Joy in Disappointment

Today started out very sad for me.  After months of waiting to hear back from a company I'd interviewed with several times, and being told the prospects of a job were very good, I was informed that the position went to someone else.  

After months of unemployment, this was the closest I had gotten to a full time job.  This was the job I was hinging my future hopes on: the job I thought I may keep when I was married and the job that may launch my career.  But it did not happen and that may be for the best.  

Unemployment really does take a toll on you.  It makes you feel worthless, empty, scared, and not good enough.  That's how I felt this morning, "I'm not good enough.  They didn't want me".  Of course this extreemly personal statement of rejection is unwarranted and for the employer business is business.  But in the moment you never can phrase it that way to yourself.  And, even more untrue, is saying that you're worthless.  Realizing this is a falsehood is what leads to today's joy. 

The truth is that I am a person of value.  I am a child of God: a human created in the image of the Father, reborn in the baptism of the Son's passion and resurrection, and confirmed in the Holy Spirit.  My life is valuable because God says so.  That's a lot more important than whatever job I may have not gotten today.  God has made all of us because we all are valuable to Him, even the unemployed, the homeless, the undesirable to others.  Especially them in fact.  The Lord hears the cry of the poor and loves them as they give back to Him even out of their want. 

During last Sunday's mass I was mediatating on Christ's wounds and the deep suffering he faced in His Passion.  As the priest consecrated the Host and I saw the Blessed Sacrament raised above the altar, Body seperated from Blood, I reflected (as best as I could) on Christ's death.  We don't neglect this now that we are in Easter.  We don't consecrate all the hosts on Holy Thursday and leave out the sacrifice of the mass through the Easter season.  No, in order to celebrate Easter weekly we still must remember Christ's suffering.  Though He died only once, for His sacrifice is so complete and perfect no other sacrifice is necessary for salvation, we still remember His death every mass.  

And so too does our suffering combine with Christ's in our struggles as members of His Body.  My suffering is miniscule compared to other peoples.  A few months unemployment is typical of many people nowadays and I am happy to be so blessed as to not be struggling even more financially.  I have a home and a family and a fiancee who love and help me.  I am truly grateful for these daily gifts God gives me.  But I also need to thank Him for this suffering, for the burden of unemployment.  For, in my life, this is a way I can share in the wounds of Christ.  I will never be a martyr or a great hero of the Church but I strongly desire to lay down my life for God, and in this small way I can.  All of our little sufferings are opportunities to share in the Passion of Our Lord.  I am glad this day that my unemployment and this disappointment can be offered to Jesus and I hope this suffering finds profit in the salvation of a soul: one in purgatory, one here on earth, maybe even my own. 

God, please bless those who are contintually unemployed this day.  Especially those with families to support, those who are homeless, and those who are sick and in need of healthcare.  May this small, obsolete sadness in my heart be but an atom in the drop of your Precious Blood that will restore them to true life in You.  I offer this discouragment, disappointment, and all the feelings I have towards this current moment to You God that they may be made useful for the healing of a family, the reuniting of a person with the Church, or the salvation of a soul.  

God Love you,

~OneCatholicGuy

700 Sundays on a Monday night

Tonight I was supposed to head into NYC to see a storytelling event.  I had to do an errand for my grandparents and wound up missing my train.  Instead I was surprised to see on TV a one man Broadway show of Billy Crystal's life call 700 Sundays. It is a deeply moving tale of Crystal's life played out in front of a facade of his chidlhood home.  He especially focuses on his relationship with his father who died very suddenly when Billy was 15.  He approximates in the play that he had about 700 Sundays with his father.

And the most touching part of the play for me were two scenes that mirror each other in the show, both taking place in heaven with Billy talking to God.  The first conversation is right after Crystal's father died when he's angry and feels selfish and that God made his life unfair.  God tells him that those are the cards he was dealt which makes Crystal quip, "Are you God or a blackjack dealer?"

At the last moments of the play, after the death of his mother, Billy speaks with God again and mimes a handful of cards that he's looking at. He starts by talking about the bad cards, the death of his father, his short height, but then quickly moves on to say all the great cards he was dealt: being close with his mother, having a beautiful wife and two daughters, getting to have the career he's always wanted.

It was a beautiful reflection on how we all are presented with certain circumstances of life, the "cards we're dealt" but we are given so many more good cards than bad.  God gives us gifts in everything, even the worst of situations, the heaviest of loses, or the deepest of depressions can yield fruit that following our own will never could.

We are privledged to say that God is our Father and He gives us not just 700 Sundays but every day.  Our life is an opportunity to love more truthfully each day and God gives us the necessary grace to grow in love.  Each struggle we have, each failure and loss and heartache all lead us down a path we would never have without it.

When I compare my life to others I feel very blessed and that God has truly guided me safely so far.  I have had some troubling experiences but not the devestating ones I have heard wiser people speak of and the pain that accompanies age.  I know that I too will have these seemingly detrimental agonies but God is leading me tonight to the conclusion that they are important and for a purpose.

I wish I had something funny to say, I actually have been wishing I had something funny to say all day!  But tonight I am just utterly grateful for God's gifts to me and I hope that He guides each of us to use our talents as well as our pains and wounds to bring us more fully into His life.

God love you!

~onecatholicguy