What Was Your Closest Moment?

A prayer buddy stopped Rose Folsom short with a surprising question.

An accountability buddy is a must-have when you want to build a new habit or keep an old commitment fresh. Especially for things that are easy to slip-and-slide on, like exercise or a prayer schedule. Or visiting your aunt in the nursing home.

I meet with my buddy once a week by phone when we share with each other how successful we were in doing our part to stay close to God — and how, if we slipped up a bit, we could do better this week.

Surprise question

She surprised me by asking: What was your closest moment? She meant, what was your closest moment with God this week? No one had ever asked me that before! And I had a doozy to share with her.

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It’s joy that is eternal; pain is passing away. #catholicmom

I had felt shut out and rejected by people whom I respect and whom I thought were respectful. In those awful moments I felt cast into outer darkness. Then, in my imagination, Jesus approached, put His arms around me and asked:

“Don’t you know that you are not theirs, you are mine?”

… Yes, Lord, but I forgot. In the moments that followed, the deep sharing in his own rejection and pain caused the pain in me to be swallowed up by indescribable joy and closeness to His love. Thinking back on it, I can’t remember how the pain felt but I remember the joy very clearly. It’s joy that is eternal; pain is passing away.

So often, we can glide through our days and weeks feeling lonely and frustrated, as if God had forgotten about us. Or we feel rushed and empty — and we know it’s because we haven’t prayed.

Time to reconnect

Think back to your closest moment last week. It may be one that you didn’t think was grace-filled at the time, but you can see it now that it was. Remembering our closest moment reconnects us with how easy it is to cast the eyes of our soul to God and receive the help He’s offering at this moment. And to remember that if He seems far away, it’s we who have moved. Our reconnection is just a heartbeat away.

woman in striped dress looking at the ocean