Underage Drinking

Veramente, Cristo è risorto--indeed, Christ is risen--Happy Easter and Buona Pasqua to all of you.

It all comes down to this. Forty-seven agonizingly long days and nights, finally over. Before I hand myself over to chocolate and that all-too-tempting trunk of mine, I need to reflect. By morning, the intensity will have faded.

This Lent, I have truly learned the meaning of sacrifice and temptation. Both are things I know very well now. However, I've also been tempered. This intense time of growth has taught me to mellow out and trust God for direction in my life. I've learned to silence the voices of mockery, influence, and doubt in order to hear one of clarity and peace.

At first, it was very difficult--I spent about three weeks unable to fall asleep or to stay that way. Those nights were spent in a wild, ragged, distracted sort of prayer while I fought my own weaknesses and fears. When I did finally sleep, I would have dreams--and nightmares--both very vivid. Thanatophobia came back to play for the first time in years.

Last year, I spent my time counting the days until it was over, complaining all the while. This year, I counted every day as a small victory toward the larger war of temptation. Every day, I grew a little stronger. I took to reading St. John's Gospel, and picked up the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy again along with my usual prayer time. The latter turned out to be a lifesaver on more than one occasion, heh.

Finally, come Holy Week, my thirst ceased altogether. It was replaced, instead, by a different sort of thirst. I'm reminded of Christ as He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well as told in John 4:

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

For years now I've sought out other things to quench my thirst. After a while, I was no longer pacified by those things, and oftentimes I was left frustrated and confused.

That is, until I learned to drink of Him.

As we crossed the halfway point in the season three weeks ago, the struggle changed. Sleep came easier, temptation faded slightly, and I began to seek Him fiercely as I hadn't before. I sought Him like the woman at the well as the answer to my thirst, and slowly, I was fulfilled. Nights that were spent fighting with my fears became late nights reading and resting in God...and His will became clear to me. Finally, I could hear and feel again.

Holy Week, ironically, began with the crashing of my computer. I had prayed the night before for help with tuning out distraction and outside influences to better hear His voice and, well, I got it. Without internet, I lose a good chunk of friends (the majority of whom I met in theological forums), and many hours of surfing the web in boredom. The past six days have been an intense sort of mini-retreat. I thirst completely for Him now. I thirst, and only want more...I think I can understand now in a very small way what St. Therese of Liseaux meant when she wrote of "seductive waters".

But that's quite alright. This sort of thirst feels so much better. This time, much like before, I've lost control of myself. This time, however, I know it's safe. This time, I really don't mind.