When I look at photos of my family when our children were young, my heart contracts in a complicated mixture of joy and pain. My husband and I and our children all wear big smiles on relaxed faces. Photos of vacations and holidays show us sitting around a table or posing outside, kids goofing off, Paul and I watching and laughing....What golden days those were! I think to myself. Now adults, my children each bear heavy crosses that I never would have imagined when they were children. How can I possibly trust that "God will not permit any troubles to come upon us, unless He has a specific plan by which great blessing can come out of the difficulty"?
But this I also know: when I prayerfully ask God to give me the mind and heart of Christ, I realize that God's vision travels to before our births and after our deaths. God created every one of us with a specific purpose in mind. God knew in advance every difficulty that we would encounter. God has allowed every cross that we carry, weighted by our fragile bodies and minds and the sins and defects of all human beings which intersect with our lives, often with tragic results. God knew all this, God allows all this, because God promises to bring grace, love, strength, and joy for us out of every situation. Jesus tells us that the greatest gift we can give our Heavenly Father is trust in His providential care.
Parents wish to spare their children and other loved ones from every suffering. Yet we know that's impossible. We hear in Scripture that God did not spare His own Son, Jesus. Jesus had to undergo every suffering we undergo, including death. How God shapes our souls is beyond our understanding; we only know that He uses our joys and sufferings to shape them. I can't specifically link specific crosses with specific blessings. But I can say this. Every cross that I or a loved one has carried has shifted our souls a little more from adolescence into maturity, from self-involvement to selflessness, from a judgmental heart to the wisdom of a heart that has broken and has learned how fragile we all are. How else could Jesus, the human son of Mary, have grown in wisdom, age, and grace, except through suffering? These spiritual blessings give us the grace of dancers, who execute the boldest moves with what seems to be effortless agility, and joy.
Yes, joy. Our lives also contain joys to balance our afflictions. I have the choice, when I look at old photos, to allow my heart to be consumed with bitterness, or to lift my heart up in gratitude and praise. Praise to my God for countless experiences of love and tenderness. Gratitude for my loved ones' existence in my life. Gratitude for every sweet, happy, carefree moment we have shared together. Gratitude that, even with the crosses they carry, my children still laugh, still relax, still find the joy to balance the affliction. Still hope and trust that God has His reasons and that in the end, all will be well and all will be very well indeed. Christ's mind and heart intersecting with ours teaches us the ineffable, luminous beauty and importance of every moment and every human life.
In the darkest center of the night, when I feel most abandoned and alone, our family's and our nation's troubles loom large in my mind, like devouring monsters which we cannot escape. Yet the more I pray, the quieter my soul becomes, like a child resting against a parent's knee. When I relax and begin to trust God, then I can hear God whisper "Let Me carry that. I'm the One Who is supposed to carry that, not you." And I've finally figured out why God is telling me this. If I don't allow Him to carry my troubles and stresses, if I hold on to them with intense anxiety, how do I free God to bring blessings out of them?
So mentally, I see the face and figure of Jesus before me, His hands outstretched and waiting with infinite patience. I think of each person and situation that pains my heart. One by one I hand them to Jesus my Lord. He takes each person, each situation into His hands, and presses them to His heart. His heart is the treasure chest that will hold them all for me! Once I have finished, I hear Jesus say "Yes, I will carry them all for you. I will keep them safe. I will bring great blessings into all these lives which are so precious to you and infinitely precious to me. Trust me."
Put on the mind and heart of Christ. Learn to trust His luminous vision which travels before and behind us and knows how each path begins and each path ends. Every step of our journey is part of our preparation and purification for heaven. Every cross and joy are meant to give us the blessings of growing spiritual maturity, deepening our capacity for mellow wisdom and unselfish love. So often a perceived loss can lead to a new gain, a door closes and a window opens. We can never underestimate the surprises in our lives sent by a creative God. When we allow Him to carry our problems and the ones we love for us, we free Him to send us those ordinary miracles and days of grace which sprinkle our lives like the loveliest flowers.