MEET ANDREA
She is a beautiful young women who loves our Lord and is very real! I love people like Andrea! Thanks for your faithfulness Andrea! With her permission I share her story below.
In our continuing series of parish staff sharings, this week I have asked Andrea Gleason to share with us.
On my journey towards God, there have been many ups and downs. The outsider may look at my life and see a person who has it all together, plays music at Mass, and teaches religion classes for the parish, but for a majority of my life, that was not my reality. Pain. Anger. Instability. Those were my realities.
I was raised in a Catholic family along with my three older broth-ers, Brett, Mitchell and Chris. My mother was very devout and not only took us to Mass, but she taught us how to pray at home. I remember when I was five sitting in a circle with my family praying the Divine Mercy chaplet. For a time, we did that every night. Those memories were very powerful for me and never left me, but neither did the memories of my parents fighting or the memories of my Dad being sick and in the hospital over Christmas. In fact, as I got older I became more and more aware of the heaviness of life.
It was hard when my parent’s got divorced. It was even harder when my Dad’s illness, Multiple Sclerosis, took over his life. I re-member getting the call that my Dad was going to die in 4Th grade. He didn’t. Instead, he lived on in a vegetative state in a nursing home for 12+ years. On top of that, a couple of years later, my brothers and I had to adjust to my Mom getting remarried. Shortly after that we had to change schools to P-W (I know, right!?!?). That was in 8th grade, and I have to say, those were the hardest years of my life.
I tell you all of this, not so that you will feel sorry for me (God knows I felt sorry enough for myself for a long while), but so that you may see the hand of God at work in my life. I think the tempta-tion, when something bad happens, is to blame God. We ask, “Why did you make this happen? Why were you not there? Are you even real?” These are all normal questions when confronted with suffering, but I found in my case that I began asking a different question. I remember asking, “What now?” My answer came in the form of music and writing songs.
A gift from childhood, I make no claim for having deserved or worked for the gift of music. It was simply there. My Mom tells me stories of me singing the ABCs at a karaoke restaurant when I was three. It humbles me to think that God entrusted me with such a special and outward gift. I used to be afraid of getting in front of people, but God has drawn me out of my turtle shell quite a bit. The truth is, we all have gifts. Some are more hidden. Some are outward. Regardless, we have all been entrusted with these things. In my case, I had a couple of options. I could write music and wallow in my own self-pity or I could answer the tugging on my heart to write for a greater cause, to reach out to those who were going through the same pain as I was. For whatever reason, I think the memories that I had of my faith as a child never left my heart and so music became my prayer to God and my prayer for others, particularly my Dad. I wrote my first song in 5th grade and have been writing ever since!
Sadly, after my Dad got sick, his side of the family chose to place him in a nursing home that was closer to them. It ended up being two hours away from us, and we weren’t able to see him often. When I was able to visit, I would sit with him, hold his fragile hands, and sing to him. One time I sang the song from Isaiah 49: “I will never forget you my people. I have carved you on the palm of my hands. I will never forget you. I will not leave you orphaned. I will never forget my own.” As I sang this to him, a tear rolled down his cheek. He couldn’t say anything, but that tear spoke vol-umes
As painful as these experiences were and still are for me, these are the events that continue to open my eyes, and more im-portantly, my heart, giving me the ability to see beyond my own pain. While tragic and unfortunate, they have formed me uniquely as the person that I am, and have become, in a sense, stepping stones for me on my path to salvation and, hopefully, heaven someday. Not only that, but I have been able to reach out to oth-ers and suffer with them. That is the power of Jesus and the Res-urrection - he didn’t symbolically conquer death. He actually has victory over it, and has the power to bring good out of death itself.
Interestingly enough, after the Resurrection, Jesus doesn’t appear to the apostles healed of the crucifixion wounds. He actually tells Thomas to touch them! Again, when Jesus ascends into heaven, he does so bearing the wounds of the Cross. I believe there is significance in this. Because our hearts bear our burdens, we may lose our body when we die, but I imagine when we get to heaven, it is with wounds and all. Christianity alone makes sense of suffer-ing, because we have hope of the resurrection and new life in Christ, literally!
Jesus was very clear in the Gospels - suffering is not the worst thing that a human can experience, rather, it is that which can kill our souls which is the most dangerous. I don’t doubt that my Dad’s illness was a part of his salvation. Since his entrance into the nurs-ing home and eventual death in 2008, I have seen my family grow and heal in miraculous ways, and I believe with all of my heart that he himself was ready for heaven when he passed.
In the suffering that I have experienced personally and along with others, I have realized many things, but most importantly that life is precious; it is a gift and it is worth living and sharing. It is worth the tears of a father. It is worth the risk of being vulnerable and of loving, even if there is a chance at “losing” it or not having it recip-rocated.
Many of us are so caught up in busy and selfish lifestyles that we don’t even have time to see people around us, whether that be complete strangers or our own families. Ok, let me repeat that: we don’t have time to acknowledge the gifts that God has entrusted to us. Can we really be okay with a life of selfish comfort? Can we really be okay with hiding from our very purpose and identity? I don’t think so. We were created in love to love and be love for others.
The world is full of pain and suffering. These things are not going to go away, but imagine the difference we could make if each of us loved a little more than the day before. The answer to pain and suffering can’t be more pain and suffering! It has to be Love: the kind that dies upon the cross and redeems the world. In Christ, I have hope and can await the day when I will not only be able to run into my Dad’s arms but be able to meet my heavenly Father face to face.
The summer after my Dad passed, I wrote a song called “Thinking About You”. The words to the chorus go like this: “For most my life, I dreamed of your health and recovery. Still in my childish heart I always saw you walking me down the aisle.” These words reflect the pain that tears at my heart knowing my Dad will not be with me for the most important moments of my life. Yet, last year, while I was at Mass, a strange thing happened. I was walking down the aisle getting ready to receive the Eucharist when I felt the presence of my Dad. All of the sudden, I began to cry at the profound reality that my Dad was with me and in a sense walking me down the aisle to receive our Lord. In that moment, it was all I needed to know that this life here on earth is not the end. There is more, and I want to be a part of that. No more walking in dark-ness, there is light! My life is not my own. I belong to the Lord. I have heard his call. I must respond. Andrea
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