Depend

Perhaps this is because God’s words could come out of me as a result of that experience where they would not come out of me without it?

Triduum of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Unknown)

There is a great paradox in faith.

The paradox goes like this…  Everything that happens in the world is God’s Will.  God has no need of me.  God is perfect and complete.  God created us merely because He loves and as perfect love, He wished to share that love with creatures – even creatures as unworthy as human being (who sin and offend without a care in the world).  Everything that is and was and will be, can happen simply by the Holy Will of God.  God Himself could snuff out the whole world in a blink.  But He could also decide to keep the world operating forever and there is nothing that anyone could do to counter that.  God is the Creator after all and who are we mere creations to argue with the Creator?

But there is another side of the paradox – or the story, so to speak…  God asks each soul to do some service.  Perhaps for some of us the service is very evident.  For example, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta changed the world by caring for the poorest of the poor.  As a result of her charitable works she was able to bring comfort and human dignity to people who would have lived entirely without it.  Through her charitable works, this Saint was able to inspire others to see Christ in every human soul and to treat each human being with dignity and respect.  But there are others who have lived and died, and we may never know why.  For example, my youngest child died before he was even born.  He did not die because he was unloved or unwanted.  Rather he died because he was called by God to be with God at a time that I would not have chosen.  What was the purpose of that soul?  He lived and nobody knew he was there except his father and me.  He died and nobody missed him, except me.  He was loved and wanted by me more than I could imagine loving or wanting another human being.  And yet, he is not with us on this Earth, and I live in the hope that he is with God in Heaven…

And yet, he too served a purpose in the fulfilment of God’s Holy Will.  Perhaps it was the experience of losing that child that allowed me to long for my Beloved?  Perhaps the compassion for others that came of that experience in me is what God wanted for my own life?  Perhaps someone who I speak to today will pass on the words that I learned through that experience and those words – not me – will be remembered across the generations?  Perhaps this is because God’s words could come out of me as a result of that experience where they would not come out of me without it?

Whatever the reason, I am not in a position to decide and lack the wisdom to know, one thing that is certain is that while God can do anything Himself, He chooses out of love, to ask things of me.  And when I really reflect on that today I am quite overcome, as this is an honour and a privilege that I have been complaining about during my entire life…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.