Feeling Solid in a Temporary World

Laying in my bed on Tuesday night, I did not want to move one muscle. I was not in a good mood and lazy beyond belief but had an overwhelming sense of restlessness. That is when I got a text in a group chat from my friend Maria saying “Rosary anyone? I’m in the chapel now.” That was immediately followed up with a private message from my friend Lauren (who is also in the group chat) stating “Let’s go pray. It’s good for us.” I groaned, not wanting to go and have little faith in my ability to actually get something out of praying the rosary. I have always been awful at praying. I am an expert in wanting to wait until the “right” time and saying that I was not made to sit/kneel down and pray. But, nevertheless, I accepted their invitation and went down to the chapel. Still being fairly new to the Catholic community, I am still trying to catch on to everything said during the rosary, the order things go in, and all of the different mysteries. The beginning of the rosary and the first decade was a struggle. It felt like a marathon of my brain having a stream of inner dialogue.

“Okay Madi we have to pray now”

“No, we can just say the words but actually focus on other things”

“That will not help you though, you actually have to say the words AND meditate upon the mysteries AND lift up other prayers”

“Oh, my golly, no, that is not possible, that is way too much stuff to do. We might as well just give up right now”

“Okay let’s make a deal: we will say the words throughout the whole thing and focus on one person to say this rosary for and relate their struggles and life to the mysteries.”

Click. Boom. I felt the click of the key to open the door to calming my mind for this rosary. Then boom, I felt my body deepen into the prayer. Soon I was not even registering that I was speaking and could not even hear Maria or Lauren saying the rosary with me. I was transported into this beautiful place of calm and care and prayer for four more beautiful decades. This person that I dedicated this rosary to helped me to finish and excel at prayer a way that I never had done before. Once we finished the rosary, I opened my eyes and could feel myself solidify in this world. My anxiety often leads to my feeling disassociated with this world which makes feeling solid and really quite a rarity in my life. Solidity is something that I constantly chase and try to figure out how to make it last. To find it in something that I wrestle so much with is like God poking fun at me. I can imagine Him now looking at me with a smug grin and saying “See? Being a Christian is hard work. But it is worth it, isn’t it?”

Is it worth it? Is it worth it to put in such hard work for such a temporary world? I feel like this is a question that many who are wrestling with self-improvement, religion, and just life, in general, have ended up asking. I think you can already guess what my conclusion is going to be. I wish that I did not have to put in the hard work, I really do not. It would be so much easier if once I accepted Jesus and got confirmed and received the Eucharist and confessed my sins that I would feel solid and be a great person and excel as a Christian.

But it isn’t.

It isn’t easy and that is the beauty in it. Painful beauty, yes, but beauty still.

This temporary world created by a perfect, omnipotent, and omnipresent Creator has been given to us to experience in every way possible. The purpose of this creation was for us to love and enjoy until we are able to be reunited with Him in His everlasting kingdom. The temporariness of this world is to prepare us for the eternalness of His world. The taste of solidness that I received after praying the rosary was just a sneak peek of a sliver of what I will feel once I am reunited with Him. I am so thankful for being a Christian and realizing that everything good I strive for now is a sliver of what He has in store for me. So even if I feel transparent and not solid most of the time, I know that this is only temporary. For every second that I fall short of being a good Christian, there is an eternity of grace and forgiveness that will make up for it.

“Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming.” -Alice Walker