Losing Touch With Jesus

It’s such an easy thing to do,
To overshoot and lose touch with You;
Surrounded by everyday anxieties,
Add to them that you’re not too sensible to me,
And then you get me giving my all,
And then some,
Stretching and hoping,
Reaching and crying out for more of you
In my everyday moments.
I think that all simply misses the point.
You are present in my flesh and blood,
My soul but my pumping heart,
My thinking brain,
My biking legs and lifting arms.
I must believe you are more present
Than I know you to be.

So why do I think I lose you so often, so much?
Of course I am not praying ceaselessly.
I hardly ever turn my mind upward in conscious prayer.
I hope that somehow my love for you turns my life into prayer.
When I wake in the middle of the night,
From a nightmare about losing my job,
Out of concern for a client or with some strangely real dream,
Why am I so ashamed that these cares crowd my heart,
Rather than something more directed at you.
Maybe there is nothing more holy,
Than to love where one is in the world,
With all the love one has a capacity for
And in that way of being Jesus, making you more present in my everyday.

Certainly when I push through the frustrations of working an extra 5-6 hours
Because I couldn’t find a client the attendant coverage,
I find extra peace and rest when I have given all I have.
And that isn’t from me; that is how I know you come in those moments,
When my waterbottle of coffee is bone dry,
When I don’t have anything left to eat
And my mountain of paperwork is larger than the hours
I have left in the week.
When I have put all of me out into your world to love
In the place you have given me to love,
I sleep deeper and even there is your presence to me.
This restless soul, restless with seeking after you,
Finds peace when it is finally spent and has no more strength
To struggle with itself and take on anxieties too great for it.

When I bike an extra 16 miles for work purposes in a day,
Climb one more hill that wasn’t on the agenda,
Spend an extra hour or two listening or in unanticipated conversation,
I go home and find myself falling asleep in my studies.
And that is where you are.

My longing is never more satisfied than when I am spent
In the work you have given me to do,
To bring your presence with my into the day I’ve been given.
When I feel like I’m losing you, maybe I haven’t given enough
To meet you in that space of my own exhaustion.
Keep pushing me farther, Jesus.

Hannah Mecaskey became Catholic officially three years ago on April 11th, though her
journey towards the Catholic Church began while she was starting high school. She wasn’t attracted to the absolute truth claims of this church, but the possibilities of faith practice within it.  She was amazed that one church could include the possibility of celibacy as well as marriage, mystical and rational traditions. At St. Augustine's Catholic Church in Oakland, Calif., where she and her fiancé have begun to be involved since the Lenten season, Hannah sees both this sense of diversity as well as the community she has searched for her whole life. This post originally appeared via St. Augustine's Young Adult Ministry website.

Image: Henry Steven/shutterstock.