Encountering God - Trust in the Slow Work of God

Forgetting isn’t just for old people. While I do qualify for that category, I take comfort in noticing that humans throughout recorded time look back to see where they have come from. We search for our roots and reflect on our successes and failures. This isn’t nostalgia, although that can be comforting—like an old, familiar recipe. We remember and repeat family stories as a way of honoring the past and anchoring ourselves as we move forward.

The last weeks of 2025 were filled with steady streams of remembering. I saw lists of the best books—most I have not read; favorite places to visit or stay—most I have never been to and likely never will; the most cooked recipes—not yet, though some have been added to my list. Some have made me laugh, while others have been thought provoking, heart breaking, or inspirational. It is easy to get caught up in those lists. As interesting as they might be for a while, they leave me longing for something deeper.

My spiritual director mentioned last week how far I have come in the past few years. I sat there with a clear picture of my present life, yet I could not identify anything that explained what she meant. In the days since, my thoughts have returned to this question. What happened this past year? Looking at old calendars, my response could easily be, “What hasn’t happened?” I think of my life as ordinary, yet I was shocked to notice how dramatic, joyful, sad, disorienting, exciting, comforting, and disorganized my ordinary life has been.

Annie B. Jones wrote about her experience of Advent and it perfectly mirrored mine. “I (almost) always come limping into Advent, desperate for light, but almost too tired to look for it. Then I remember: The light came looking for me, and that’s the whole point.” A limping race to the finish, in spite of all my good intentions to the contrary, is not my idea of success—but it was the best I could manage this year.

Winter darkness in rural New England is darker than dark. With few street lights and even fewer stores, I cannot count the times I have been ready to head to bed, only to realize it was 7:30 and not 11:00! “Desperate for light” hardly begins to describe the way I feel in winter. Long ago, that longing prompted my practice of lighting a candle when I pray. I have discovered that even a single lit match will pierce the darkness and find me. The flame is a symbol of the Sacred in my life—it welcomes me and guides me home. In its glow, I know I am safely in the holy presence of God.

Like Mary, resting in the days after Jesus was born and seeing her world forever changed in the glow of her motherhood, I find myself drawn to her in a new way during these more reflective weeks since Christmas. I know of her journey with him from the time of her visit with the angel Gabriel. The invitation I have been offered in prayer comes as a question: What actually happened in the past year? Where was God on my journey?

The Into the Deep blog encourages us to notice what God has done and is doing in our lives. I find myself appreciating that reminder right now. It is so easy to lose focus on God and on what God has been doing in my life—my ordinary life. I can only recognize it if I take the time to look back. What have I truly done in response—or have I only reacted? What is God doing now, and where are we going from here, together?

In this week after Epiphany, my prayer is an intentional review that begins with a request: I ask Our Lady of Guadalupe for her help. Like a child, I take her words to Juan Diego very seriously: “Am I not here, who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms?” I am not very good at asking for help or slowing down, yet I must do both to experience the grace of seeing my year as God sees it. Our Lady is my Companion on this journey.

I am praying with steps of an Annual Examen from the Ignatian Ministries site as I review the past year. My journal and calendar from last year are next to me. This is so much more than an intellectual audit—it is a prayer. My memory, my heart, and all my senses are brought into this prayer. I ask for the courage to be honest and open to whatever comes forward. I know that I am being held, as Mary held her baby—well loved and protected.

The gift of this Examen is the gentle reminder that growth takes time—slow, sometimes plodding, barely noticeable, incremental time. In this review, God is showing me that I was never alone. Goals will come, but for now I am trusting in God’s warm embrace without rushing. Perhaps that is my new favorite definition of trusting in the slow work of God.

Going Deeper

• Does this story of the longing search for noticing God’s hand from Mary Ann’s life over the past year resonate with you? Consider praying the Annual Examen and share your noticings with us here.

• Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ offered suggestions for trusting the slow work of God to his niece in what is often called his prayer of Patient Trust, also found in Hearts on Fire.

• Please read this prayer of Blessings for a New Year by Rabbi Frederick L. Klein as a prayer of gratitude for you, our Into the Deep Community.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

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Mary Ann Gessner

Mary Ann Gessner has worked with all generations as an art teacher, in Nursing Homes as Recreation Director, Social Services and Admissions Director and Administrator. She was the Director of Admission with a focus on international student recruitment for St. Johnsbury Academy and holds a BA in Studio Art and Art Education from the University of Bridgeport, CT and a M.S.A. from St. Michael’s College in VT. Since retiring in 2015, Mary Ann enjoyed the gift of time to nest, quilt, and cook. This gift of time became more intentional and led to Ignatian Spirituality via the Inner Chapel and Becky’s Overwhelmed No More retreat and the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises. Mary Ann is an Ignatian trained spiritual director in private practice, a CPE trained Interfaith Chaplain and is applying her love of storytelling as a writer. Her two sons have moved gracefully into their adult lives with their families. Mary Ann and her husband still live in the log home they built almost 50 years ago in the woods of Sheffield, Vermont.