“Do not be afraid!” (Matthew 28:10)
“Peace be with you.” (Luke 24:36)
So I don’t have to be afraid of anything anymore! I may live in the peace brought by the Risen Lord! He delivers me from all my fears!
I don’t have to worry myself Sick, because if the Lord has truly risen , sooner or later everything will be all right! *
If He has conquered the darkness, He’ll help me conquer mine.
If He has removed the sin away, He’ll help me get freedom from mine.
If He is alive, I’ll never be lonely.
If He destroyed death, I will not die either but I will live forever.
In those thoughts I find reasons for joy!
* “I can make all things well; I will make all things well . . . And you will see yourself that everything will be all right.” (Jesus to Julian of Norwich)
Basia
I’ve seen a film* in which suffering and evil was compared to an embroidery, but the one seen from below. The tangle of multicolored threads does not give you even the slightest idea of the beautiful picture you’d see from the other side.
Wasn’t it a piece of such embroidery “seen from below” that the apostles were looking at – crushed by the events of the Good Friday? Our “Holy” Saturday for them was the time filled with darkness, nonsense and painful incomprehension.
I would love to grasp the meaning of everything that happens around me. I experience fascination and disgust, beauty and ugliness, love and rejection, joy and suffering. Day after day. Whenever I think I’m beginning to understand, all my enlightenment comes to nothing in the next moment.
But it is God who is the embroiderer. He gets the proper picture. He knows the point of this all, because He arranges the threads of life. All I can do is accept today’s „now”, let Him lead me. I won’t be able to grasp the full meaning. His perspective is unknown to me. All I can do is to find the sense in Him. When I trust the Master, I’ll be able to help create the work.
And in the end, this is what I want: not to disturb the creation of this part of the masterpiece of Love which has been assigned to me.
Michał
“I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.” (Jeremiah 31:13)
The Lord is the one who comforts and turns sorrow into joy. He is the one who changes things. He changes my thinking, my feelings, my heart and my life. How good it is to experience that!
Basia
His truth sets me free.
When I tell Him about all wasted opportunities, He refreshes my memory of things that worked out all right.
Where I see the emptiness, He says He has never left me.
Where I see dead seeds, He can see the potential for something new and better to arise.
When I say: I have spoilt this and that, He says: Look how much you’ve learnt.
When I know for sure: This will never work, He encourages: Don’t worry it didn’t work, try again.
When I think: I’ve had enough, He says: I see you’re in pain, tell me about it. I have time.
When I say: I don’t understand, He says: I know, but trust Me.
When I give up and can do no more, He reminds me: I love you. In every situation you may choose to love. One day, when all this is gone, you’ll see together with Me that love was the only thing that mattered.
M
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him” (Jeremiah 17:7)
If you entrust your needs and expectations to the Lord, He will satisfy them all in His own perfect way.
The need for self-esteem and recognition? – “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine!” (Isaiah 43:1)
The need for safety? – “The Lord watches over you – the Lord is your shade at your right hand” (Psalm 121:5)
For being understood? – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
For strength? – “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13)
And finally:
Love? “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 17:7)
Dosia
…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005
The dots I make each day may temporary fail to show one clear picture.
I discover, though, that a lot of things have happened to me “for some purpose”. They might have been difficult and unintelligible then, the moment they were happening, but they’ve left me with some gift. They turned out to be some added value. Through them, I was given some talent, knowledge, skill.
When I feel discouraged, I may be saying: my picture makes no sense. My dots of this day moved behind the margin of the master plan. And there’s absolutely no point for those few that have been here for so many years.
But it would be pointless to get discouraged. The One, who can see more than me, will show me one day the picture that will dazzle me with the logic of His love. The picture of my life.
So even if I’m not able to get the whole picture, I decide to keep on making dots of my best everyday choices. And command myself to Him with this trust that He’ll fill in all the missing and deficient parts of the picture.
Małgosia
A water bearer had two buckets to bring water from the river to his master’s house. The buckets were hanging on both ends of the pole that he carried across his shoulders. One of them was cracked, the other – was perfectly fine. The bucket with no trace of a crack – conscious of its excellence – was proud of itself. The cracked bucket – ashamed of its crack – suffered.
One day the cracked bucket confessed its misery to the water bearer. “Because of my crack you carried so much less water to your master’s house every day than I could have hold if I was unbroken” – it said. The man ponited to beautiful flowers, sparkling with colour, only on one side of the road, and replied: “The flowers grow on this side of the road, and not on the other, do they? I saw your crack and I made a good use of it. I sowed the seeds on your side of the path. Each day, as we were going back from the river, they drank the water leaking from you. For two years I have picked the floweres and beutified my master’s house with them. We wouldn’t have been able to give so much beauty to the house if it hadn’t been for the way you are”*
Even though I am like that cracked bucket, I know that the One who is carrying me is not discouraged by my crack. He is not complaining about water being “wasted”, he is not worried by my effectiveness – so much below the human standards of productivity. I know that He can take advantage of my cracks and defects, if only I place them on His shoulders. Because He, as nobody else, “causes all things to work together for the good to those who love Him” (Romans 8:28).
Basia
*You can find the story in its full version in I. Holler, Porozumienie bez przemocy. Ćwiczenia. (Nonviolent Communication. Practice.)