Make Sense?

I recently overheard someone bemoaning the fact that all too often 'life doesn't make sense'. I concurred in my mind, but my thoughts immediately expanded on the whole idea. Usually when we think of life not making sense, it is due to something negative going on, something in which we simply do not see the good. Whereas, when life is rolling smoothly along (and the way we want it to), it doesn't occur to us whether there is any sense in it: it's good, of course it makes sense! But the more I think about it, especially in the context of our Catholic faith, the more I wonder which scenario really makes more sense.

This temporal life, our faith tells us, is a 'valley of tears'. Isn't it par for that course if we are presented with a degree of suffering that likely doesn't measure up to our desire for an easy life? Isn't that suffering, in fact, a mercy of God? An opportunity to offer to Him penance in this life, and thus, hopefully, lessen our Purgatorial 'time', and that of others, in the next? This makes sense to me. I'm a sinner. Sin requires reparation. Our Lord gives me opportunity to make reparation.

To me, it's God's obvious blessings in our lives that are harder for me to reconcile, because I don't deserve them! I'm thankful for them, but why am I so blessed?! The only answer is God's boundless love for me. My deserving or not deserving His blessings is irrelevant, I think. He loves me, that is all.

To give personal example to all of the above, I relate it to my life with MS. This chronic and progressive condition has been an unwelcome guest in my body for 16+ years now. I believe with all my heart that I have it for a reason (and that it is not simply the luck of the draw). If I didn't believe in God's control, and near presence to me in this, I would be miserable indeed!

What is more amazing to me though, is that He did not ask me to carry this cross alone. Along with the MS, just a few years later, Our Lord allowed me (with the help of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, but that's another post!) to meet the man who would become my husband.

On Good Friday this year we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. And even after all these years, and as my condition progresses along, it never ceases to amaze me how good, how loving, how generous, how absolutely perfect my husband is with and for me. Truly my cross is his cross. And he is teaching our boys to be just like him.

I am blessed beyond measure, and honestly, it doesn't make sense! I don't deserve it! But then, who of us deserves the abundant blessings of Our Lord? It is most humbling.

And so, to come full circle, though there are times I wonder where in the world there is anything good in MS, if I keep my eyes on Our Lord and His eternal purposes, I can see where this negative in my life does make sense. But His blessings on my life--the 'good' things--my husband, my family, these can only, in my mind, be explained through faith in Our loving Lord and His endless mercy on His children. Not because I deserve it, but simply because He loves me.

Make sense?