“If you seek nothing but God's will, he will always put you in the right place at the right time.” This phrase by Smith Wigglesworth is a good introduction and, at the same time, a good summary of this article, which seeks - even within the few lines allowed by this space - to approach an immense theme: God's will in our lives.

“Your will be done...”

This is what we pray in the Our Father, but, if we are honest, I believe each of us recognizes having been tempted to correct this passage, at least in our thoughts, to say something that feels more suited to us, something that leaves us a minimum of control: “your will be done, but... remember what I hope for, my plans...” Often forgetting that we are addressing a Father who loves us and dreams of us and for us.
It is not easy to surrender to God's will and, in fact, Jesus himself, before surrendering to death, prays in a very human way: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me!” and then fully embraces God's plan: “Yet not as I will, but as you will!” And in this he teaches us that the human fear of surrender can and must be overcome.

The Our Father: a prayer full of trust in God

God's will sometimes seems like something distant from us: we do not know how to decipher it, we struggle to understand it, and for this reason it frightens us, because it apparently leaves us without certainties, even though it is the greatest certainty, because deep down God's will for us is simply a promise of happiness: “Therefore, when we pray ‘your will be done,’ we are not invited to bow our heads servilely, as if we were slaves. No! God wants us to be free; it is his love that sets us free. The ‘Our Father,’ in fact, is the prayer of children, not of slaves; of children who know their father's heart and are certain of his plan of love. Woe to us if, when pronouncing these words, we were to shrug our shoulders in surrender before a destiny that repels us and that we cannot change. On the contrary, it is a prayer full of ardent trust in God, who wants goodness, life, and salvation for us. The ‘Our Father’ is a prayer that kindles in us the same love Jesus has for the Father's will, a flame that impels us to transform the world with love” (Pope Francis).

Luisa Piccarreta: the strength of a “Here I am”

On this journey of discovering God's will for us and our lives, heaven offers us an ally: the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, who, in a very particular way, embodied the divine will; this makes her a great and extraordinary mystic.
Jesus manifested himself to her in various ways from an early age and gradually led her to understand what his plan for her was: that she should conform entirely and in all things to his divine will for the salvation of humanity. The journey is gradual and involves Luisa entering a very particular state, which she calls “the usual state”: a state that confines her to bed with her entire body rigid (while her soul is free to reach the heights that Jesus gradually reveals to her), from which only a priest's blessing can awaken her. At first this happens to her for certain periods, from time to time, until Jesus makes her this proposal: “If you offer yourself to suffer, not as you have up to this point, from time to time, but continuously, every day, for a certain period of time, I will spare humanity.” That “certain period of time” lasts until the end of Luisa's life: it is the second half of November 1887 when Luisa, overcome by her “usual state,” goes to bed and never gets up again.

Very humanly, recalling that moment, Luisa wrote years later in her Diary: “I believe that if the blessed Lord had made me clearly understand the length of time I would have to remain in bed, my nature would have been very frightened and would hardly have submitted, although I remember that I was always resigned; but at that time I did not know the preciousness of the cross as the Lord made me understand over the course of these twelve years, nor would the confessor have agreed to give me the obedience.” From these passages, like small windows, the humanity of this woman emerges, her ordinariness making her appear even more extraordinary: she is called to live a life unique in its kind, yet she remains a simple woman, who has the courage to confess her fears and weaknesses.

Luisa's life amazes and challenges us because it is divided between heavenly heights (Luisa has conversations with Jesus and the Virgin Mary and experiences profound spiritual graces) and the concreteness of lace-making, embroidery work to which she devotes herself every day once she has “awakened” from her “usual state”; because it is a life lived for almost seventy years in the smallest cell there has ever been in the world, her bed, without any illness. Why this paradox?

Because Luisa was ready, following Mary's example, to say her “Here I am!”: the Lord wanted her on that bed as an instrument of atonement and salvation for humanity. However, recognizing this on a human level is not enough to understand; we ask ourselves why Jesus wanted this. The answer lies in the fact that Jesus entrusted Luisa with the charism of understanding and then communicating a fundamental truth: the need always to do God's will, to live perfectly in his will in order to find true happiness.

This small and simple woman, who lived by a profoundly deep inner light, teaches us how much joy comes from the awareness of being in God's will, as she writes in her Diary: “If you knew what God's Will means! […] It contains Heaven and earth; if we are with it, everything is ours, everything depends on us; if we are not with it, everything is against us. […] Jesus, with his face wet with tears [...], wants to give you his Will. He weeps because he wants to see you happy, and seeing you unhappy, he sobs, sighs, and prays for the happiness of his children; and, asking you for your will in order to tear unhappiness away from you, he offers you his, as confirmation of the gift of his Kingdom.”