Life After Fire

 Sometimes an illness, an accident, age or other circumstances prevent us from doing what we used to do. This may challenge the way we think of ourselves, the way we perceive our worth. The following reflections, as I ponder my life after my recent accident, may help some of you going through similar situations.

1. God loves me no matter what I can do. He preferred me to exist rather than not, but He didn’t need me able to sing or play the guitar. He thought that it was good enough for Him that I simply am. In order to be happy with me, the Lord did not need me to do anything else. I cannot give much to people and I am not able to make them very happy sometimes, but God is glorified perfectly by my simple existence. If I were not part of His splendor, if I were not part of what makes the world and His Church beautiful, I would not be here. He loves me.

2. What does He give me, then, in His love? Well, in the first place, being. Also, hopefully, grace, if I am in a state of grace. With this, the hope of Heaven and all the arsenal of supernatural life. Then, a fair share in His sufferings, and with this, the development and perfecting of my faith, obedience, charity and charism of pastoring and teaching. I am more because of being less, I gain more because of what I lose.

3. When I receive compassion, I feel more loved. No wonder people love me for the things I can do for them. But when I can’t, receiving love is the greatest thing in life. It is probably what helps you recover your true sense of dignity, a dignity based not on achievement but on being.

4. I am not messed up, I am loved. I am not a wreck, I am a treasure, buried in the mud. I am a pearl still imprisoned in its shell, a balloon losing its weights. I am at the bottom of the sea like an archeological finding, not like a wreck. And even then, don’t people pay to see the Titanic…?

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