Katie's prayer: Kara's "Sunshine"

You are the silver line
making all things beautiful

Last year, I was sitting in adoration and noticed a book that was just calling out to me to be read. He's a little excerpt of the page I turned to...

"In today's Eucharistic Scriptures, the Lord throws our repented sins far into the ocean, into the very depths of the sea (Mi 7:19). Then He puts up a huge sign marked: "No Swimming!" Yet some of us don't really understand God's amazing love. We put on a spiritual wetsuit, dive into the ocean to retrieve our guilt, and spend years feeling guilty for having caused God and others so many problems. We're more comfortable in our prison of guilt than in being set free by Jesus.

The Lord doesn't want us to move back into prison after He's set us free. He grabs the guilt we recovered from the sea and tramples it under His feet (Mi 7:19). Jesus is serious. He really doesn't want us to take back that guilt. At this point, some of us are tempted to feel guilty about feeling guilty. This is why Jesus tells the story about the prodigal son. Jesus wants to see the guilty party — with music and celebration (Lk 15:23, 25)."

Once during confession, a priest informed me that God would somehow use my sin to help others. Make no mistake, God does not will us to sin, but when we do, God uses that to change our lives and others for the better. (that's the silver lining) Sometimes I have trouble seeing that silver lining. I feel guilty about my sin, diving down into that ocean over and over again, instead of turning to God and finding the silver lining.