Trusting in God’s Love, JAMM E-Book

FSP Kathryn J. Hermes

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Journey from the insecurity of fear and doubt to the courage flowing from true security in God’s love. This pocket-sized booklet features thirty Scripture-based meditations and prayers, plus an appendix of additional prayers to inspire confidence in the abiding and unconditional love of God. Trusting in God's Love is part of the Just a Minute Meditations series from Pauline Books & Media, a collection of themed meditation booklets to help you pray through the challenges of life. 

Leseprobe

Cover

Title page

JUST A MINUTE MEDITATIONS

Trusting in God’s Love

BY KATHRYN J. HERMES, FSP

Copyright page

ISBN 10: 0-8198-3473-4

ISBN 13: 978-0-8198-3474-4

Library of Congress control number: 2024936356

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Other Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, Revised Edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover design by Tisa Muico

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Copyright © 2025, Daughters of St. Paul

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Pauls Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491

www.pauline.org

Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.

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Contents

Introduction

1. You Care Even for Me

2. I Have Stilled My Soul

3. You, O Lord, Are Right beside Me

4. I Rely, Lord, on You Alone

5. Lord, If You Will, You Can Heal Me

6. Do You Really Love Me?

7. God Delights in Me

8. For Everything There Is a Season

9. Lord, Do Not Forget Me

10. Let It Be Done to Me According to Your Word

11. You Will Trample My Sins under Your Feet

12. Jesus, Remember Me

13. Who Will Separate Me from the Love of Christ?

14. Give Me a Second Chance

15. Though I Have Not Seen You, I Love You

16. Do You Not Care That We Are Perishing?

17. I Feel the Fascination of Your Gaze

18. My Cross, O Lord, Is Heavy

19. Help Me Not to Be Afraid

20. Let Me Hear of Your Steadfast Love

21. Keep My Eyes Always on You

22. I Want to Go Where You Call Me

23. Father, I Have Sinned

24. Jesus, You Make All Things Work for Good

25. You Laid Down Your Life for Me

26. You Have Conquered the World

27. What Would You Have Me Do?

28. I Welcome Your Gift of Love

29. Help Me to Live the Faith

30. Your Mercies Begin Afresh Each Morning

Prayers

Psalm 16

Prayer of Trust

Prayer in Times of Anxiety

Jesus, Live in Me

Act of Confidence in God

God’s Dream for Me

Cor Dulce, Cor Amabile (Dear Heart, Loving Heart)

Prayer of Abandonment

Act of Abandonment

Introduction

The most important thing to know in life is this simple: “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16).

Tragically the human race was robbed of this knowledge and experience in the Garden of Eden. In some sense, all of us now carry the burden of not being quite confident that God, who is love, actually loves us.

In the Gospel Jesus, sent by the Father, announces that we are loved more than the wildflowers and sparrows that God cares for. He whispers this love in quiet conversations, displays this love in dramatic healings, reassures us of this love at the Last Supper, offers this love in laying down his life for us, and remains with us in his love in the Eucharist.

The Lord’s love is fierce, true, and tender. He reaches out to us before we call for help. In every place in our lives where we see failure and disappointment, every part of ourselves we label as unlovable, he writes: “I love you, and will always love you. Nothing can change that.”

For many years, I couldn’t pry open my frightened heart to believe that God could love me. I guess I unconsciously felt God hadn’t been there for me when I needed him. I hadn’t seen that his mercy had upheld me and carried me on when I had sustained the wounds of circumstances beyond my control. I had believed it. But its truth had not yet touched me.

Friend, maybe you are in this place, where you believe but do not yet know. Or perhaps life’s storms have buffeted your soul, and you no longer have the strength to lift your head in trust. Or maybe you feel you need to show yourself worthy of being loved by God, or to re-earn the honor of his attentive tenderness. Maybe you just want a place to finally lay down your burdens before him. I invite you to allow the experience that these Scriptures and meditations offer to touch that fragile place in your heart.

This short booklet of meditation and prayer is a companion on the journey from the insecure place of fear and doubt to the courage that comes from true security in God’s love. As you pray your way through these pages, you will be invited to greater trust through relaxing the ways you take control of your life, releasing anxious thoughts, remembering how God has shown he has our good intentions at heart, resting in God who cradles all of his creation in his love, and reflecting on how to find the traces of this love in the midst of the challenges of daily life. You will find this little book a useful companion for deeper prayer when beginning or ending the day, or while spending time with Jesus in the Eucharist in adoration. It can be a resource when you’re struggling and a pick-me-up at the moment you need help to believe in love.

Dear reader, wherever you are in this journey of life, when you pray with the word of God, you are united to the millions of people who have prayed and reflected on God’s love and found their security in him for thousands of years. Most especially, in those quiet moments God is with you in a special way. In these pages you will begin a journey that can continue into the future as you entrust yourself to the word of God. Remember, you are never alone.

May your confidence to trust in God’s love be restored and renewed.

1You Care Even for Me

“Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?”

Matthew 6:28–30

I remember walking down a country road one warm, sunny spring morning. As I rounded a corner, I was stunned by wildflowers growing in patches near the road. When my eyes fell on them, my heart startled me: “God loves the wildflowers!”

Jesus didn’t say, “If God cares so wonderfully for elegant roses or exotic birds of paradise or sophisticated orchids.” He said, “If God cares for the grass of the field”—the wildflowers—with such tender attentiveness . . . I knew then that God cares for me.

That experience was during a time when I felt like a wildflower, insignificant and not needed for much of anything. But God picked out the simple wildflower that grows in infinite variety across the world to get his point across. If you doubt that God sees you, if you feel that you’re no one special, look how he cares for these simple flowers that grow here and there and everywhere. God cares much more for you.

When I feel as unremarkable as a flower that grows wild in the fields, your care for me, O Lord, gives me confidence.

2I Have Stilled My Soul

. . . I have stilled my soul,

Like a weaned child to its mother,

weaned is my soul.

Israel, hope in the Lord,

now and forever.

Psalm 131:2–3 NABRE

We are given here an image of our true identity: we were made to be at rest, contented, safe; to belong, to be held, to be known, to be seen. A weaned child embraces his or her mother not to be fed, but simply to be in her presence and surrounded by her love. You and I were made to draw near to God like this, to be in relationship with God who wonderfully made us from our mother’s womb.

Even as adults, we are as vulnerable as a weaned child, embraced by God at every instant. We were created not to make it through life on our own, but to be cradled and beloved in the everlasting arms of God.

To trust concretely looks like this psalmist’s choice to calm and quiet the mind’s churning agitation and to surrender all attempts to solve life’s overwhelming problems on his own.

With great peace, take a deep breath, and close your eyes to fears, needs, what-ifs, and sorrows. Take your gaze off the past and the future and focus it wholly for a moment on the Lord, who holds you in peace and safety. Though chaos may reign all around, for a weaned child there is only this place where everything is okay.

Father, I thank you for helping me find peace.