Draw me after you! Let us run!

Song of Songs 1:4

Dedicated to Miss Marcel. 🙂

Crack the Whip

When I was young, we played a game called “Crack the Whip”. All the children hold hands in one straight line, and the leader starts running in random directions, pulling everyone along behind him. By strength and speed, the rest of the children are supposed to stay attached.

Eventually, someone along the chain can’t keep up and lets go. A piece of the whip breaks off. Everyone on the broken piece drop hands, and it’s a free-for-all to see who will reattach to the main chain first.

Strategy

Older children usually make the younger children form the end of the whip, farthest from the leader. The younger children are likely to be the “weakest links” in the chain. If they’re near the end, fewer children will fall off when they eventually let go.

Unfortunately, the force of the run and the sudden changes of direction, which make the game, get stronger and stronger the farther you are from the leader. So the smallest children are also the ones to feel the most “crack”.

After the third or fourth time, little ones collapse cross-legged on the grass. They put their cheeks on their hands, elbows on their knees, and pout. Who wants to play this stupid game anyways?

The Spiritual Whip

The spiritual life can feel this way, too. We are small, and life whips us around. We are left to try to make sense of it and surrender it to God.

Thankfully, we don’t have to worry. (In fact, we’re not supposed to worry!) Unlike in the game “Crack the Whip”, in the spiritual life, someone is always looking out for us. When we fly off, we are not alone. Our dejection will draw someone–a friend, a Saint, or God Himself–to find us.

This person will come so full of simple love that we find ourselves mirroring everything. They smile; we smile. They put out a hand to us; we put out a hand and take it. They pull us to our feet. Suddenly, all the enthusiasm we had lost overpowers us, and we run. Back to the game!

Therese of Lisieux

Therese is always trying to pull us back. She is always on the lookout for little ones who are left behind. And she herself prayed to be drawn. She knew that, if she could be drawn, other little souls would be drawn with her.

“Draw me, we will run…”
To ask to be drawn is to will intimate union with the object which holds the heart captive… I beg of Jesus to draw me into the flames of His Love, to unite me so closely to Himself that He may live and act in me. I feel that the more the fire of love inflames my heart, the more I shall say: “Draw me,” the more also will the souls who draw near to mine run swiftly in the fragrant odors of the Well-Beloved.

Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, Ch. XI

Draw me after you! Let us run!