Friday, December 05, 2003
A person I know was having really bad financial problems this week, with a kid's birthday coming up and no money left, and she was angry with God, and wondered why she should keep praying. I thought about it, and only have this to say:
Oh, haven't we all been there some time or the other.
God lets things happen to us. And we hate it, naturally!
One day, when I was very happy about being in RCIA (in fact, it was after an RCIA class, I believe), I came home from work, and there was yellow crime tape across the porch of my apartment.
Someone had broken into my apartment during the day, set fire to one of the rooms, and everything I owned was a nasty mess. I basically had the clothes on my back.
So, been there. Lost everything I owned twice.
I gave up the job I loved to take care of my mom in her last three years, saw her die, watched the medical team stumble over where the defibulator had been stashed (although it wouldn't have made a difference, she died of an aneuryism) while they worked on her. Never told my family about it either, must have played the scene over in my head a million times that first year.
Had my family break up, my dad left me saddled with the house and expenses while he cut back more and more on his working time, then married another woman and moved out of town (who I love, but I was still left alone).
Life can be HARD!!!!
But God never promised us ease.
Jesus doesn't promise to be Santa and make it all go away. He promises to suffer with us, to be one with us, to know just how it feels. In turn, we offer our anger, sadness, fear, pain, grief, misery up to him. We suffer in part because the world is a world touched with sin. We suffer sometimes as the consequences of things we did in the past. We suffer in part because things just happen. We suffer, and cry out to God, and get angry at him and those who have done us wrong and he hears us, walks beside us, and knows. But he doesn't wave a magic wand usually and say, "Zap! here's $500 until payday."
When we suffer, we have the choice of Job: Curse God and die, which is what all of his friends wanted him to do, or learn to deal with our grief, our pain, our hurt, and say, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed is the name of the Lord." and join St. Paul in offering it up.
We are still going to suffer. I am getting more and more "stove-up" with arthritis every day, and not a day goes by without my hand and knees and shoulder reminding me of that reality.
There is no panacea, no empty promises I can give you. God is only interested in your growth, and all the saints that I ever read about suffered as much if not more than everybody else.
But we have a god who knows what it feels like, and sanctifies the grief if we let him. Our promise for the freedom from suffering is for the next life - in this life we can look at the cup, and see it half empty and curse, or see it half full and know it's a promise for tomorrow.
And in reality, it's not the person suffering who is at fault. It's those of us around him or her, who personally choose to look the other way, who don't want to get involved, who are at fault. WE are supposed to be the hand of God working for our neighbors. WE are the ones who are supposed to be giving the drinks of water, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the widow, and otherwise doing what needs to be done.
Dear Lord, forgive us of our hard-heartedness, and teach us not just to see with your eyes, but do as well!
Oh, haven't we all been there some time or the other.
God lets things happen to us. And we hate it, naturally!
One day, when I was very happy about being in RCIA (in fact, it was after an RCIA class, I believe), I came home from work, and there was yellow crime tape across the porch of my apartment.
Someone had broken into my apartment during the day, set fire to one of the rooms, and everything I owned was a nasty mess. I basically had the clothes on my back.
So, been there. Lost everything I owned twice.
I gave up the job I loved to take care of my mom in her last three years, saw her die, watched the medical team stumble over where the defibulator had been stashed (although it wouldn't have made a difference, she died of an aneuryism) while they worked on her. Never told my family about it either, must have played the scene over in my head a million times that first year.
Had my family break up, my dad left me saddled with the house and expenses while he cut back more and more on his working time, then married another woman and moved out of town (who I love, but I was still left alone).
Life can be HARD!!!!
But God never promised us ease.
Jesus doesn't promise to be Santa and make it all go away. He promises to suffer with us, to be one with us, to know just how it feels. In turn, we offer our anger, sadness, fear, pain, grief, misery up to him. We suffer in part because the world is a world touched with sin. We suffer sometimes as the consequences of things we did in the past. We suffer in part because things just happen. We suffer, and cry out to God, and get angry at him and those who have done us wrong and he hears us, walks beside us, and knows. But he doesn't wave a magic wand usually and say, "Zap! here's $500 until payday."
When we suffer, we have the choice of Job: Curse God and die, which is what all of his friends wanted him to do, or learn to deal with our grief, our pain, our hurt, and say, "The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed is the name of the Lord." and join St. Paul in offering it up.
We are still going to suffer. I am getting more and more "stove-up" with arthritis every day, and not a day goes by without my hand and knees and shoulder reminding me of that reality.
There is no panacea, no empty promises I can give you. God is only interested in your growth, and all the saints that I ever read about suffered as much if not more than everybody else.
But we have a god who knows what it feels like, and sanctifies the grief if we let him. Our promise for the freedom from suffering is for the next life - in this life we can look at the cup, and see it half empty and curse, or see it half full and know it's a promise for tomorrow.
And in reality, it's not the person suffering who is at fault. It's those of us around him or her, who personally choose to look the other way, who don't want to get involved, who are at fault. WE are supposed to be the hand of God working for our neighbors. WE are the ones who are supposed to be giving the drinks of water, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the widow, and otherwise doing what needs to be done.
Dear Lord, forgive us of our hard-heartedness, and teach us not just to see with your eyes, but do as well!
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