Sr Lini Sheeja MSC –
Ordinary people arrive at extraordinary destiny through many hardships, struggles and difficulties. Hardships assure us of a bright future. It tells us to walk patiently in our life’s journey by placing our trust in God. A friend of mine from Goa called me a few days back and was describing the hardships she was going through in her work place. After having listened to her, I understood she was innocently suffering for no fault of hers. I understood that she needed to embrace it as God’s will and walk silently. I asked her, “Can there be an Easter Sunday without a Good Friday? To reach Easter Sunday one needs to go through Good Friday. Good Friday paves the path for Easter Sunday. Embrace these dark moments and the hardships you are enduring with joy and you will be able to see the graces lying in store for you. More the hardships, more the graces!” This incident stirred me to pen down this article under this inspiring title, “More the Hardships, more the Graces!”
No One is exempted!
Why do I suffer so much? Why this dark side in my life? These are the type of questions we ask today from the different walks of our lives. Are we questioning God? “Why?” Dear friends, if we ask God ‘why?’ God will ask us ‘why not’? We see in our world some rich and some poor. Some are educated and some illiterate; some travelling in BMW and some riding bicycles. Everyone’s journey is unique. But none of us are exempted from one thing here in this world, namely: hardships, difficulties and sufferings. Again I say, none of us are exempted from hardships. A few months back a friend of mine from Chennai called me and said, “Sister, please pray for our family. We have everything. We had given the best opportunities to our children. We had a happy life when they were small children. But then my Son got addicted to drugs a few months back and we are now going through lots of hardships at the moment. This is a story from a well-to-do family. The family members started to come together to pray and gave more importance to their spiritual life. More the hardships, more the blessings!
Blessings in Store!
We see so many poor families struggling to feed their children three times. We see families struggling hard to educate their children. They face financial hardships. Their environment is not safe. They are made to battle in their life to provide daily livelihood to their children. But, we are astonished to see that those families are blessed in their later days as the children grow up. More the hardships, more the blessings!
Ordinary to Extra-Ordinary
Ordinary people are made extra-ordinary only through challenges, hardships, difficulties and so on. There is no learning taking place when everything goes well in our lives. But, when we are faced with challenges, we learn much to become great personalities in our future life. I used to reflect on the TV Serials which most women watch daily. What happens there? If we notice, the endings of the episodes come always at a thrilling point in the story, so that we wait for the next day’s episode. When everything goes smoothly in our life we may fail to value life. When everything goes well in our lives we tend to forget God. But, when we face challenges and hardships we value life and cry out to God.
Graces from Coronavirus Pandemic
The recent Coronavirus pandemic has taught all of us to come down on our knees. In 2020 all our dreams and aspirations were shattered when we were hit by this tiny virus. The whole world was shaken! But in all these we learned to cry out to Him in tears. All those who were busy, all those who were on their feet from morning till evening had the time to sit together to pray. The lockdown made the families come together for family prayer. More the hardships, more the graces!
More the Bitterness, more the Graces!
All those who are close to us move away from us when we are in difficulties. Why this, we may wonder. There is an answer that God wants to give us. More the hardships, more the grace! The more you are isolated, the more you receive grace. During the lockdown in 2020-21, when we were isolated from the world, when we were restricted in our movements, we stretched our hands in prayer. When we are faced with trials and hardships, let us never run away from it; rather let us embrace it and walk together with Our Blessed Mother as she walked to Calvary silently. We all of us are travellers journeying in a boat and God is at the engine side. He knows clearly the routs to lead us. The anchor is in His hands, He knows when to stop and when to start.
Be Purified and Sanctified
When God wants to bless us, when He wants to take control of us, when He wants to be with us forever, we all have to go through crisis, desperation, isolation and difficult moments. We shall not give up. We shall not quit during these times. We have to go through certain crisis, for through these moments of crisis, God is purifying us and making us sanctified. More the hardships, more the graces!
Job’s Faith in God: More the Hardships, more the Graces!
The more difficulties I had, the more I experienced God’s graces pouring lavishly upon me. The more we go through hardships, trials, misunderstandings, difficulties, bitterness, crisis, dilemma and frustration, believe that more graces are poured on us. At times we may also have to suffer innocently. Dear friends, in those moments let us stand together with Jesus at the judgemental seat. Job represents innocent suffering in the Holy Bible. In the book of Job, God presents Job as his righteous and faithful servant, but Satan challenged God’s judgment. Satan believed Job was loyal to God only because God blessed and protected him. Satan is confident that Job will turn his back on God if God stops protecting him. After the loss of everything Job believed it as worthwhile and he still proclaimed: “Though God slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15). He was declaring his complete trust in his God. He later proclaimed: “I know that my Redeemer lives and He shall stand at last on the earth” (Job 19:25). More the hardships, more the graces!
Sr Lini Sheeja MSC, belongs to the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. She worked as the team member of Child-line, BOSCO Bangalore. She served as the National Secretary of Prison Ministry India and Chief-Editor for Prison Voice, a national monthly magazine and she authored a book named, Prison Ministry: The Dreamers’ Mission in which she invites all dreamers to join hands together to do wonders for broken humanity.