Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - October 25, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from You.”
Physics talks about the law of the conservation of energy. There seems to be some law of the conservation of stress or pain or difficulty, too. We pass a crucial exam for entrance into graduate school or for a promotion. Things seem more relaxed. Eventually another stress comes. We pray and work for the health of an ailing mother. That is resolved. Things seem relatively quiet for a while. A cousin develops breast cancer. We share her fears through months of chemotherapy. She is in remission.
We work and worry about our teenager's friends and habits during those years. Then her younger brother comes along with a new set of concerns. The children are all grown and on their own. Things are quiet on the home front. Then...?
Rest and peace are never total or enduring. Each of us can draw all sorts of lessons and conclusions. Life is shaky; nothing can be taken for granted. Both sorrow and joy come and go. So many things are beyond our control. Everything is in God's hands.
Our self-sufficiency is always provisional, illusory. Possibly without the changes of fortune, the movement back and forth from stress to peace, pain to joy, we'd be tempted to an unrealistic estimation of life. It isn't only at certain times that we need God; it's simply more obvious in the darker times.
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
