The Big Let-Down?

If you read my post last month, I was preparing for the convalidation of our marriage as well as being able to receive the Eucharist. I am happy to say that on Thursday, December 22, 2016, the Church blessed our marriage and we both received the Eucharist; Vicki for the first time and me after many years without.

Do you remember your first Confession? Did it feel like the weight of the world was off your shoulders and that there was a “lightness” to yourself after purging the baggage of sin? Surprisingly, I did not have that feeling after my Confession. I was hoping for that sense of relief, but it just was not there. It was a little disappointing, to be honest.

The day after my Confession was our Convalidation Mass. After receiving Communion, I did not feel a sense of profound emotion I thought I might have after not being allowed to receive Jesus in the Eucharist for so many years. No, my anticipated emotions did not happen.

Was God letting me down?

It was not until I went to daily Mass and the days following that I started having feelings, nay, awareness, of what receiving these two Sacraments meant. God had his own plans for my sense of relief and joy despite when I felt I should have received them.

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In these past several days, I have found that I have been able to resist my temptations to sin. I have been able to place my trust in God in helping me deflect the temptations. He gives me something better to do; He gives me thoughts that are good; “He guides me along right paths.” I am thoroughly convinced that partaking of the Eucharist has given me the graces and the strength, that I had been lacking for so many years, to resist my temptations and sins.

That, to me, was God’s plan for my sense of relief and joy. I have this sense of peace, trust, and the ability to fight. I am not carrying around a baggage of hopelessness but a sense of freedom and lightness.

God did not let me down.