Why should you care if you are walking through the desert or through meadows, provided that God is always with you and you succeed in possessing blessed eternity?” (Saint Padre Pio).
Sometimes life does not go according to our plans for it.
Sometimes unfairly and for reasons beyond our control, things happen that steer our life in a direction that we had not anticipated and that we were not expecting. Sometimes bad things happen to people who are basically good. In fact, oftentimes bad things happen to people who are basically good.
And when I think about this I consider the attitude with which I am able to face grief and loss suffering.
When my little baby died before he was even born, I was clearly unable to cope with the loss. The grief that I experienced was not only more profoundly life-changing than anything I had experienced before, but it was almost universally misunderstood by others in the world.
Because I was unable to process my grief very effectively, I spent a lot of time trying to work out why God would actually send me this sort of suffering in my life.
And of course, following my conversion, which occurred through Grace and no merit of my own while I was praying for my niece who was so sick, I came to see things very differently.
Saint Padre Pio said, “Always keep in mind that the people of Israel spent forty years in the desert before reaching the Promised Land, even though the journey should not have taken more than six weeks. They were not permitted to ask why God led them in circuitous and arduous ways, and all those who complained about it died before reaching their destination. Even Moses, that great friend of God, died on the border of the Promised Land and saw it only from afar, without being able to enjoy it himself. Do not focus so much on the path you have; keep your eyes fixed instead on the one who guides you and on the heavenly home to which he is guiding you. Why should you care if you are walking through the desert or through meadows, provided that God is always with you and you succeed in possessing blessed eternity?”
And that is the attitude that I have tried to adopt since that moment of conversion, and with Grace, I have been able to understand a little of Saint Padre Pio’s words when he said, “If the souls would know the merits which one acquires in temptations suffered in patience and conquered, it would be tempted to say, ‘Lord, send me temptations.’”
And I have been thinking about that today, because is occurs to me that at every single stage of my entire life, I have been accompanied. And knowing that today, I feel such a peace within my soul. For even if God should chose that I should wander the desert for the rest of my life, if He is accompanying me, then I truly have nothing to fear…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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