He Loved Me First

Loss brings with it the unavoidable pain of grief…But is it inescapable? Post-holiday letdowns are not unusual and can be made worse during times of personal loss. Looming large may be the expected or unexpected passing of a loved one or a loyal pet, separation, divorce, chronic illness, assault, home or job loss…Each bringing its own level of grief. In such times, we should do our best to realize the interplay between our body, mind, and spirit, no matter our age. It is important we nurture each of those domains with respect, as how well we pay attention to one impacts the other two. Adequate rest, a healthy diet, and spiritual nourishment can be a far-reaching base in helping us through challenging situations. As mortals, we do our best to manage grief. Hiding from grief just doesn’t work. Acknowledging it is the first step in learning to live with loss and constructively moving on with our lives. Its shadow, though, is long and sweeping. Mastery comes with time and acceptance, but mostly from faith. Sudden and senseless loss, such as suicide, can be even more challenging as the circumstances can provoke enduring guilt. A proper perspective takes determination, time (perhaps even counseling), and a consuming belief in an all-knowing, all-loving God. Grieving is natural and helps us adjust to new realities. However, acquiring a focus on ‘the now’ is important during a time of burdensome grief. So many of us live in the past or anxiously fret over what the future holds. For those of us who truly believe in God’s understanding and mercy, we can continue to find purpose in our lives no matter the circumstances. Faith equips us to trust in Divine providence and be open to finding paths to reconstruct our lives with purpose. Nothing’s Forever Clouds do not last forever, neither does sunshine. It may be helpful to take the time to sit down and make two lists. On the first list, identify all for which you are thankful for. On the second, state personally rewarding actions that you feel can be reached within the next six months. Review the list, prioritize the most important, and set a date by which each item will be completed. Items may include something as simple as going to an entertainment event or visiting a friend or relative across the country. Make plans and just do it. Whatever you choose to do should bring you to a more joyful place. You will then slowly begin to take active control of your life. Guilt is an all-too-common driver of human behavior; while natural, it shouldn’t stand in the way of you doing something good for yourself. Your joy can become contagious to those who care for you, which is no less a reward for you. If you have real faith in the Lord as your Shepherd, you will persevere. Is there hope for the pain of loss to be managed? Yes, there is. The end of something can be the beginning of something else. With faith, we are never alone. We are never abandoned. We are all children of God. We have the choice to accept faith in God and have hope in receiving His healing. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can and does happen. When tragedy or loss becomes personal, faith can help you accept what is difficult. God’s hand is there; it only takes us a moment to reach out beyond ourselves and believe in His Divine Mercy.

Is someone getting on your nerves and driving you nuts? Ellen has some stainless steel lessons to offer. Where I live in the southwest desert of the United States, we have an average rainfall of 7 inches a year, so we are dependent on getting our water from a deep well. The well diggers had to drill down 600 feet into the earth to find water on our property. It is safe to drink, and we are very grateful to have this source, but it is very hard water full of minerals. As a result, it leaves calcified residue in all our pipes, sink fixtures, and shower heads. Whenever one boils water, a white, chalky film is left that coats the pot. If it doesn’t get scrubbed off, that coating gets added to with each subsequent boiling until there is a thick layer of calcified minerals that would take a chisel and a lot of hard work to get off. We’ve learned over the years to have only stainless steel or cast-iron cookware so that we can scrub hard to get the mineral build-up off. At each kitchen sink, there is a stainless-steel scrubber that we use for this purpose because, as one of the community members here says: “You can only clean stainless steel with stainless steel.” Sometimes when I’m doing the pots and pans, I think of the proverb that says: “As iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens the wits of another.” (Proverbs 27:17) I think of how God uses difficult people in our lives to clean us up and polish our rough edges. A priest once said: “If you want to be a Saint, you should expect somebody hard to live with. You should expect that kind of suffering and make every effort to love.” Hard-Earned Lessons I recall someone that I had to work with for an extended time. He took a dislike to me and spoke badly about me behind my back. He was gruff and cranky and hard for me to love. And I must confess, I didn’t do a very good job of being charitable to him either. His behavior brought some of the ugliness and sin in my heart to the surface, and I grumbled and complained about him to some of my closest friends. After quite a while of this, I started to take the situation to prayer. I felt the Lord telling me that He had some lessons to teach me through this difficult relationship if I was open to hearing them. As I tried to listen to God over the subsequent weeks, I was surprised to realize that the Lord was using this person to work on me! I had thought all along that this guy was the problem and needed serious work by God. But the Lord was telling me in my prayer: “Stop focusing on his faults. I’ll deal with him. Let’s, you and I, work on some of your shortcomings.” It was very humbling, to say the least. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” As I saw more clearly that the Lord was using this person to highlight some of my sinfulness so I could confess it and work on myself, it changed the way I interacted with the man. I slowly started to modify my behavior and my way of thinking, and looking back now, I can see that I became a better and kinder person because of that relationship. Think about a person that is hard for you to get along with now. Take it to prayer and ask the Lord for His perspective on it. He sees the whole situation and knows best what needs to happen. He will give you wisdom and show you the way forward. But you may just be surprised at the Lord’s answers.

