Maegan - day 3. "Uprooted"

Today's podcast was a little more challenging for me than yesterday's. (If you've missed it, I'm sharing my prayer from my 30 Day Challenge commitment which you can read about here)

This is what stood out to me from the scripture reading (taken from today's alternate Gospel reading: Matthew 15:1-2, 10-14 )

"Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles."

Take a moment and read that through a couple times and let it just sort of sink into your soul.
I just sort of let the words of the Gospel flow over me as I listened to the woman's voice on the podcast.
Then, she continued:

"Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." 

How does hearing these words make you feel?

Well... like crap if I'm telling the truth.
I mean, isn't the word "defile" pretty disgusting? I've been sitting with that thought all morning and into the early afternoon (writing this a little later in the day than I did yesterday), I think because I have been waiting for my prayer to resolve itself into some sort of more satisfying image or feeling. I'm a singer... I feel like I've been sitting in a dissonant chord all day.

So in my prayer time, I decided I wasn't comfortable thinking about "defiling myself with the things that come out of my mouth" (hah!) so I tried to ignore it and find another part in the reading that was more... shall we say... comfortable? Well the reading goes on:

“Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted."

Is it just me, or is that not a very comforting thought either? I mean, it probably is to someone else, and there is a sense of justice that is satisfying to me, but at the heart of it what I hear is this: I have a lot of work to do.

The [ugly] truth is: I do a lot of defiling myself. I defile myself in the way that I speak sarcastically to others, or gossip about them. I defile myself in my critical attitude of my coworkers, peers, and even myself. I defile myself through my cynicism, and negativity - through my lack of hope in some areas. I defile myself through comparison, and measuring what I have been given against the measure of others. I'm sure there are more ways, but you get the picture.

And today, God gave me the grace to just sit in that. And he gave me the grace to see what He is working on: uprooting all of those ways that I defile myself - all the bad habits, all the negative self-talk, all the ways that I am not being the best Maegan that I can be. He loves me enough to let me feel uncomfortable so that I can desire the better version of myself.

Lord, help me to have the grace to let you uproot the things in my life that are not your will for me. Don't let me get in the way of your making me a saint.

Let us pray.


PS- How are your prayer challenges going? What have you decided to do? What has God spoken to you?
Please share in the comments section of this blog - it's for all of us to share!