All your fruitfulness

On Friday, February 29, I read the first of the lectionary readings, Hosea 14: 2-10, in several translations in both English and Spanish. In the Jerusalem Bible and the Christian Community Bible, the next to the last verse was translated: “all your fruitfulness comes from me.”

Things have been going fairly well and there have been quite a few positive signs, but the day before I had a really difficult situation which really hit me hard. But this passage of Hosea touched me and stayed with me for several hours, as I began to quietly repeat it, in English and in an improvised Spanish translation “toda tu fecundidad viene de mi.” It became sort of a mantra for me as I walked to the bus to go to Dulce Nombre.

It is so easy to try to prove myself in what I do, to seek fulfillment in the results of what I do and in the approval I get from others. But what is most important is to remember that God works through me – with all my limitations and talents – working so that God’s Reign, not mine, might come.