“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.”

Last night before attending Adoration, I learned a very valuable lesson. Although my time here in this life after my conversion began, has mostly been spent in contemplation and deep repentance, and I have gone through sever suffering in many forms, all of which I have learned through the Holy Spirit, Mama Mary and the Saints, to unite with our Lords. The hardest part has been the feeling of isolation. Its an isolation of sorts that keeps me protected in many ways from committing the same sins that got me into trouble in the first place. It is seeing the people I love and people I don’t know, committing the exact sins that I to have committed. When this happens, I try to correct them, if I can, or if it is something on TV where sin is being glorified, I change the channel or turn it off completely. Most of the time, I internalize it and understand that I to have done these things and I remember the exact moments in MY life when I did not believe as strongly in the mercy and love of our Lord, or didn’t even THINK about our Lord. When this occurs, the repentance becomes deeper and the source of the sin that was committed is realized, which teaches me to stay away from it in the first place, so the sin can never be committed again.

With this deep repentance came a phase of judging others. I don’t mean judging them and banishing them to hell but rather seeing them in the state that I was once in, before my conversion and begging God to have mercy on them, to convert them so they can understand exactly how much they are hurting our Lord. Pleading with God to let them see as I could see. And with that, came the isolation I was speaking about. It was as if it was me verses the entire world. Sort of seeing my own idea of my righteousness, without understanding why God was allowing me to see things in this way. Living in total fear that we were all doomed, but praying even harder, attending Adoration more and pulling as close to our Lord as I could. This wasn’t something that just came overnight. Not at all. Its been the progress of my entire conversion for the past 14 years had brought me through in Christ.

A few weeks ago, I had written a post called Psalm 23 In Pictures. A few days ago, I was looking through it and noticed one picture in particular above the passage: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures”. When I originally posted this I placed a photo of what I thought were baby lambs lying in the grass just under the passage. A few days ago, I studded the picture and I couldn’t tell if they were lambs or goats. I worried a bit about it because I didn’t want anyone to think I was promoting “The Goats”. So I changed the photo to older sheep, lying in the grass.

Now keep in mind, I try to ponder every action I commit, to try and make sure that what I do, is done with wisdom and not knee jerk response, and pray about it to see if our Lord is pleased. Everything I do, I do for Him. On my way to Adoration last night, in gathering my thoughts about the days events and the souls I had come across, and how it was a good day, I pondered how no matter who God places in my life, I am to love them as He has loved us. As I was driving to see our Lord, it dawned on me, regarding the post, I can’t tell the goats from the sheep! Immediately in my heart, I heard the words, There is only One who’s job it is, to separate the goats from the sheep. Its not me. My job is simply saying yes to God. Always.

This isolation stage of my conversion has been filled with so much turmoil but a turmoil replaced very quickly with consolation from the Holy Spirit. Turmoil as to fear of what shall I do Lord? Where do I go from here? Who then Lord do I speak to about what I am experiencing? What I am seeing? Who do I trust enough to tell these things to? Every answer came to be the same: I am WHO Am. The most beautiful invitation to talk to Him all the time.