Today we celebrate a wonderful saint named Gertrude the Great. She shares a middle name with Hagar the Horrible, Alexander the Great, and Vlad the Impaler. Just kidding. She was probably orphaned at a young age, and after being taken care of by nuns in a Benedictine abbey, decided to become a nun herself.
She grew very close to Jesus, and she also liked to study. Sometimes she would cut her prayer time short to spend more time in the library. One day she had a vision, the first of many, in which Jesus gently admonished her for spending more time reading and studying than praying. She began to write down the messages that Jesus gave her in these visions, since she felt He was telling her things not just for her own benefit but for everyone. Sometimes she felt like she got writer's block, but she saw this as a blessing because it allowed her to spend more time with Jesus in prayer. You can read more about her here.
Do you see the minor inconveniences in your life as blessings? Let's adopt the mentality of Gertrude the Great, and of St Francis of Assisi, and see everything as God's gift. Obviously, bad things will happen, and that doesn't mean God did it or even "allowed" it, but He WILL work it for good in our lives if we let Him. Even the evil that men do can be God's gift to us if we allow Him to work in that evil and bring good out of it.
God, thanks for the great example of this saint. St Gertrude the Great, pray for us.
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