God can mend any broken dreams. He has an eternal plan. Thank God! Thank God!
Over the last several years, I have joined a very dear friend of mine in praying for an intention very close to her heart. She has waited patiently, year after year, for the opinion of another to change and for her life to move forward. Year after year there has been nothing. No change at all. And still she has waited patiently. At times, I know that she feels that time is running out and she will soon not be able to proceed with her dreams because she will have lost her chance.
I pray so fervently for her dreams that I wish I could put into words the care of my heart for the worries in her own.
It is a difficult cross that she bears – this friend of mine…
But it reminds me of another – far greater and heavier Cross… Christ’s!
In this current season of Lent I have spent much time reflecting on the suffering of Our Infinitely Holy Lord.
The incarnation of Christ was first described as hypostatic by Apollinaris of Laodicea and since the 5th century AD, through the Council of Ephesus, this description of Christ has been a dogma of the Catholic Faith.
Hypostasis means that Christ’s Divine and Human nature have a SINGLE essence, a SINGLE HYPOSTASIS. That means that Christ is simultaneously perfect God and perfect Man – Both God and Man at the same time. That means, that He could have allowed His divine nature to have overpowered His human nature at any time at all. And yet – for LOVE of us – He allowed His humanity to emerge and suffer for us, when He could have saved Himself through His own Divinity.
And why did He suffer? For much the same reason that my dear friend suffers – Free Will!
The other day, another friend asked me why I thought we humans had to be born into this life at all when Heaven is awaiting us.
I think it is because being mortal and spiritual creatures – unlike angels who are pure spirits and therefore did not need a mortal life to achieve Heaven – we require a mortal life on Earth to know and love God prior to meriting eternal salvation.
Being pure spirits and therefore closer in nature to God’s own nature, it was easier for the angels to see things clearly, and therefore they required fewer chances to prove themselves to God. The angels got one chance – one shot to exercise their free will and make a choice – one chance to choose God or not to choose Him.
God is all about equity rather than equality. He does not treat us all equally – but he does treat us all equitably or fairly. That means, while the angels had one chance to decide, we humans – with our flawed human nature – require more chances, because we have more flaws than the angels and by our very nature, we are further from the perfect nature of God. If God only gave us one chance to choose Him, we would be damned from our very first sin. And God knew that would not be fair to us – we are too weak for that!
But God did not plan for us to suffer and die. He planned for us to live with Him on Earth in the Garden of Eden for all of our mortal lives and then float up to Heaven to be with Him eternally in there at the end of our mortal lives. It was not God who doomed us to Earth – it was us… through Original Sin. Our sins doomed us to suffering on Earth.
No wonder we are so afraid of suffering. No wonder we grieve and are afraid. No wonder we lose sight of God. No wonder our faith is weak.
None of this – none of this natural life of ours on Earth that we call “natural” is actually “natural” at all – in any way.
All of it goes against God’s PLAN for us because we CHOOSE to reject God. It was our stupid choice to sin that mucked things up! And what was our sin? To defy God’s will be relying on our own instead.
And so, while I pray for my dear friend and keep her intentions in mind as I go about my life and she goes about hers, I also remember that plans have a habit of being thwarted by this pesky little matter of free will.
But I do not worry… Just as God worked a way to save all of humanity from our own stupid choices and sin when we ruined His plans, so too will He work a way for my friend and yours to achieve the plans of their hearts – whether we have the insight and wisdom to see it with our mortal eyes or not.
For, after all, the only plans that count are the eternal ones.
And with hope in the infinite love of God, I do not think it is impossible to hope that we can develop a little patience to wait for that.
After all, our dreams are only a heartbeat away – God holds them in the palm of His Most Sacred Hands… right there, where we pierced them… with the nails…
For with prayers I can hope, and by this I stand on Holy Ground, where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
Yorumlar