Years ago, fresh out of porn and the gay lifestyle, I was graced to have a certain Catholic priest as a spiritual director: who I later learned was dealing with his own personal demons. But, thankfully, for my sake, this man was very calm and even-keeled. This was a great source of relief to me at the time, for I was always in a state of frenzy or self-depressed exhaustion. I was either manically panicked or ready to jump into the grave. I had just been through over ten years of constant battle: I was shell-socked and stressed-out. When we talked, for about an hour a week, which included Confession, my thoughts incessantly circled around my past life: how I still felt dirty; how I felt unworthy; how I felt unforgiven. It went on and on. It was all about me. God was just this big bodiless entity in the sky that I would occasionally crawl in front of. After a few meetings, he gave me some advice that I thought peculiar. He said: Every night, after your prayers, thank God for three things that happened during the day. At first, I was a bit insulted. I thought this was purely pre-school spirituality. I had gone through hell, I proudly reasoned. I am tough; I am capable of more than this. Feeling a bit irked, I still did as he instructed. That evening, I thought about what I could possibly thank the Lord for. Well, the sun shinned brightly that day. I suppose it was a beginning. I struggled to think of something else. Eventually, I came up with three things. After that, before bedtime, I reenacted this strange ritual. Slowly, it got easier. And, then, suddenly, too many wonderful ways that God was impacting my life everyday would enter my mind. Quite naturally, I was beginning to understand how He was working silently and steadily to touch my every moment. Subsequently, this exercise in thanksgiving became a worship of praise. I had never done that before. Previously, I was always pleading, begging, and wailing with God; I had never thanked Him. Our relationship became deeper, more intense, and more intimate. It was no longer one-sided. As St. Padre Pio once wrote: “Will my entire life be long enough to thank the heavenly Father for his goodness, for the continual and most singular favor he grants to one who offends him continually? Blessed forever be our good God who does not know how to punish the wretched soul…”
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