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It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
Hateful thinking is not what our God-given ability to reflect and meditate is meant for. It is meant to be used to meditate on love, God, truth, beauty, honor—anything good. Our mouths weren’t made to speak hateful words. They were made to encourage, to teach, and to speak truth in love.
It is not brave to kill yourself when things are sad and difficult; it is brave to live anyway. It is brave to find ways to lay down your life to serve the people around you. It is brave to forgive and to choose to love those who hurt you even though they don’t deserve it. It is brave to trust that the God who gave you life in the first place has a good plan in mind, even when everything around you looks like hell. It is brave to live.
Before I believed in God, my venting, ranting, and screaming always had some searching in it, but most of all it felt like I possessed a destructive power over the things I hated. There was honesty in my hatred, and even back then, some of my hatred and anger were flung toward gross evils. So in cursing evil, I had a vague sense of being able to change it. But my idea of justice against evil was, many times, just more evil in return. After God rescued me, however, I found a purpose for my screaming: to speak truth over the lies in people’s hearts. Lies like the ones I believed about myself
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The broken heart that makes me scream comes from the broken heart of a God who moves within me, aching and yearning for his creation to know how beautiful, valuable, and loved it
So no matter who I love on this earth, my love for them must not surpass my love for my heavenly Father. If it does then I become an idolater. It would be like me falling in love with my husband’s reflection instead of the real person. I would be left rather lonely with only his cold image to talk to. That image could not hold me and speak to me; that image could not help me when I needed it to.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
First, I saw myself. According to my own moral code, I had considered myself a pretty good person. Compared to the people I hated, I thought I was at least much better than they were. But when you’re standing in front of God, saying “I’m good,” it’s like saying “I’m tall” when you’re standing in front of a mountain, “I’m big” when you’re standing in front of the ocean, or “I’m old” while looking at the stars. The thought is absurd. I realized that I had no idea what good was, because up to that point I had not stood in the presence of the God who made the universe.
A quote I love by St. Augustine says: People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrTfyM-hbY.
To remember we are mortal means to live one day at a time. It means we must do the most we can with every day we have. It means we must learn to be truly alive right now. We must love people while we can.
Love like it may be your loved one’s last day.
We make empty wishes upon stars that have already begun to burn away, We add false color to hair that has already begun to grey. We place lively spring flowers at the feet of the dead, And we only voice our most meaningful words on our deathbeds. Why is it that we try so hard to paint colors onto things that have already faded away, Yet we never open our eyes to see the bright hues of today?
