Friday, January 2, 2009

It may suck but it will be wonderful


Oddly enough that is the message for today. How that crept into my brain at Mass this morning is beyond me. After prayer and some tears, I felt this sense of relief knowing that last year sucked and this year may very well suck too but there is this sense of comfort knowing I am not in control, God is my guide. The wonderful aspect of that message is that even when thing look dismal and barren, God's plan for me and His care for me is so much better than what I am capable of accomplishing. If life was bubble gum, sunshine and pink hearts 24/7, how much would we take for granted? How bored would we become? How many souls could we convert to Christ? Our suffering is a gateway for not just our salvation but those whose lives we enter.
I gazed at the Infant of Prague today and felt this soothing comfort. Suffering is okay. Those babies I lost served a grand purpose. Their mommy wants so badly to be with them forever that I have a fixed vision on heaven. That's my home, where they are. I am not one that buys the limbo thing..."perhaps they are in heaven" is more palatable. If it is a soul, it is not "born" because it did not have that freedom, what would keep this tiny child from being with God forever? Anyway, I know that is a whole new topic but I could not get through one day thinking these 4 souls are in some vacuum, never to see God or mommy. That's all.
So the moral of today has become this(in a nutshell): Sometimes a day, week or year sucks(for lack of a better term to describe "yuck and bad"). But those days when the sun comes out, warms my face, the bills get paid and I have time to cry, smile and thank God I have another day to live in His care, those things make the times that are dark seem necessary.
So this little Infant of Prague, dressed so regal, needs me to know that life may suck but it will be wonderful. This is, of course, my brain translating this important message in the way my brain works. I may be relaying this account all wrong and forgive me if it seems irreverent or without meaning. It hit me hard and has helped me to understand the necessity of suffering. I believe in uniting our suffering to that of Christ's and that suffering is a gift from God to share in his mercy and salvation for man. But that does not always help plug through life with pain, piles of bills and unresolved hurt and sorrow. Life can be awful and marvelous simultaneously if we take up that cross, notice the sweetness along the way and the vision of eternity with God at the end. If my vision includes tiny babies whose mother has yearned to see them again for years to get through her suffering and dark times, then I will keep that in my arsenal of spiritual aids. Ever since that day I felt them "peeking at me through sunbeams in the heavens" I have a clearer goal and a path I can follow.

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