Service and finally, the Holy Mass.

Throughout the entire service I was thinking of Caleb. I was praying and asking God to have mercy on him. I was extremely emotional and fought back tears at many times during the celebration. At one point, I felt like Jesus was speaking directly to my heart. He was telling me that His mercy is available and He is ready to pour it like rain, down on our heads, down on Caleb. But He told me that I must first offer Him all of my suffering. He told me that unless I open myself up and truly have complete trust in Him, He cannot offer me the mercy I ask for.

I never realized until that moment that I really hadn't given everything to Him like I thought I did. I had been praying and asking God to give me the strength to accept His will. I had been asking others to pray for me to have this strength as well, but I suddenly realized that unless I surrendered everything to Him and whole-heartedly believed that He would take care of Caleb and our family, what good would all those prayers be?

So with every drop of sincerity, I prayed that prayer, "Jesus, I trust in You." I repeated it over and over in my mind and my heart. Suddenly, it was like a river opened up in me and everything I had inside poured out. I felt Him take everything from me; all the pain, fear and sorrow were gone. I walked out of that church feeling new and different. I felt only joy and no pain. It was incredible!

For those of you who don't believe...it is true. You may think I am lying, or crazy. You can think that if you want. But all I can say is that if you truly give Him a chance, God will absolutely change your life, your heart and your soul. I say this now with conviction because it happened to me. He makes all things new...