What is your cross?

[jrabs]

I will pray that God lightens all crosses mentioned here and replaces it with daily joy and peace.

May you all be blessed and feel God’s love.

 

[OneAugustKnight]

The hardest cross I ever had to bear was not being able to receive the Blessed Sacrament until I was baptized and confirmed. After 2 and a half years of RCIA. The last year of it I could barely stand it.

 

[bankerdavid]

I mentally cheated on my wife. She’s still with me, and I’ve honestly dropped all my connections with porn, but I/we suffer her lack of trust in me, her inability to forgive me, constantly having to prove myself. That’s ok with me, I can bear all that-her pain and mine. I keep focussed on the purpose of marriage-to help each other get to heaven, and to raise our family to keep our eyes on God.

 

[azgirl]

My cross has been to find peace and happiness within. I am 34 and single and so much desire to marry and have children. Dating has not been successful for me and at times I get frustrated. When I get down I pray and I feel less alone. I am blessed with wonderful family and friends, but feeling a yearning for so much more. After reading these other posts I realize my cross is so little in comparison to the struggles others have.

 

[Catholic_Wife]

My biggest cross so far has been anxiety and depression - which I’ve suffered with for much of my life. It has dragged me down so often that I’m surprised that I am still standing.

 

[Biblioassistant]

i have suffered intense pain and fear of surgery of having my uterus out. fear of dying during the operation. iam at peace over that. but i still need the surgery. iam 41, and i need it and have put it off because of intense fear of hospitals and lack of faith in the doctors.

Hey - I had that surgery 4 years ago and it was no big deal. I was finally free of pain and bleeding. I am glad I did it. I had about 1 week of pain and then a few weeks to get my strength back and then I was ready to go back to work (they made me wait 6 weeks though).

I have a very high pain tolerance though - your experience may be different.

 

[lizaanne]

The divorce of my parents when I was 10 (I’m now 42), and how it has impacted my life and the lives of our entire family. So much baggage goes with this, most notably my father’s infidelity to my mother for most of their 10 year marriage. I need to figure out how to truly forgive him, though I love him very deeply and we do have a good relationship, I struggle daily with the resentment and pain I still feel over his decision to choose another family over ours.

Divorce sux. And the pain never really goes away.

~Liza

 

[scoobydoo6v92]

My cross is adulthood I hate it with all the passion I have within me and then some. When I was a kid life was awesome. Then adulthood came and ravaged it from me. Jealiousy is annother cross. I see a post in the vocations forum and see “I am accepted and yada yada yada” I look at the profiles and they are only 19 or something here I am in my late mid 30s and I am pushed away from all the diocese I talk to. I am jealious of people younger than me that got what I want as far as success it gets to where I hate them for it. I used to love golf then Tiger Woods came along and ruined it for me 4 years younger and 10000 times richer. I have as much talent as he but in a different way (musician) and I can’t even pay my rent. Then I see some of you guys and thank God he didn’t give me some of those crosses. I just hate age and I hate when someone says “there isn’t anything you can do but accept it” I don;t and will not accept it. Just need more faith to move that mountain. I also have allergies that I really hate and destest. When someone complains about the sniffing I come unglued. Anger is another cross I have to bear. Scoob.

 

[terri_fortner]

My biggest cross has been a constant struggle to love my sister as Christ loves me. To make a long story short: she habitually makes terrible, terrible decisions that end up costing our family a lot of emotional and financial hardship. Please pray for her!

I haveeen your sister, and if it wasn’t for the support of my sister and the rest of my family, I would still be in this place. My sister just kept praying that she can accept whatever God has to do to save me. Even if it hurt her she was willing to bear that cross, so I could bear mine, and eventually did hit that point where my cross got lighter and so did hers. I now have a new one and will post on it, but keep praying and it will get better, sometimes what you think would fix it won’t, and God’s plan is always better.

:hug1:

 

[whatevergirl]

Or, if you are like me and don’t want to talk about your current cross, maybe you could mention a cross from your PAST? I am just wondering if anyone has (or has had) a cross you felt you could NOT bear…

• and one or two things you did to get through it. Thanks.

