The Catholic Health Care Association of Saskatchewan recently asked me to deliver a keynote address to their 2016 annual conference. On the promotion brochure they said:
"Mark Pickup's life and testimony speaks volumes about
the profound meaning that can be found in human
suffering and limitation, through relationship with Jesus
Christ. Mark, who has advanced multiple sclerosis and
is wheelchair dependent, will share the story of his journey from
despair to hope as he found meaning through his Christian faith.
Mark reminds us that everyone who is suffering needs the support of
a significant community to overcome their fears of pain and powerlessness."
They called my address "Surprised By Hope". Below is what I said. -- Mark: (For bookings email mpickup@shaw.ca)
______________
In the months before the
Canadian Supreme Court made its odious and morally corrupt assisted suicide
ruling, I was asked to speak to an Alberta Conference for Christian women. They
asked me to address the rising threat of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Of
course, we now know medical assisted suicide has come to Canada for suicidal
people like me. I did speak about
euthanasia but I also spoke about grief. I did this because I believe that
unresolved grief fuels calls for euthanasia and assisted suicide.
During my speech, I
noticed a young woman of about 30 years of age sitting in the front row of the
audience feverishly taking notes. After
my presentation I was greeting people. The young woman came up to me. Her name
was Kimberley. Kim was using a cane and had the classic unsteady gait so common
to early multiple sclerosis ― the same disease I have. She told me she was
diagnosed with MS five years earlier. I asked Kim how she was doing? She said,
“I’m scared out of my mind.” I knew that, I could see the fear in her eyes.
I usually use a full
electric wheelchair but airlines damage it so badly that I resorted to using a
travel scooter for travel. My speech was local so Kim looked at my electric
wheelchair with in a combination of sadness and horror. I told her not to assume she will end up in
one. From her description of the course of her MS it was strikingly similar to
where I was at the five year point. Her eyes welled up with tears and like a
little child she said “I need a hug.” As she hugged me I could feel her frail
and frightened body shake like a broken reed quivering in the wind.
How do I console such a soul?
That vivacious, vital young woman, with so much promise, knew her hopes and
dreams were being snatched away from her with each MS attack. Kim saw in me
what she dreaded most. It is so easy to
feel swindled by life.
I know that feeling. It
so easy to grow bitter and eventually despair of the very act of living: I’ve
known that temptation too.
I went from being a healthy
and athletic man about Kim’s age to what you see today. At about
the 2-3 year point in my downhill slide with MS, my grief was so profound and
unimaginable, my sorrow so deep, my heartache so sharp, that my judgment was
clouded.
The course of my MS was wild, volatile and raucous. I went to bed each night not knowing what
functions I would wake with or without.
·
I would go spastic;
·
I would lose the use of a leg, both legs, or my
right arm. In fact there was a point when I was in serious threat of becoming
quadriplegic;
·
My vision was affected;
·
My hearing and speech was affected;
·
I would lose control of bladder function and dirty
myself;
·
I had a crippling fatigue and I still do.
All these symptoms would come with no guarantee they would remit. Some
symptoms remitted quickly; others stayed for weeks, months and even years.
There was no guarantee they would go into remission at all or return all
previous function. Some have not.
If assisted suicide had been available in the mid-1980s, and if I not
had been enveloped in the love of God and my wife, LaRee, I may have taken my
life at a low point. I am so glad now that did not happen. I would never have
known my 5 grandchildren. (We never know what tomorrow may bring.) I needed to
safely grieve with the freedom to cry out, and not be helped with a death wish
I might have expressed at my lowest point.
People need to grieve a loss: They need to know that there are people
around them who will uncompromisingly hold up the value of their lives – even
if they cease to believe in their own value. A person grieving catastrophic
disability or incurable illnesses needs help to rediscover their natural human
dignity when they have lost sight of it.
Throughout 30 years with degenerative MS, I have observed and studied grief
– both my own and others. Grief will visit everyone. Someone you know has
grieved a loss, is grieving a loss at this very moment, or is about to grieve.
Perhaps that someone is you.
Grief is like a river that cuts through the course of human lives. When
the current in a river of grief ceases to move, it can stagnate and become
dangerous if internalized. Things that block or dam the flow of grief must be
cleared away or broken though.
My river of grief, spanning more than 3 decades, has had it ebbs and
flows related to sorrow – and even rapids of terror as I was dragged through
various stages of neurological disease.
This is my experience: Different people grieve differently depending on
their personality and disposition, their culture and background, and most
importantly their openness to the divine love of God through His Son Jesus
Christ.
Some people are loquacious and expressive in their grief. We see this in
some middle-eastern cultures. My cultural
background is British, and particularly that strain of stiff English reserve
that is loath to express emotion. To deny one’s sorrow is almost seen as
virtue. In some ways, that put me at a disadvantage to speak about grief. I was
taught that if one must mourn then do it silently and with appropriate aplomb. If one must weep go to your bedroom and weep,
people don’t want to see it.
For a long time, this cultural disadvantage made it difficult for me to
express grief and so I became introspective about intense emotional agony. It
made intense grief more intense because it isolated me from my community. (I
bought a cocker spaniel. I hoped he would keep me company and bark to alert me if
a burglar was trying to break into my house. Unfortunately he was an English cocker spaniel. Jeeves wouldn’t
bark at strangers unless they were properly introduced.)
