It is well with my soul
Updated: 12 minutes ago
Many of you know I have been a man on a mission in search of exactly what it means to be a man of faith. I find myself drawn to examples of people who seemingly lost everything and kept going. They didn't just keep going, they overcame and prospered and did great things.
A extraordinary person can be one who does heroic things or one who does ordinary things against extraordinary obstacles. I have sought out both and it keeps coming and coming.
In Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were murdered. In Fatima where little Francisco and Jacinta died at the ages of 9 and 10. In Lisieux where Louis Martin lost a wife and lost 5 children all before age 25. in Nevers, where Bernadette died in excruciating agony. In Peshtigo, Wisconsin where 2500 people died in the biggest fire in American history, in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania where nearly 3000 died on 9/11, in Strongsville where the community was rocked by a horrific car accident and in Dallas where a dignified Catholic lady saw her husband gunned down right beside her and maintained class as the country grieved.
In my own life and the lives of so many people I know, horrific tragedies, traumas and crimes have struck. Some people are destroyed by them but some soldier on.
Last night, I sat quietly in church contemplating. God gave me the answer.
The bitter truth we spend our lives running from is that every one of us will suffer the pain of loss of every single person and relationship in our life. All of us will suffer this, no exception.
The only things that are different are the when, where and how of that seperation. Though emotionally we don't want to see it, it doesn't really matter if we lose them now or 80 years from now. We will all lose them but we will not all be reunited with them.
That's the difference and that's at the core of the hope of the heart that goes on. The sense, the hope, the firm belief that goodbye is only for a moment. The pain burns but will surely pass. We believe in Christ, we believe in the Ressurection.
It is well with my soul.
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