Youth Ministry: August 2010

Miracle Grow and Manure

By Mary Lou Rosien

A friend and I were doing some mutual complaining about the difficulties in our lives.  Job issues, family issues, other struggles were all in the topic of conversation.  We then moved on to the incredible spiritual growth we were experiencing during these trials.  My friend quipped that she felt like we had been sprinkled with “spiritual Miracle Grow ©.” 
We went further into our discussion and she had a revelation, “It seems,” she continued,  “like the key in spiritual growth, just like in plant growth is that you have to be covered in sh…, um, manure!”  The worse our situations seemed to be, the more fully we relied on God and the faster we grew in faith.

Have you ever witnessed a time when someone was making huge spiritual growth and bad things just kept on happening.  Some would say that the enemy was getting stirred up and fighting back.  I will not deny that I have seen that happen.  Conversely, though, maybe the struggles (the manure, if you will) are what provide the fertilizer for us to grow spiritually.  I know in my own life, I sometimes have to be forced on my knees to deepen my reliance on God.

Recently, I struggled with a horrible situation regarding the safety of one of my children.  I wanted to fix it, make it safe, heal the pain that was caused and I could not.  I couldn’t find an adequate solution no matter how hard I tried.  Finally, in desperation and exhaustion, I placed the solution in the Lord’s hands and took it out of my own. BOOM!  Within hours God worked out a solution so perfect, so well timed, so complex, it could only have come from Him!!  I was astonished.  Why was I surprised?  This is the God of Abraham.  The God who walks on water.  The God who rose from the dead!  Did I really think that any problem was too big for Him to solve.  I felt like slapping my own head for my stupidity.  Yet, I needed that awful situation (manure) to force me to give up control and trust the Lord.

Currently we are facing other challenges.  We have a foster son who is serving in Afghanistan for a year.  We place him in the hands of the Lord.  We have an adult son who is struggling with some personal issues; he too is in the Lord’s hands.  We have teenagers, middle-schoolers, and younger children all facing their own trials.  It would be easy to become immobilized by the stress and the fear of raising these children.  My husband struggles with issues at work and I could find myself distracted by this too, but I see these situations now as spiritual manure and I trust that we will grow in faith because of them.

When working with youth groups we often find that our students struggle with serious issues. Helping them redefine these struggles as necessary to their spiritual growth may help them reframe their thinking when going through tough times.  Have a blessed summer.

Mary Lou Rosien writes from North Chili, NY.  She is the author of Managing Stress with the Help of Your Catholic Faith (OSV Publishing). Email her at mrosien@rochester.rr.com.