Suffering is not bitter anymore, it’s now way more sweeter… Back at the height of the pandemic, affected by COVID-19, I went into acute respiratory failure and was admitted to the hospital for four days. I was given medicines through my veins to help my lungs. The illness caused scarring in my lungs, so I went home with some prednisone and oxygen to help alleviate the inflammation. Prior to this, I was an active senior who enjoyed gardening, walking my dog, journaling, writing, reading, and spending time with my family and friends. I attended Mass and Adoration and prayed at Planned Parenthood. However, life took on a new challenge. I had a sinus headache for months, and no medicine could relieve the pain. I became easily fatigued and had to lay down several times a day. Often, I would start to do something around the house and would get completely depleted. I lost my sense of taste and even some of my hearing. At times, I was unable to drive because I would get confused and dizzy driving. The doctors determined that I was suffering from long-Covid, and that lasted for months. In addition, my mind and thinking became foggy. I was very forgetful—they called it brain fog. I couldn’t read or concentrate and was very anxious. I began to pray for relief and asked other people to pray for me as well. I tried to offer up my suffering for those who needed God’s mercy, but it was so difficult to do. A Wake-up Call Then, I had an inspirational thought which I am sure, was from the Holy Spirit. I had heard of Father Stu, a boxer-turned-priest who gave in to Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM) in the early years of a robust life, but not in vain. Raised without religion by alcoholic parents, Stewart Long grew up filled with rage. During his teenage years, he began street fighting every night. He soon took up boxing as a sport, until he was hit in the jaw that ended his boxing career. As an adult, he moved to California to try getting into the movies but without much success. A near-miss accident and his girlfriend’s conversion to Catholicism gave him a much-needed wake-up call. As he was being baptized, he had a distinct impression that he was going to be a priest. For a few years, he ignored the nudges of the Holy Spirit, but he eventually made the pivotal decision and entered the seminary. It was there that he was diagnosed with IBM, a progressive muscle deterioration disorder that is resistant to all therapies. Incurable, it slowly leads to organ collapse, swallowing and breathing difficulties, and inevitable death. Father Stu spent the last four years of his life in a long-term care facility, where his room 227 became a place where people came to seek spiritual direction and confessions, and even just to hang out with him to watch movies. There was always a line of people waiting to get in to see him. His Masses at the facility were always filled with people. Masses with him were incredible. Father Stu ministered to so many suffering souls and offered up all his suffering till the end of his life on June 9, 2014. Father Stu used to say: “The Cross is a call to trust, even when things are going horribly wrong.” So, asking for his intercession, I started to pray: “Father Stu, if anyone knows how to suffer well, it is you. Please show me how.” Within a day, Father Stu answered my prayer and showed me how to suffer well with Jesus. The peace of Christ filled my entire being with His strength and mercy. I still can’t quite explain it in words. My suffering and pain became lighter and easier. I began to pray my Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet, and I also started to do the Liturgy of the Hours which I had never done before. The peace of Christ filled me with so much joy and comfort. This peace lasted for almost a month, a most beautiful month filled with Divine Love amidst my suffering. Yes, I continued to have long-Covid symptoms, but the suffering became sweet. Even though I was unable to attend daily Mass and receive the Eucharist, I would make a spiritual communion every day. Jesus said: “I will never leave you or forsake you.” I couldn’t go to Jesus, but Jesus came to me daily. More Untold Stories I am so grateful for the intercession of Father Stu. He has truly shown me how to offer up my little and big sufferings for those in need of Jesus’ mercy and healing. This was, to me, a touching testimony that Father Stu’s mission, to help other suffering souls, continues today from his Heavenly home. This is just one of the many stories of healing that remain yet untold. Father Bart Tolleson who was ordained the same day as Father Stu has written an incredibly easy-to-read book about his brother priest and friend entitled That was Father Stu. The book shares how, in our sufferings, there is hope eternal. The legacy of Father Stu’s life even inspired Mark Wahlberg, a Hollywood actor and producer, to make a movie entitled Father Stu in April 2022. In his words: “Father Bart’s book picks up where Father Stu left off. We come to realize in God’s mercy that Father Stu is still watching out for us.” When suffering becomes unbearable, let’s not forget that we have Heavenly helpers ever ready to lend a hand. Watch Mark Wahlberg share his experience of making the movie Father Stu on Shalom World’s Beyond the Vision. (shalomworld.org/episode/father-stu)

