Mother Teresa and her crisis of faith

I have been reading with great interest the story that has come out about Mother Teresa. Apparently she lived the last 50 years of her life "in the dark". Meaning she rarely if ever felt the presence of Jesus in her life. To me that is incredible.

Now atheists and are going to have a field day with this. They are going to say that this proves that if even someone like Mother Teresa admits that she never felt God in her life, this just all the more proves that God is not there.

To me this story is nothing but comforting. I and many many other people have gone through dry times in our lives. Sometimes it's easy to think that it must be something that we are doing, we must not be "good enough" or we must have sin in our lives that is keeping us from having a relationship with God.

While the later is true in my case...I did not feel God many times because I DID have unconfessed sin n my life, or because I was not willing to let go of some sin. But at other times and for other people, God seems distant for some other reason, and many times we have no idea what or why.

Reading this story, what comes across to me is that even in the midst of this dry season for Mother Tesesa, she never quit believing that what she was doing was right. She questioned her faith several times, she even wondered aloud to God if he was even there. But in the end, she lived a life of utter devotion to a God that she could not see, and feel.

I was never one to really believe that people should be held up to such a high standard and making them "Saints". But in this case, after reading this, I feel that if anyone should be considered for such an honor, it's this dear woman.

I also can't help but imagine Mother Teresa when she finally stood before Jesus and saw him face to face. This life is nothing. 50 years is NOTHING. If God in his infinite wisdom felt it was necessary to remove his presence from her for a time, there must have been a good reason. I bet Mother Teresa knows why now.