It’s just getting me down. Really don’t think it’s a lack of faith, maybe it’s just a stage of life. I’m 50, and not depressed about that, I don’t think. It makes me think how much longer I will live, and to want to set goals, but that’s basically positive.
But I have so many people I’m connected to by family or friendship bonds who are struggling with serious illness or are going to die - or have a family member who’s ill or dying. It seems overwhelming.
I don’t think it’s a lack of faith - I pray, and I know Jesus has something so wonderful prepared for them. It’s just the missing them and such that bugs me right now. It gets to be a “heavy” feeling in my soul and I get to dread hearing the next piece of news about another person being sick and hoping they don’t die. I’ve thought about going to counseling but I don’t really want to - have had some mixed experiences with that in the past. An understanding priest would be awesome to find, but priests are so busy these days.
For those who don’t know me from other threads, I’m never-married and an only child with no kids and whose parents are deceased. I have “furbabies”
that are wonderful gifts from God. I think maybe I just need a hug from a person now and then or something to chase these "blues: away . . . :hug3:
Hi there. I’m 55, and most people that I associate with are older than I. I’m also a minister to the sick, so I get to know people who die soon after befriending them. My dad died a couple years ago, and in the next 5 - 10 years my wife and I expect to lose our remaining 3 parents. Between my wife and I, we have no remaining grandparents, and precious few remaining aunts or uncles. Even by marriage. Death seems to be everywhere I look these days. I have noticed that cancer seems to be a bit of a problem for a pretty large spectrum of persons over 50, and while I don’t believe I currently have cancer, I am experiencing enough similar health problems, including being in recovery from Grave’s Disease, that I expect I probably will at some point. Full disclosure, I didn’t live a very healthy lifestyle for about 35 years. I don’t want any of this to sound like a complaint, or sad, or anything else. I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s only to establish that I think I can relate a little to what you’re saying, before I offer my meager bit of what? Advice? Wisdom? I don’t even know what you’d call it.
When I was in my late 40’s, as a Buddhist, New Ager, and functional alcoholic, I finally answered Jesus’ call, and became his disciple. my wife, (an atheist), became a disciple as well. We went through RCIA together, and my wife was baptized, and we were both confirmed and received first Eucharist together on Easter of 2006. I count myself among the luckiest people in the world. When I had Grave’s trying to kill me, I had Jesus. When my Dad died, I had Jesus. I look around me, and see all this death and suffering, and know that much more of it is coming my way, and I’m okay, because of the grace of God, and His glorious Son. What I’ve found is that life is a cycle. All lives begin with birth, and inspiration. We grow. We live anywhere from a happy to a horrid childhood. We move on through adolescence, rebellion, false conquest, then on to our 20’s through 40’s with our actual (but worldly) conquests (or failures), and then we begin a slow descent into illness, and finally death before we are fully alive again for eternity. It is a shared experience, and part of a cycle that is exactly as old as human life. Most of it is math. As we get older, so do our peers. We get sick. They get sick. They die. We die. The last ones to go in any given family and peer group are confronted with the most loss.
Although the cycle of birth, illness, suffering and death are shared with all persons, it is only those who have embraced Christ Jesus and his cross who seem to glide above it all. Not that it doesn’t effect us, (it does). But there is an underlying hope. I even think of it as a knowledge of redemption, and an anticipation of eternal joy, which sometimes even brings me joy in suffering, when I remember to “offer it up”. (a very difficult to understand act that has taken me a very long time, and a lot of prayer to begin to truly understand).
So what I’m saying is - with Christ Jesus, all is well. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. He gives us rest. We just have to learn to LET Him. To understand and make use of the sacraments. To pray. To give of ourselves to others. I’m happier now, in my physical decline, than I have been in my whole life, and I am so grateful that by the grace of God, I was able to let Jesus help me, and to allow me to bring Him to others. To have light in this once dark life.
I don’t know if any of this is helpful. I hope so. Life is age appropriate. By the grace of God, I can see the cycle, and live it out with Christ in a way that would not have been available to me otherwise. It is my biggest prayer, not that we stop suffering and dying, because that has always been, and always will be, until we are in paradise. But that we can all, by the grace of God learn how to suffer and die well, and with meaning and purpose. For this one Catholic, learning this slowly but surely, has changed my view on life entirely, and for the better.
May God bless,
Steven