Christmas comes with the reminder of getting gifts for everyone, but is it really the gift that matters? Browsing in a local Christian bookstore many years ago with my boyfriend at the time, our eyes landed on a particular picture at exactly the same moment. It was a large, colorful depiction of Jesus, entitled The Laughing Christ; with His head tossed back slightly, somewhat disheveled, dark brown hair framed crinkled eyes, twinkling with delight! It was perfectly enchanting! We found ourselves staring at the slightly crooked smile beneath the subject of the portrait's engaging gaze. Oh, so inviting! So accepting! So attractive! Glancing up from this likeness toward each other, we shared the excitement the other felt at discovering this unique presentation of the person we had each come to know and trust in the last few years. We were both raised with statues and pictures of Jesus in our respective homes, but He was always portrayed as serious, somehow detached from life as we knew it. While we believed the person represented in these images had truly lived on this earth and even prayed to Him when we needed something, our faith individually had recently become something very real...alive, even. This artist’s impression reflected who we both discovered the Lord to be in our lives—someone with whom we could share life, someone who loved us in ways we had never known before, someone who revealed Himself to us when we prayed. As a result, our understanding of God was transformed from merely an intellectual assent of His existence to a new experience of a living, communicative, and wonderful friend; our very best friend. Even as we left the store a little while later, our animated conversation about this portrayal continued. It captured each of our hearts, yet neither of us had made a move to purchase it. As soon as I got home, I knew I had to go back and buy this picture. A few days later, I did just that, then carefully wrapped it, and waited excitedly for Christmas to arrive. Gift of Honor The days passed till finally, it was Christmas Eve. With carols playing in the background, we sat on the floor near the small straggly artificial tree given to me by my mother. Handing my gift to my beloved, I waited expectantly to hear his appreciation as he spied the new wristwatch I had placed on the paw of the little stuffed dog who would cleverly deliver the timepiece. A mumbled “thanks” was all the response I got. No worries, that wasn't the gift that I knew would be perfect. But first, I was to open his gift to me. Reaching to accept it, I felt a bit puzzled. It was large, rectangular, and flat. As I began to open it, pulling the wrapping paper away from the present, I suddenly saw...my picture?! The same one I secretively purchased for him? Yes, that was it! The Laughing Christ. The picture I loved so much but instead of being thrilled, I felt disappointed. This was supposed to be his present. The one I knew was exactly what he wanted. I tried to hide my disappointment, leaning over to give him a kiss while expressing my appreciation. Then pulling out the present I had carefully wrapped and hidden behind the tree, I gave it to the object of my love. He opened it, ripping the paper quickly, revealing the contents of the package. His face looked happy...didn't it? Or was it a bit crestfallen like I had felt mine would have looked if I hadn't worked so hard to hide my disappointment from him when it had been my turn to open a gift? Oh, we both said the all right words, of course, yet somehow we sensed the gift we received from each other was not nearly as meaningful to us as we had hoped. It was the giving of that present that we both looked forward to with such anticipation. It reflected the Christ we’d both experienced and our desire was to share who we each had come to know. That was where the joy was found, not in having our own desires met, but in fulfilling the desires of the other. In time, my relationship with that young man ended. While it was painful, the joyful image of Jesus continued to hold a place of honor on my wall. Now, it is so much more than just a depiction, and so much more than just a man. It stays as a reminder of the One who would never leave me, the One with whom I would always be in a relationship, the One who would dry my tears many times through the years. But more than that, the One who is always such a source of delight in my life. After all, He was my life. Those crinkling eyes met mine. Then, that engaging smile invited me to pull the corners of my own mouth upward. And just like that, I was laughing alongside my Best Friend.