This semester, I was teaching a class to first-year students called “Introduction to Catholicism.” It teaches the vocabulary and concepts of theology before their courses next year and focuses on the Creed and the sacraments. At the end of the unit, I asked the students to create their own personal creed. Woven between the theological ideas was each student’s personal story of responding to a call from God. How sacred each word was! It led me to think of my own story of resurrection and how God writes straight with crooked lines.
I am reminded of the following passage from Greg Holder’s book, “The Genius of One: God’s Answer for Our Fractured World.” He writes, “The genius of God is this: We are to share what we’ve gone through with one another. This is how we encourage one another. This is how we embody the very presence of God of all comfort. We are again in a mystery. But God will use the pain that left a scar on one’s heart to now strengthen another. Hope flows ever so slowly from one to the other. And yet God pours comfort in both directions. How the one with older, partially healed wounds finds meaning in what happened all those years ago. Not a reason – but now something redemptive is finally happening. For the one in the swirling chaos, the other voice will be the only one they hear that day.”1
This notion is first echoed in 1 Corinthians 1:3-4: He is “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
During liturgical celebrations, we sing and proclaim “Alleluia!” Every Alleluia is a testament to the above. We do not suffer in this life alone; rather, our suffering and the bumps and bruises along the way can and do assist others if we are vulnerable and humble enough to share our story. Our story can give others hope!
Think of it this way. Every life is a weaving of personal choices, what life throws at that person and how others cross the path on the journey of life. But what is often forgotten and hidden in the midst of the weaving is the space between the fibers of our life. If we allow God to be present to us, he fills the space between these fibers and changes the perspective of the traumatic parts of our story. Think about that: a change of perspective. It is not a denial of the suffering or the pain but it is an acknowledgement that God does, can and will make everything for the good for His Kingdom! All we have to do (this is by no means easy) is to be open to the grace he pours on us each and every day.
Do not forget that He is your co-writer to your story! So, write on!
1Holder, Greg. The Genius of One: God’s Answer for Our Fractured World. Navpress, Published in Alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 2017. Pg. 146.
By Sister Geralyn Schmidt, SCC, Special to The Witness
