A Religious Experience: Following Christ for Exhausted People

Two boys walking together on a path in a park, one using crutches for support and the other holding his hand.

Speaking of her first communion, taken at the age of eleven, St. Thérèse wrote this:

That day our meeting was more than simple recognition, it was perfect union. We were no longer two. Thérèse had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the immensity of the ocean; Jesus alone remained—He was the Master, the King!

—St. Thérèse of Lisieux

“Perfect union.”

“No longer two.”

“Thérèse had disappeared like a drop of water lost in the immensity of the ocean.”

This, I believe, was the source of power for this little girl who had lost her mother when she was only four years old. This union she describes so well. This union with Christ.

Even though she lived a life limited to doing only little things for God, she didn’t do them alone. Everything she did, she did with Jesus.

There are those of us who have, and there are those of us who will: every one of us will walk through suffering. This article is part of a series on exhaustion and exhaustion is itself a form of suffering. (Also, exhaustion often comes as a result of suffering.) The question is: Will we walk through suffering alone? Or will we walk through suffering with Jesus?

In my experience, walking through exhaustion and suffering alone is the absolute most miserable way to walk through suffering.

Walking through exhaustion and suffering with Christ has given me an inner strength to endure.

When I walk with Him there’s love in the midst of the exhaustion and suffering.

When I walk with Him there’s hope in the midst of the exhaustion and suffering.

Dear reader, don’t walk alone. Invite Jesus to join you.

Ah, how high you are in the heights of heaven, how deep in the depths!

From no place are you absent, yet how tardily do we return to you!

Come, Lord, arouse us and call us back,

Kindle us and seize us,

Prove to us how sweet you are in your burning tenderness;

Let us love you and run to you.

—St. Augustine