Vessel & Altar

"For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:26

The prince of Tyre thought his intelligence and success had made him sufficient. Ezekiel's message is that he was wrong about the most basic thing: he was a man, not a god. The wisdom and trading were real. The sufficiency they implied was not.

Many women carry a quieter version of this - not "I am a god" but the operating assumption that she is the load-bearing wall of the life around her. The competence is real. The family runs because she is running it. The relationships hold because she is holding them. What slips in through the competence is the belief that she is the cause of what she is holding together.

For God all things are possible. That sentence is the actual description of how anything good happens - including the things that seem to happen through human effort alone. The camel gets through the needle not by the camel's own flexibility but by the action of the one who can do what is otherwise impossible.

Peter's question is honest: we gave things up - what will there be for us? Jesus answers: a hundredfold, eternal life. The giving-up was not a loss. It was the opening of the hand.

Sister, what have you given up for the sake of following? Name it. Then say Jesus's promise over it: a hundredfold. You don't have to see how yet. The one for whom all things are possible is managing the return.

Where in your life are you operating as though you are the cause of what you are sustaining - as though your effort is the only thing keeping it together? Name it. Then say: for God all things are possible. Say it over the specific thing, not in general. Let it land.

Lord, I am not the load-bearing wall of what I am holding together. You are. For you all things are possible, including this. I am trusting the hundredfold even before I can see it. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. Amen.