Interesting thread!

My cross is fear of loss. My parents passed away by the time I turned 10…my dad died of lung cancer, my mom within the same year, was in a tragic car accident…died instantly. I have always carried this cross…of fearing losing people or something I care about. Fear of losing a good job…fear of my husband losing his job (he is looking for work now because we just moved, but when he has a job I think of these things)…worry about losing my hair…it can go on and on…that is my cross. Fear of loss. I pray about it fervently…and it totally helps. God’s grace is enough to carry my cross…When Jesus said…‘pick up your cross and follow Me,’ He meant that we will have struggles in ‘this’ life, but follow Me, and it will be bearable.

 

[jules11]

Sure, I’ll share. My biggest cross has been my infertility, now my sterility. DH and I have been trying to have a child for almost three years and it never happened. I finally saw a gynecologist about it; he discovered I have low malignant potential, or borderline, ovarian tumors. Usually this is caught early enough that surgery can be done, while still preserving fertility. That wasn’t so in my case, the cancer had actually spread beyond my ovaries, so everything came out.

I was really depressed about it after my surgery, which was May 9. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to deal with this. My husband has been amazing; he’s such a wonderful man. I just felt guilty that he can’t ever have biological children. We’ve been talking about adoption for over a year, but he really wanted to do what we could to have biological children first. Plus, I was dealing with my own grief, my own feeling like I was somehow less a woman because of the surgery.

Fastforward to now. It hasn’t been all that long, but I’m mostly physically healed up. Life is back to normal and I’m actually better physically and mentally than I was before the surgery. I think part of it is that I’ve had to take charge of my health, I’ve been eating right and excercising. The biggest thing, though, is that I’m finally at peace with being infertlie. Everywhere I go now, I see adoptive families, I read something about adoption, I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are going to be adoptive parents.

It sounds strange but the surgery has actually helped me to do with my infertility. I no longer have monthly cycles, so I don’t have that anxious waiting, the “am I pregnant???” thoughts going through my mind all the time, only to be let down once again. It’s like God closed that door so that we can finally open the door we’ve been meant to go through this whole time.

I don’t have any big words of wisdom to offer. At my darkest, right after the surgery, I was physically unable to go to church, so I didn’t go to Mass more often, or get to Adoration. I didn’t even read my Bible more often, like I should have. What I did do was to pray often, nothing scripted, mostly it was along the lines of Why did this happen? Help me to deal with this. Show me Your will through this. A quiet trust in God has helped me through this and has helped me to carry this cross. Now I pray that He’ll show me the way to our children, so that I can officially lay that cross down. I know there will be others in my life, probably much harder than this, but we’re stronger now, and we can deal with them.

Hope this wasn’t too much for you!! I tend to get a little wordy.

That was beautiful!

 

[AaronsStaff]

My cross to bear has been my anxiety, depression, and ocd/ scrupulosity. Its terrible to deal with with my scrupulosity i find my self tip toeing through life afraid doing anything because i may percieve things as wrong or see sin where none exists, i know this is a problem, but I cant bring myself to the realization that its just my condition and not reality. With depression i never find my self happy or at peace, and at times when something good happens for me I still feel no happiness, because I know that that happiness is only temporary and soon i will plummit back into a state of depression. The intrusive thoughts I get with ocd cause me to think im commiting sins which makes me even more depressed. And on top of all of this my social anxiety disorder makes it unbelievably difficult to tell anyone not even my family whats troubling me. I try to bear my suffering and offer it up, but in a way these disorders have helped me by making me more dependent on God

 

[Donna_Mc]

My cross has always been my anxiety problem. I have struggled
with it for as long as I can remember.

 

[gradstud35]

I have a medical condition that has required multiple surgeries after which I have been left in a wheelchair for sometime. My family always lets me know what a burden my medical problems are to them. Last time I had to go out of town for surgery, and I had to go to the follow-up in the wheelchair by myself. Now keep in mind this was reconstructive foot and ankle surgery so it wasn’t like I could even walk. I’m getting upset just thinking back to that…my mom tells me I’m just feeling sorry for myself all the time. I have to admit I get jealous of people who have someone to take care of them when they are ill.
Two things to remember

1. Even Jesus had someone to help Him carry his cross.
2. The cross leads to resurrection.

 

[Vittorio23]

*“When we draw close to Chirst we must also embrace the Cross.” *

This comforting statement was made to me in letter from one of my best friends who is now Sister Mary Karis of the Holy Spirit, who is now a Poor Clare, cloistered nun.

