IN HIS UNFAILING LOVE MINISTRIES

OK - this is the second story about this in two days. The slant of the story is pitiful, making this beloved Godly woman sound like a fraud. First of all, it is not about us. Mother Teresa did marvelous things on behalf of the kingdom of heaven and was very humble. No human has the right (nor would she want it!) to the spotlight - for all righteous deeds are as filthy rags. MAN puts people like her on a pedestal and then when she had moments of questioning her faith, all of a sudden she's not "saint-worthy", or is considered "less than holy". Anyone who serves Christ is a SAINT of God. No man can bestow upon us that accolade. CHRIST said we are saints of God. NONE of us are worthy - it is HE who chose US. And what are the writers who are scrutinizing her doing for the Kingdom of Heaven? It should never amaze anyone, especially in this hour, that the media purposefully looks for examples of Christianity gone awry. Those who live in the world not wanting Christ can't stand the accountability and the conviction of their ways, therefore to tear down those who truly love the Lord is their way of justifying their lives.

Secondly, there is a thing called the "dark night of the soul". We ALL have moments where we are weak...where we wonder, "What am I doing this for?" There are times when the heavens seem as brass and our prayers are going unanswered. God's ways are not our ways - and sometimes He merely steps back and is silent - testing our faith and seeing if we will pursue Him even more or instead give up. Jesus Himself, when praying before He was crucified, was SO DISTRAUGHT THAT HE SWEAT BLOOD while saying, "Father, if you can take this cup from me, please do so - BUT - not my will but yours be done." Just how agonized and upset DOES a person have to be to sweat blood? Did this moment make Him any less holy? Any less God in the flesh?

The Lord will NEVER EVER allow me to applaud any individual - we are only able to do any thing because it is HIM THROUGH US. I CAN, however, give our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ALL GLORY HONOR AND PRAISE for making Mother Teresa one who was humble, faithful, and willing to serve...placing herself lower than those who had nothing, in order to be His hands and feet to the "throw away" people of Calcutta --- and if these reports are correct, she did it REGARDLESS of how she personally felt!!! That is how much she loved her Saviour - "not MY will, Lord, but YOURS through me be accomplished!" It was a hard life, one that very few (not even the holier-than-thou secular press) would be willing to give up their creature comforts for. God understands her moments of weakness, her moments in the flesh. Proof positive that her moments of weakness were less than her moments of faith will live forever in all tangible evidence of all the good that she accomplished on behalf of her Jesus whom she loved with all that she was, and for His Kingdom. Whether she "felt" Him or not, she could not have finished, could not have kept running the race WITHOUT HIM.

No, Christ never left her, and truly she is with Him in paradise today. I pray that more humble saints come forward as we near Christ's return. Her attitude of servanthood and faith are much more desirable than that of puffed-up pride and arrogance that says "Look what I'm doing for God world...and what the heck, let's name His ministry AFTER ME!!!"

via His Messenger
August 24th, 2007
1:00 pm - 1:46 pm

CRISIS OF FAITH: Mother Teresa Did Not Feel Christ's Presence for Last Half of Her Life, Letters Reveal

Friday, August 24, 2007

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who has been put on the "fast track" to sainthood, was so tormented by doubts about her faith that she felt "a hypocrite," it has emerged from a book of her letters to friends and confessors.

Shortly after beginning her work in the slums of Calcutta, she wrote: "Where is my faith? Even deep down there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. If there be a God — please forgive me."

In letters eight years later she was still expressing "such deep longing for God," adding that she felt "repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal."

Her smile to the world from her familiar weather-beaten face was a "mask" or a "cloak," she said. "What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true."

Mother Teresa, who died in 1997 and was beatified in record time only six years later, felt abandoned by God from the very start of the work that made her a global figure, in her sandals and blue and white sari. The doubts persisted until her death.

The nun's crisis of faith was revealed four years ago by the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, the postutalor or advocate of her cause for sainthood, at the time of her beatification in October 2003. Now he has compiled a new edition of her letters, entitled, "Mother Teresa: Come be My Light," which reveals the full extent of her long "dark night of the soul."

"I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul," she wrote at one point. "I want God with all the power of my soul — and yet between us there is terrible separation." On another occasion she wrote: "I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing."

FOR COMPLETE STORY:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294395,00.html