The months of April and May bring a lot of stormy weather. When it gets too hot, people complain about why it is so hot and ask one another to pray for rain! Then, when it rains, people complain why it becomes too muggy and humid, makes them feel down, and becomes a cause to ruin their daily or weekend plans; hence, they then ask for sunny days. Thus, we pray for the sun, and the complaints start all over again! I wonder if anyone is ever happy or content, or are we fickle, impatient, and demanding people who just need something to complain about?!? I hate to have God‘s job because it seems like no one is ever happy, and there are more grumbles and mumbles against Him than gifts of gratitude. Therefore, what seems to be simple — but very hard — is that it takes a lot of humility to accept, embrace, and be content with the changing seasons of life.
If every day is sunny, the plants will die, and we will not survive either. Therefore, we need days when it rains and storms, even though we dislike and hate to be in the stormy weather. No one likes to be in the midst of the gloomy and hard times when the storms of life hit close to home! No one likes to have to endure and anchor him or herself deep in the sand when the trials, pains, and sufferings come with the messiness of life. Nonetheless, this is what it means to accept that life has its own set of changes, just as nature has its own seasons and weather times. There are and will be bad days just as there are good ones, sunny as well as rainy and stormy weather. We just have to be able to accept and embrace the unexpected and surprising elements and changes as they present themselves in different times of life.
Also, we have to understand and be willing to embrace our particular places in the total and grander picture and reality of things. It is hard for us to accept and embrace, but we are not the criterion, standard, or center of the universe, and things do not have to go our way to be good. While it seems to be in our natural tendency to want to have things under control and fix the ones that are not, we have and will never be able to have everything our way anyway. It is frustrating but also, at the same time, humbling to know our exact place on the grand scale of life, especially our finitude and its limitations. Hence, we cannot expect to have things served up and given as we would like for matters to be all the time!
We cannot come to God expecting and demanding that all matters would be fine, tidy, and perfect as we would have liked. We cannot expect life without struggles, hardships, trials, and challenges because life is messy and imperfect. We cannot expect God to be our butler, server, or fixer when things fall apart or do not go our way. Many times, we can and only be able to embrace whatever is in front of us as best as we are able, knowing that if He permits the storm to come, He will give us enough strength to endure it.
If we read the Sacred Scriptures, we will see that the Almighty never removed the trials and hardships from His people. As a matter of fact, the name “Israel” literally means the one who struggles with the Lord. He permitted His people to go through oppression and persecution, as well as errors and mistakes, but His love never failed. God remained faithful even when His people questioned, doubted, and rejected Him. Even when He allowed them to reap the fruits they sowed with their actions, He delivered them from their powerful enemies and hard trials when they turned to Him. His timing was never like theirs, and His divine providence was always more than what they could comprehend or understand. Their whole history was messy because they were imperfect, weak, controlling, doubtful, and messy people like us. They had their struggles with Him, but He was able to work through all of their failures and limitations, even if that meant, at times, He let them fail and owned up to the mistakes they made for themselves.
God is faithful, and He loves us more than we love ourselves. His love for us is more than we will ever know and understand because He wills not only our immediate, temporal, or earthly good but also our transcendental, everlasting, and eternal good with Him. Do we doubt and pout when we do not think our way? Do we abandon Him when we fail to get what we have humanly hoped or wished for? Do we treat Him as God, to be respected and adored, in a right relationship or only a demanding and manipulative one? These are hard to answer, but they are important questions to reflect on our place and trust in Him who loves us, especially when life gets hard and challenging.
When the rains and storms hit, the sky gets dark and gloomy, and we think the sun is no longer there. Nonetheless, it is always there; only the low and dark clouds cover it. In the same way, God is always with us even when we cannot see Him! Therefore, it is important to come to Him, to trust, to abide, and to remain with Him, who has always been faithful and loves us beyond what words can describe or what we can ever understand. Stay strong in the storms and get help when needed, for it will not last forever. The challenging times will seem like forever, but they are not, for all the different seasons and weathers have their limits!
I would like to share a personal story when I was young.
First, I can attest that English is a very hard language to learn as a foreigner, especially from a non-western Asian tongue. The not only is the alphabet sounds are confusing and change all the time, the vowels are also “messed up” and all over the place! Hence, it is a language that one just has to learn by memory and through regular conversational acquisitions, not simply with a book or set of instructions. That was why I was so discouraged and felt uneasy when I was younger and was trying to find a new life in America… I wanted to give up, and that was why the temptation to leave and go back to Viet Nam was so real, too. On top of all the linguistic obstacles and challenges, I had no one to rely on, and it felt so lonely and hard. I just wanted to give up and leave…
As a matter of fact, I planned a speech and waited for my parents to come home. One evening, I put my brother to bed early and waited for them in our little room. When I saw them enter through our apartment’s back door, I wanted to come out right away but gave it some time for them to settle, too. I saw my mother washing the plastic tupperware containers and my father sitting close to the kitchen table we got from a charitable thrift store. I wanted to come out and talk with them, but then I saw my father caressing his hands from a hard day of work.
At that moment, I knew I was not going through the hard times in life alone! I knew that my parents were bearing much more pains and sufferings for my brother and I. Even though they did not say it out loud, I understood the sacrifices they had to make to leave everything behind so we could have a better future and opportunities that were never afforded to them because of the Viet Nam War. At that moment, I knew there was no turning back, only moving forward with all its present challenges because this is our God-given chance and opportunity. From that day on, I pushed myself hard to learn English as best as possible to take care of my family. I tried to assist and help my parents as I was able because I knew they had to endure many more hardships than I did.
Hence, in life, we often think that we are the only ones who are miserable and have it worse than everyone else. Yet, we all bear different types of wounds, pains, sufferings, and hardships — even ones that are invisible at times. Nonetheless, there is grace there… because God is present, and He is with us! I do not know about you, but my heart has a deep conviction that God has always been faithful and never abandoned me. Even though there were times that I got mad at him, kicking and screaming because I did not know why He permitted some things to happen in my life, I always knew that He loved me. Even at times when I did not love Him or myself, He had never abandoned me but remained faithful at my side. I am where I am today because He loves me, and who I am today as a priest is simply a loving response (no matter how imperfect it can be) to His love for me.
I know life is not perfect, and I am not here to tell you everything will be nice and wonderful when we have faith and believe in God. All I can ever say is that life is messy. We will be challenged and tested at times. However, if He permitted us to be in the storm, He would be there with us and give us sufficient strength to endure. Our lives will not be perfect and as planned, but we have more than sufficient grace to withstand the ups and downs because He is with us and will never abandon us. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, do not be afraid! Let us remain faithful to Him and allow ourselves to grow and mature through the different seasons and weather settings of life so we can grow, deepen, and find more space within our hearts to love and give Him everything.
I Thirst (John 19:28) with Father Khoi 