Patient Affliction

(I had set a private quota of four posts a month. I fell short for May, so look out. I'm gonna set the place on fire for June. Get ready!)

Admittedly, when the dark night first came on me in February, I dropped mostly everything spiritual from my life. I still went to Mass three times a week, but my appearances there were more physical in nature. More often than not, I found myself in front of the tabernacle just...sitting there, waiting for something to happen.

And then, on Pentecost(!), something did.

Really, should I be surprised? How big is God? Alleluia. :)

The reading we used was one from Ezekiel, where he is given the power to create life from dry bones. Something stirred within me. We humans are little more than sinew and bone, knit together by millions of cells and kept alive by the blood coursing through our veins. It's all so simple, yet at the same time, so terribly precise and complicated.

Had one thing gone wrong in our evolution, we'd not have survived. Had the world not been created in the exact circumstances it was, there would have been no possibility for life. The odds of it turning out just right like this are billions to one. And all of that hit me in the midst of a thirty-second reading.

There is a God.

Couple that with the reverence around me and my confessor's homily spearing that core desire for revival in everyone's soul...and like that, I was back. I believed again.

Since then, the Holy Spirit has been tugging at my heart something fierce, likely wanting to make up for lost time. I've compensated by catching up on the 2.5 months of daily Mass readings I never read when I was feeling down. Over and over again, the theme of patience under affliction came up, like this from St. Peter:

"Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when His glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly."

And then of course, "My peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you."

Christ's peace isn't going to feel like the comfort we often wish it would. Our reward isn't here. This isn't home.

But James tells us if we endure to the end, we'll be crowned with glory. Revelation says every tear will be wiped away.

We just have to tough it out, and trust. Easier said than done, that's for sure, but for now, grace is with me.