My cross is so bitter-sweet. I hate it, yet love it because I know it only strengthens me, drawing me ever close to Christ.

Right now I am being taught the ever difficult lesson of “faith without feelings”. Being an atheist for the majority of my life, I was very dependent upon feelings and emotional highs in my conversion. Now the Lord is taking those away from me and it is more difficult than I could ever have imagined. My old, atheistic doubts like to pop up during times of complete dryness. It is all that I can do to keep going, to keep faith.

My faith is very weak and feeble. With old atheistic doubts that like to show their ugly little heads when I’m running spiritually dry, I’m in a constant battle. One break, one slip, one fall… It is not good. If I miss one night of prayers, my entire spiritual life can turn upside down. I am not joking, this is how feeble my faith is. I am so entirely dependent on the Lord that missing even one night of speaking with Him, being strengthened by Him- it can send me into a drought that is near impossible to overcome. I lose almost all faith. I lose all desire to pray, to go to Mass, to grow closer to Christ. If I do not attempt to overcome this right away, it can be extremely bad.

But, thanks be to God, I realize how truly feeble my faith is and I am blessed with the Church, who guides me through these difficult times. All I can do is frequent the Sacraments as often as I can, and trust the Church and her authority. Luckily Christ gave the Church the Sacraments for people like me: low on faith and simply living on the only thing that can give them life. The Holy Eucharist is truly the Bread of Life, even if I can not “feel” Christ’s presence within it.

 

[Catholig]

Bad thoughts.

Catholig

 

[TOP]

I have a medical condition that has required multiple surgeries after which I have been left in a wheelchair for sometime. My family always lets me know what a burden my medical problems are to them. Last time I had to go out of town for surgery, and I had to go to the follow-up in the wheelchair by myself. Now keep in mind this was reconstructive foot and ankle surgery so it wasn’t like I could even walk. I’m getting upset just thinking back to that…my mom tells me I’m just feeling sorry for myself all the time. I have to admit I get jealous of people who have someone to take care of them when they are ill.
Two things to remember

1. Even Jesus had someone to help Him carry his cross.
2. The cross leads to resurrection.

I know this feeling. Because of the way things were, I had to drive myself to outpatient chemo. It was a 45 minute drive. I would just make it home before I started to get sick. On saturdays I had to do my chemo in a hospital room because the clinic was closed. It took much longer and I would start to get sick there. The nurse’s would try to keep me overnight, but I had to get home. I wanted to just get away from the hospital and be at home. My wife had to get me a bucket to puke in. There wasn’t anything she could do and she was taking care of four kids including 2 y.o. twins. Sometimes we are helping Jesus carry His cross. He is by your side at this time. Offer it for conversion of sinners through our Lord. Tim

 

[mommyof4]

My crosses?

Keeping patient with my children.

Housework (hate it).

Keeping my appetite and love of food under control, trying to to be gluttonous.

Trying to control my selfishness.

Living within a budget.

 

[CSN]

I think my cross is the memory of my ex. It’s been 3 years since we broke up, and 9 months since I last saw her (where she reaffirmed that she hated me - twice), but I still have hope. I still think of her every day, but if I ever shake this, then I think I will join the clergy.

Not out of love of God per se, but out of a sense of duty. If that’s the wrong reason, well then so be it. I’ll be weeded out eventually…

 

[CSN]

My cross has been to find peace and happiness within. I am 34 and single and so much desire to marry and have children. Dating has not been successful for me and at times I get frustrated. When I get down I pray and I feel less alone. I am blessed with wonderful family and friends, but feeling a yearning for so much more. After reading these other posts I realize my cross is so little in comparison to the struggles others have.

haha, your cross is almost as light as mine.