Sadness, depression, times of difficulty are caused by many things, but to criticize a struggling person by suggesting that it is a lack of humility or because of pride, is to ignore the fact that physical sickness and pain, and serious ongoing practical difficulties, accident, abuse, trauma, as well as grief, can have an impact on a person’s state of mind.
However it can be that those who have not greatly suffered,or that those who attribute a person’s time of struggling to pride, do not understand the impact that chemical changes in the brain and body due to serious ongoing stresses or trauma, that may not be of one’s own causing, can have on a sense of well-being.
It is important to trust in God and to pray, and to think kindly of others and live acts of practical kindness; and also to undertake practical good strategies to overcome inertia, fatigue, struggle. However only God can judge the individual heart…of pride or laziness or any other negativity…but God, and sometimes also the physician, knows what is dragging a person down.
Judge you, my brother?
Holy God, eternity waits for those who live the gospel to truly share in Your delight in each person. With You, we will rejoice in everyone who accepts Christ’s invitation to follow Him with prayer, penance and generosity!
How profound is the giving required by that person, and this! What happiness, what anguish is known there! What temptation is encountered! What sensitivities enfeeble or enrich and sanctify that life! How great is Your glory in the strange or ordinary facts and struggles of their existence! Yet, how can we know?
We err in applying rules of private interpretation to another’s intention or act, except as feeble measure for our compassion and charity. Only by one’s private consciousness—unless enlightened by Your Spirit of love—can each see what lies in another’s soul.
Each person is a unique expression of Your love, an individual world, some great, and some miniature, separate in existence and consciousness, yet united in You. Yet how quickly do we judge each other! We offer You our hurt and theirs in prayer for healing and forgiveness.
Let us not belittle or betray, in thought, or by gossip—the seemingly sinful, the apparently misled or foolish, or those perceived to be ugly, or crippled in mind or spirit. Let us celebrate their preciousness in You. Let us no longer sin against Your sacred love and creation in anyone by our judgements however seemingly justified. Let Your Holy Spirit know and love each other person through us, with sensitivity to their emerging needs.
Give us compassion for each other, however perplexed or inaccurate our perception, so that we revere each other—and ourselves—as individuals sacred to You.
Through Your Spirit, we can offer appreciation, justice and love to each other as we wait humbly on the full vision of Your meaning, purpose, and love of each person, in the final translation that follows death. Let us serve and intercede for each other person as loved child of God, in glad, trusting welcome.
Code:
cakmke, we don't know your circumstances or your state of health, or the burdens you carry, but we will pray for you.
As some have said, we need to remind ourselves to think of others each day in whatever practical acts of kindness are possible, even if a kind word or smile, and also to remind ourselves to look for God's blessings each day...
and if your circumstances are distressing or heartbreaking, my loving prayers for you; if your health is at issue, I pray you will find the best help and management, and that you'll take healthy care of you system.
God bless and uphold you,
Trishie
