Nudging Conversions: a Practical Guide to Bringing Those You Love Back to the Church by Carrie Gress

Author:Carrie Gress [Carrie Gress]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2015-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Joy and Gratitude in Suffering

Christ tells his disciples not to let others know when they are fasting or giving alms. “Do not look gloomy” (Matthew 6:16), and “when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what the right is doing” (Matthew 6:3). These things should be done in secret, and with joy.

Pope Francis, acknowledging the difficulty of finding joy while suffering, warns that “[t]here are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter.” He explains, “I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.”4 Joy while enduring suffering, the pope goes on to say, is really built upon a “quiet yet firm trust” in our Lord, even in great distress.5

In addition to building firm trust, we can find joy more easily if we have a sense of humor. Lindsay, a young mother with a difficult father-in-law, offered up her pregnancy-related hemorrhoids for her husband’s cantankerous father. “He makes it easy to remember who that pain is for,” she quipped.

Frequently, when people look back on their lives, they are very grateful for the pain and struggles, even if they didn’t see God’s providence through them at the time. I used to carry a quote from an unknown source around in a prayer book as a reminder of how God has used great injuries to an even greater effect: “A salve so wonderful was applied to the wound that it made one positively grateful for the injury.”

It is always difficult to be mindful of the fruit of suffering and to live with its hope, but that is where trust and faith grow and live.

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