Sacrifice is Essential
Thomas Keating
Sacrifice is absolutely essential for human growth; yet the abiding disposition of sacrifice is rarely established without some experience of suffering. Of course suffering itself does not make one holy and can even lead to despair. Despair is suffering that fails to teach.
This is not what I needed to hear this week. I was perfectly content whining about my pain and my discomfort and a few other things that aren't going exactly right. So I started recovery last night. Recovery from whining about it. At church there was a small message about victim mentality and that hit me right between the eyes.
Yes it is ok to feel bad when bad stuff happens, but you have to get over it. How do you do that, stop thinking of yourself. You haven't died on a cross or been beaten to within and inch of your life. Although it sure may feel like it.
Reach out to those people that will listen, we all have someone at least one other person, don't we? If you don't find one, you might even find that Jesus is waiting for His little brother or sister to come cry on His shoulder. Have your cry and get over it. Yes I know it is hard but we have to, the alternative sucks.
I always talk about learning something from everything so that I cannot count it a loss. Some things it is hard to do that. If we search hard enough we can find that one thing - do we need to learn more about what just happened so we might stop it in the future. We have to learn something and the best part is that we get to learn something. A professor learned a lesson from his Dad - ignorant is not a crime, staying ignorant is!
So although it is tough to do, even when the pain feels as though it is going to eat you alive, lean on your friends and family, Lean on Jesus, learn how to fix it and get on with it. We all have to do something besides outward expressions of our discontent. Help others to learn the same thing you just learned, so they might not have to go through it. DO NOT DESPAIR!
If we do this thing right, we might just get out of here alive!
When it comes to grief though, you cannot get over it. It's a daily reminder that that loved one is gone and will never be back. Nor do you know if you will see them in heaven.
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