Trusting in God's Providence and the Lourdes Freshmen Retreat

The SPIRITUS Team traveled to Oshkosh on Wednesday for a Freshmen Retreat with Lourdes High School. We enjoyed interacting with the students and sharing the Catholic faith with them.

The most memorable activity for me was a trust activity that involved blind folding partners and guiding them. It reminded me of a time when I encountered a blind man waiting to cross a busy street in Minneapolis. He had miscounted the number of streets he had already crossed and when I came to him, he should have crossed the street to his left instead of going straight.

When I began to converse with him about where he was going, he began to panic because he realized that he went too far. I was new to Minneapolis, but did my best to help him find his bus stop.

When the walking signal turned green, I guided him back across the busy street with my voice (he was too proud to let me actually hold his arm) and helped him find his way to a bus stop that would take him to the right place. Half way across the street, a car turning left did not yield, but blew on passed us. The man became petrified. I could see the car wasn't going to hit us, but the blind man could only hear a car coming at him.

I was a complete stranger to him, and yet he had to trust me with his life.

The activity on the retreat did not put the students in such an extreme position, but it does provide an important point about our relationship with God. Oftentimes, God asks us to go on paths completely blinded. Sometimes we are pushed out of our comfort zone, put in stressful situations, and the path God is taking us on doesn't seem to make sense to us. But we must trust Him and let him guide us on His path, despite not knowing where we are going. It is difficult to let go of our own crafted plans and to blindly surrender to God's Providence. It takes great faith and it is what God asks of us.