A Prophet's Friends and Family

There's a trope in sci fi fantasy stories about the Chosen One and their friends/family who are incapable of seeing that they have a special calling.  Or accepting that they're the only ones who can do something.

I think it comes from the family and friends of prophets.  Like the ones Jesus, the Messiah Himself, faces in the gospel story I've been obsessing over during Lent.

But what about the opposite?  All week, I've been being kept from bad decisions by a patchwork of "Are you insane?" texts from family and friends.  Who've convinced me to call in sick with a 102 degree fever because CALL IN SICK WHEN YOU HAVE A 102 DEGREE FEVER DID YOU NOT HEAR THE FIRST PART OF THIS SENTENCE?  And to go to the doctor's because YOU HAVE BEEN SICK FOR DAYS, YOU HAVE NO VOICE, AND DID YOU NOT READ THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE?  Even my principal sent me home after half a day when I was determined to go in on Tuesday because literally everybody is a better judge of what's good for my health than me when I'm sick.  Because apparently the first thing illness does to me is make me stubborn.

Our family and friend networks are supposed to act as the checks and balances on us, right? That's one of the many purposes they serve.  So it doesn't take utter misery to make the doctor's appointment?  So I don't try to go to a SCHOOL when I'm so contagious the doctor places a face mask on me before completing her exam?

Which is an issue I took with Saint Faustina.  Who hated that her Mothers Superior were always trying to shuffle her to another convent because she deferred to LITERALLY EVERYONE even people who told her to confess to crimes she didn't commit...which she would then confess about and cause more drama.  And even her loyal confessor was occasionally like, 'You put SHACKLES on your ankles -- who even gave you shackles? Stop that now!"

I can see how that would get tiring, Mothers Superior.

And I thought how lucky she was that she cared so much about deferring to her confessor and her superiors because she was determined to cause self-harm in the name of doing penance for the whole world.

And I have all kinds of feelings about doing penance, especially physical penance, for any other purpose than reminding yourself not to repeat mistakes.  As distinct, of course, from actual amends to those you've harmed. 

Because Jesus did all of that for us already, right?  And I can see trying to take some of that burden away from our Lord on the cross, but I feel like it's also playing at trying to be God.  And God asked us to be child-like, not God-like, right?

And I'm sure it's all much more complicated that any of that.

But perhaps there is a time in spiritual development when your social safety net of family and friends tries to call you back from the brink of what looks like insanity. 

"Go to the doctor!  Don't go into work, are you nuts? Stay home and rest, you're sick!"

How do we non-divine folk figure out when they're keeping us from the brink of serious illness and when they're keeping us from the brink of ecstasy?  When our friends and family want desperately to pull us back from what looks like -- and from any sane measurement would probably BE -- a mistake, when what we need to do is follow the will of God?

When are they the necessary check on our stubborn weirdness...and when are they the people who can't see the prophet because they grew up with Him?