These tear us from within, gripping us in endless knots, shattering our self-wrought pretensions of security and confidence. They challenge our perception that all is well and all will be well.
Sometimes it is worse when these things happen to those we love. When we suffer we are so busy grappling with the raw emotions that we have little time to think or reflect. In those moments, we struggle for control of ourselves or the situation, our desperation aimed toward some hoped-for goal.
If we see others in pain, we have no control. We have no choices. We are even more powerless than when we suffer.
That is why it is so hard to see those we love hurt. In some ways, it strikes deeper to see wounds struck that we can never hope to heal, to see decisions made in anger, to see misunderstandings and pain erupt into a chasm of broken relationships that we cannot bridge. We see the evils and we want to take them away, to soothe the burning heat, to wave away the stain of sins past that tinges every fresh choice and every perceived affront. But we can do nothing.
Still we search desperately for some way that we can become the savior of the situation. We encourage those who feel alone to rely upon us, we seek solutions to illness, we advise counseling or medication, we pray continuously for healing and conversion, we try to make others see the light because if only they could then all would be well, and on and on and on....
We do not want to admit that we can do nothing.
Yet it is not about us and what we can do. If we are to achieve true sanity, we must let go of our need to fix things.
When we admit that we can do nothing, we set ourselves free from guilt and expectations—expectations, which so often swamp our small vessels—and allow God to be God. He allows nothing evil out of which He cannot bring a greater good. Where we cannot save, He can. He is our Savior. Many times we need only step out of His way and allow Him to do what He alone knows how to do: to heal the broken heart.
That means we stand ourselves broken and powerless. We feel the pain that signals to us that something must be done and we simply acknowledge its presence. We choose not to fill that hole we cannot fill. We embrace our weakness.
For in weakness is the power of Christ made perfect, as Saint Paul said.
Somehow that paradox is true, but only because of Christ. Our inability to do anything surrendered to Him allows Him to work.
The path of life does not follow a barter system: we do not give x to get y. If we do, we will regret giving x and resent others who have y. Sometimes we must hit rock bottom before we recognize this truth. Yet when we come to the crux of it all and feel our powerlessness, we know it is true.
Even our prayers and sacrifices when performed only as a manipulation of God to make Him give us what we want—however good that for which we ask may be—are vain. That is not love, but only self-interest disguised.
If we can let go of what we hope to gain and simply give, we can find joy even in the depths of pain. It is the joy that rejoices in the darkness because we trust in the Ruler of all. That trust—that surrender—allows our Lord to transform deeds once done as manipulation into gifts of love, freely given.
And there is nothing greater than love.
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