Mother Teresa's Secret

We've all heard of Mother Teresa and the wonderful work she did with the poor in Calcutta, India. She was truly the embodiment of Christ's love in a broken world. Most people don't realize, however, that Mother Teresa carried a secret that often consumed her with pain.

She first received her mission call when Jesus spoke to her directly. He said, "Come be my light." As she was pondering this call, Jesus added a question, "Will you do this for me?" She had all the information she needed to start her mission work - Christ Himself had called her to it! In the process of setting up her ministry in Calcutta, she was in near-constant communication with God. The Holy Spirit filled her and she had never felt closer to God. Then, when her ministry was established, the communication abruptly stopped. Not only was God's voice and the fire of the Holy Spirit suddenly absent, but this absence persisted for the rest of her life. Imagine how awful this must have felt to one so committed to God's call on her life. Consider Mother Teresa's own words, written down in a prayer to God:

"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your love, and now become the one you have thrown away as unwanted - unloved. I call, I cling, I want - and there is no One to answer - no One on Whom I can cling. Alone. The darkness is so dark - and I am alone. The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable. Where is my faith? When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. What are you doing, My God, to one so small?"

Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like a God that you refuse to stop believing in is unable or unwilling to hear you? I think we sometimes carry the false notion that the most pious among us - our mentors, church leaders, even Mother Teresa - could never struggle as we do in communicating with God. Surely they have it all figured out, right? They must have God on speed-dial, while we're left fumbling just to dial the number. Not so, friends. We all struggle in our faith at times, but the key is in maintaining that faith as Mother Teresa did. Remember that Jesus promised never to leave us or forsake us. Even if all we feel is emptiness, expressing that loneliness to God will not fall on deaf ears. If we remain faithful, the emptiness we feel will not be in vain. All things - even answer to prayer - are perfected in God's time.

I think it is wonderfully appropriate that Mother Teresa died in the midst of an electrical outage. Even backup electrical supplies went out, something that had never happened before. When earthly life left the one who had answered Jesus' call to "come be My light," all of Calcutta was plunged into darkness. How poetic and wonderful is our God?