We meet those we find easy to accept and those that make life difficult. Living in a community, we often hear, if only that person was not around, life would be pleasant. As time passes, we realize that many of our problems are due to our immaturity.
He mentions his entrance to the monastery and life as a novice. In his class, were eight people in their early 20s to middle 30s. All with different backgrounds, personalities, education... Each goes about their life of eating, working, studying, praying, and learning to be a monk, but not always with joy. Laughing and crying, fighting and little by little, getting to know oneself and others.
One of the novices he found difficult to relate with since he was always ready to point out the writer's faults. The writer considered himself timid, an introvert, and found dealing with him stressful. Especially when they found each other at the same table for meals. Every time he heard the words, "Let your anger disappear with the setting of the sun," he hated himself for his inability to understand his fellow novice.
One day, during spiritual reading, he was struck with the phrase: "Is there someone who makes life difficult for you? He is God's gift to you. " At first, he was angry, and the face of his fellow classmate appeared and the thought: "that man is to be considered a gift of God?" was too much to accept. However, with the passage of time the phrase "gift of God" kept moving around in his thoughts and made sense. Deep in our hearts, we all want to be thought well of and loved and his follow religious was no help in this natural quest.
His preoccupation with himself in wanting to be loved and accepted was so strong the remarks of his classmate were difficult to face, but when he did face them, he found peace and his fellow classmate was no longer a problem, rather helped to understand himself and others. His horizon of understanding was greatly extended. His fellow classmate was truly a gift from God.
To see ourselves and others as Jesus does, we need to relate with Jesus who loves us in order to accept ourselves with our imperfections. We need to experience God's love and mercy; understand the meaning of pain and grow in healing; our understanding of God has to change. Not to be overlooked is to remember that God accepts us as we are, a message that comes to us most clearly in the parable of the prodigal son.
Life is a gift from God. The journey of life has joy, but also problems, scars, pain. Jesus did not rid us of all the problems of life when he came to earth. He did come to rid us of sin, but the problems of life, the crosses remain, he carried them and asked us to do the same and why should that be the case?
The cross enables us to be born again and the problems and crosses are the means. Many of them are because of our attachment to possessions, ideas, and we become slaves to greed and desires. All belongs to God. Jesus came to the earth naked and left naked why do we become so attached to things, my thoughts, and not able to forget ourselves. When we realize our nothingness outside of God, we become free both internally and externally, all can be considered a gift, and we can express thanks. Is there someone who makes life difficult for us than we try to discover what we can learn about ourselves and others?
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