God Is My Comfort

This week, I suffered an unbelievably unjust and damaging blow. I won't go into a description of it, but I'm hoping that in time, with patience and honesty, I'll be able to rectify the situation.  This portion of Kipling's If sums the current state of things up nicely.

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

It's taken me two days to get my head back together from the impact. It so took me by surprise that I've been reeling ever since. My sleeping and waking schedules have become completely random from the stress. It wasn't until last night around 1:30 AM when I sat down and actually put pen to paper* in composing a response that I've been able to have any kind of peace.

I don't know how secular people deal with things like this, but for me, I was able to turn to prayer. Admittedly, it's taken two days to even get to the point where I could pray and meditate coherently, but now that I've started, it's made a big difference. I started to a Novena to the Holy Spirit and from the start, I saw that all injustices and destructive actions in life are the same.

Each setback is alike, spiritually. It's just another opportunity to turn to God and realize that through life you are given these trials and through mortality there will only be a finite number of them. Setbacks which seriously damage personal accomplishments or put life-goals at risk can be intensely painful, but they do not harm your reason for existence. Being more like Christ is why we're here. Spreading the Gospel is why we're here.

Speedbumps, punches to the face or even grand pianos dropped on you from a great height are only shadows of what really matters. They are phantoms, as temporary as your corporeal body. They will die and fall to dust, but you will not.

I'm still a bit incoherent from the shock of the thing, so I think I'll close this out. My faith gives me solace in a way that nothing else can, as far as I can tell.

I hope you don't find yourself in a similar situation, but if you do, I hope you can find peace in God.

* - Actually, it was fingers to keyboard, but "pen to paper" sounds so much better.