Suffering...

"There is a reason suffering works so well as a form of torture," said a friend to me recently as she watched me struggle through sleepless nights while taking care of a loved one, and still stumble into work every morning to work my eight hour shift.

For the past four Sundays I have been teaching the second year confirmation class about the beatitudes and here I stand in the midst of one of them: Blessed are those who mourn for, they will be comforted. Ouch! This is not easy. It is so hard to lean on others, and accept you are in poverty of coping skills without your support team (Mine happens to be called 'The Squad' and I am so blessed by their constant check-ins.)

I have never worked so hard to keep my life God centered as I have since just after Christmas. I have thrown temper tantrums, begged people to let me know if I seemed like I was no longer holding it together, had mood swings that could create hours of research for the best clinical psychologist, and sometimes had to coach my self through just 5 more minutes of putting one foot in front of the other. And I know it is not over.

This evening I made my way through the past two Bishop Barron Sunday sermons looking for an answer. Quite frankly, I think I would have accepted anything that was thrown at me, but the two sermon messages hit the mark. The first being, "When Jesus 'gets in the boat with us', That is grace entering our lives and after that is transformation. Be ready. You have been called, and the first step is to recognize our sinfulness." The second was "Where does our heart belong? What have we placed before God? Is our heart divided because we can't quite let go of..."

I know where I am regarding this walk, but I believe all of us should have a sense of where we are with God. What is our center? I did not like some of my answers to the questions. My world has been rocked for days on end. This personal conversation did not make it easier, but I am starting to find peace in the suffering. That is something I didn't think I would be able to do. I am still not 100%, more like 70%, but I can see I am headed down the right path.

Taking another minute this evening, I patiently reviewed what I had been teaching my students over the past weeks regarding the beatitudes and specifically: "To Mourn". This was my quick snapshot:

We are bound to one another when we accept our mourning and share it out as compassion for others. The blessing comes from the love of Christ, not the goodness of man, and in accepting the saving grace of Christ, the suffering we endure is not vengeance from a wrathful God, but a sharing in Christs suffering.

So, tomorrow I will get up and do my morning run again while praying the rosary, and I will pray all of those like me who are struggling, and don't know where to turn. The struggle is real, but there is hope.

I pray for all of us. That in our poverty of goodness, we will see the hope of Christ in our suffering and lean into him.

Suggested listening: Invasion of Grace and To What Does Your Heart Belong? by Bishop Robert Barron

Suggested Reading: Matthew 5:1-12 The Beatitudes

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