It is also true that rest awaits. I believe C.S. Lewis said somewhere that man has the capacity to endure suffering only as long as he has to – that once the suffering has ended, he will have the experience that he could not have possibly endured one minute more. This is the other thing that makes our suffering bearable: we know there is respite when it is finished. This day will end at some point and you will be able to sleep. This ...
I have long been fascinated by and drawn to stories of people who have suffered greatly and yet live free. That’s why my favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption. I heard once that Nelson Mandela was able to find a sublime level of peace in his soul while imprisoned. You have probably heard similar stories. I have even wished suffering upon myself at times because in suffering, we learn who we truly are and what really matters in life bubbles to the surface. Weird, right?
We cannot really ...
Grace is the only real transformative currency. You have probably learned by now that judging, criticizing and shaming people does not really produce great results. It may change people’s behavior, but in the long run, it just produces more and more shame. You shame your kids, then they feel ashamed and shame their kids. The way out is to find grace for yourself, and you will at that same time find it for others. To some of you, this may seem like cheap grace or “letting people off ...
You will be able to forgive others as soon as you are ready to accept forgiveness for yourself. The things we do not forgive in others are the same things we refuse to forgive in ourselves. Alternatively, as soon as you are ready to receive grace into your greatest shame, you will be able to offer the same to another. If you can be forgiven then so can I, and vice versa. Grace reaches both of us at the same time; it is the great equalizer.
When you learn to trust, I believe you will begin to trust EVERYONE. Now most of us choose who we trust, which is wise in a way, especially when you are talking about actually entrusting yourself to people. But I believe you can also learn to trust the people who have hurt you continually and will continue to do so. Trusting those who have hurt you looks like this: forgiving them and giving them over to their own devices.
When you learn to trust, it means you realize those people who have hurt ...
I wonder what the world would be like if we did not work so hard to avoid everything. So much in our lives exists to help deaden our senses: not only drugs and drink, but electronics and countless other diversions. If we really felt everything there is to feel, I wonder if we would fall apart. The world seems like it would drastically change if we just accepted and encountered the pain of our circumstances head on, as it is. But we do not. We anesthetize in order to avoid feeling too much.
If we allowed ourselves to feel the pain in the world, I believe we may move on to better things. We would have to change things. We would not be able to bear things the way they are.So much of our stress must come from this mentality of scarcity, which is borne of the belief that there is not enough. There is never enough time, money, energy, love, so we hunker down and protect what we do have. We have this irritability that springs from the belief that if we do not fiercely guard our space, time, energy and money, someone will come and take them from us. It’s true: people will take what you give them, and there is also this ...