But that's seeing the glass of life as half-empty instead of half-full. That's allowing the troubles to loom larger in our minds than the triumphs. That's looking at the journey of life - and God - through the windshield instead of through the rear view mirror. Looking through the windshield, we are concentrating on the unknown road that lies ahead. Looking in the rear view mirror, we see the road that we have already successfully traveled.
God lives within every moment of our lives, but He is often quietly hidden there. To believe that God is at work in the present, we have to "look in the rear view mirror" at our past. God has brought us safe thus far, as the hymn says, and God will bring us home. What crises in the past has God carried you through?
Often I think about times in the past when I accomplished things, and I don't know how I accomplished them. I remember the days and months after my son's death when I could barely think. I look now at my checkbook from those days and ask myself: how did I find the strength and the presence of mind to write those checks to pay those bills? How did I have the strength to accompany my daughter as she battled cancer? How did my husband and I manage to cope through the dark days of dealing with both grief and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome? You may ask yourself how you found the strength to survive a divorce or a job loss or a serious illness. Looking in that rear view mirror into our past gives us greater confidence in our own and others' inner resiliency in coping with present and future crises and in God's abiding strengthening Presence and everlasting love for us.
Looking back, I can see that during every crisis in my life, there have been times, moments perhaps, when I reached out for God in prayer and knew God was there. Sometimes I experienced His merciful love surrounding me and filling me, and knew beyond a doubt that though to me my life may seem filled with darkness, in truth my life is always suffused by His radiance. Doesn't God promise to lead the blind on their journey? Isn't God perfect goodness and mercy? How could our lives and the lives of those we love not be cared for by our living God Who promises, in Jesus, to always be with us?
It is hard to trust God when we or those we love suffer. But if we trust that we and those we love are in God's hands, we trust that God will use our suffering to prepare us to experience great joy, in this life or the next. God is good: won't God in His goodness always work to being good out of evil? Doesn't suffering often purify and strengthen us, soften our hearts to become more compassionate, strengthen our belief in ourselves as being strong survivors and over-comers?
How many times do those who experience physical or mental suffering eventually become compassionate doctors, nurses, social workers, and counselors? How often do those who experience poverty in their youth grow up to help others lift themselves out of poverty? How often have those who were mocked and bullied for being dumb or different become the great thinkers, artists, and leaders? Everything we experience, if we allow ourselves to be taught and changed by it, prepares us for the next step in our lives to become more of who we are and can be.
St. Teresa of Avila gives us wonderful advice about worrying versus trusting in God:
Let nothing upset you,
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything is changing;
God alone is changeless.
Patience attains the goal.
Who has God lacks nothing;
God alone fills all her needs.
God alone fills all our needs. Everyone and everything created has built-in limits and impermanence, so constant change occurs: aging, sickness, fire, flooding, cycles of life and death. Nothing or no one can ever truly satisfy us. We come from God, we were created for God, for union with God. If we spend our energies pursuing only that which is impermanent, we are doomed to one unhappiness after another. If we spend our energies pursuing God, God fills us with love, peace, a joy deeper than happiness, an abiding trust in His ongoing love. When we love God first, we can love everyone and everything else IN God and see them through God's vision instead of through our own. When we love God first, we can trust God to love everyone and everything, and we have faith that all will turn out as our good God wills. St. Catherine of Genoa says to God "So clearly do I perceive Thy goodness that I do not seem to walk by faith, but by a true and heart-felt experience."
When you are doubting, depressed, crushed by worry, take time to meditate on your past. Look through the rear view mirror to see how you have grown and changed on your life's journey so far. What crises have you endured so far? How have you changed and grown because of them? What have they taught you about your own gifts and strengths? How have you been a survivor and over-comer?
Where was God during those difficult times? What people came into your life who were God's hands, feet, voice? When and how did you experience God's comfort? When and how did He nudge you in the right direction? Can you thank God for all He has brought to life in you and others not only in spite of disasters but THROUGH disasters?
When we can look back at our past and see how God has been with us as He was with the Israelites, leading us through our own deserts and wilderness, we can develop a new deeper trust that He will always be with us, in our present and in our future. His wisdom will guide us; when we make mistakes, He will work through them to set us on the right road again. He loves our loved ones far more than we do, and does the same loving and guiding of them that He does for us. Who has God lacks nothing! So why should we ever worry or be afraid?