Preview

As a young girl Agnes had great trust in God.  Her heart was on fire with God’s love for her and she responded to Him like a daughter would a doting father.  She described her relationship with God as, “rapture!” 

Agnes thought the way to respond to God was through service to Him.  So she became a Bible student and ultimately a missionary.

But then everything changed, she felt her trust in God, and even God Himself had somehow left her.  The spiritual, psychological, emotional ecstasy she had felt through her connection with Him disappeared.

“What has happened to my trust?  There is nothing but emptiness and darkness in my soul.” she thought. 

Agnes began to write letters to a confidante and pour out her fear and darkness.  She asked that the letters be destroyed so that no one would know of her struggle with her trust in God.

But the letters weren’t destroyed and have become a monument to a woman who served God for over fifty years in spite of her struggle.  She continued on because she knew GOD was there but she lost HER sense of connection.  Agnes intellectually knew one day she would meet Him and at that moment all her emotional agony would vaporize.

A wise spiritual counselor told her that her struggle in feeling God as absent was a sign that she was becoming more like Jesus when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Even someone like Agnes or as we commonly know her, Mother Teresa, could struggle with trust in God just as we do?  Mary, the mother of God, struggled with trust as well.  But she responded, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

This week at GateWay we celebrate one of the Miracles of Christmas Mary’s miraculous trust in God.  Join us Thurs. at 6:45p or Sunday for Traditional worship at 8:45a or Contemporary worship at 10:30.