The reality of grief is that it is diverse yet distinct. People grieve in
various ways: They grief visually; they grieve in sound and in abstract ways. Perhaps
grief raises its head at the sight a park, lake or even a flower that takes us
back to an earlier and happier time before sickness or disability. Maybe a song
transports us to another place and time.
Let me give you a personal experience:
In the early days with MS attacks, the very sight of my cane beside my
bed in the morning brought a stabbing shock. On one occasion I remember
hobbling on my cane down a city street. Not realizing I was seeing my own
reflection in a window of an office tower, I thought the man coming toward me
was quite disabled. What a shock to discover I was looking at myself.
You see, although I knew in my head I was limping and using a cane, my
psyche imagined me walking normally. I could accept internally a temporary
injury but I could not bear the reality was that I was losing function that
could be permanent.
The sound of a certain song on the radio can remind me of the last time
I was able to dance with my wife. As we danced that evening, she started to cry
-- knowing we were coming to the end of that particular rainbow – to borrow a
phrase from the lyrics of that song.
Grief is distinct in that it is usually focused on an object, which is
different from depression, which may (but not necessarily will) have a focus.
Depression and grief are often interconnected but in my experience they are not
the same. Grief that ceases to progress can settle into depression. Depression
that does not move is dangerous because it festers and can become entrenched.
Grief is often dynamic, depression is usually not: It is lethargic and abstract.
Grief is dynamic because it still interacts to its surroundings and stimulus.
Grief is expressive while depression tends to turns in on itself. Grief can
express a multitude of emotions through music, writing, drama or dance. This is
good. It indicates grief that is fluid and moving.
Depression can only express darkness of the human spirit. It is stagnant
and unresponsive. Because grief and depression are so closely interconnected it
is important for caregivers and loved-ones try to keep them from melding
together.
Music played a huge part in my
grieve journey. Anyone who reads my blog will know that. One thing I lost early
in my multiple sclerosis was my sense of musical timing, and the coordination
in my right hand. This was a terrible shock to me because music was a huge part
of my life. I played guitar, and at the risk of sounding boastful, I was very
skilled.
I grew up in a musical and
artistic family. My mother taught music for over sixty years. In fact, if you
go to the community where I was raised, you will find a performing arts center
named after my mother: The Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre.
At any rate, about two years
after losing my ability to play the guitar, I realized it was probably not
going to return. And so I took my beautiful, top of the line instrument and
sawed it in half.
My wife was horrified! She yelled
at me, ‟What are you doing! You`ve lost your mind!” I put the two pieces of my
guitar back in the case and we spent the rest of the evening in stunned silence.
But I wasn`t sorry. That night after the family was asleep, I got up and wrote
a note and put it in the case with the destroyed Fender guitar. May I read you
what that note said?:
I sawed my guitar in half today. It was the
healthiest thing I have done in a long time. It gave me a release and a feeble
way to express my grief. My love was music. As a youth I lived for my guitar
and my music. I remember when I would rather play than eat. Now, my timing is
gone, so too is the strength in my hands.
On September 27th 1986, my new reality
came into clear focus. Life will not be normal again. I realized I must pick up
the pieces remaining in life and forget what I`ve lost. Grief that would not
focus for 2 years finally came to a head. I couldn`t cry so I sawed my guitar
in half.
I couldn`t just give it away; that would only be
more things slipping out of reach. There`s been too much of that already. I
needed to sever the past with no tiny remnants to haunt me and taunt me.
I sawed to say goodbye to artistic expression. I
sawed to say goodbye to a carefree youth. I sawed to say goodbye to life
without a cane or other contraptions of the disabled. I sawed to release grief
and say Ì hurt! But mostly, I sawed to say goodbye to an old and trusted friend
– my guitar – a finely crafted instrument I can no longer play.
It didn`t seem right to just leave it in its case.
I sawed my guitar in half today.
It was like a dam burst to let my
grief move on. A letting go began to
take a first step ― the first of many ― that continues to this day in a long
journey toward a redefining of self.
Still, music remains my friend, even though I can’t participate. There
were times when music expressed my deepest sorrow in ways words and tears could
not. J.S. Bach’s Cantatas remind me of Christ’s love. Samuel Barber’s adagio for strings captures
emotion of grief in a profound way and had a peculiar effect on me in this
regard. During my early years with MS, I identified with orchestral renditions
of his adagio. In recent years as my acceptance of disability grew, I have leaned
toward to Barber’s 1966 a cappella
choral arrangement in one movement under the liturgical title Agnus Dei (Lamb of God). Beethoven’s 9th
Symphony, composed in complete deafness, symbolizes to me the human spirit
overcoming adversity and disability.
Most people are aware that he was
deaf when he wrote his 9th Symphony. It was his crowning
achievement. I want to bring to your attention to the fact that Beethoven was
going deaf when he wrote his 1st symphony. It was detectable when he
began composing his 1st symphony in 1798. When it was completed in
1800, Beethoven’s had become quite anxious about his malady. By his own words,
Beethoven had noticed his hearing loss beginning in 1796 at the age of twenty-six.
By 1801 his physicians began various therapies, to no avail. His deafness
increased to be near total, yet his creative prowess did not falter. All 9
symphonies were composed with some level of deafness! His mind was so muscular.
How could it be that the standard bearer of the Romantic era was a composer who
was deaf! Despite this, he rose above his predicament to reach unequalled human
achievement.
Beethoven’s beloved Moon Light
Sonata was composed in serious deafness. The same is true for his opera Fidelio
and Creatures of Prometheus. It’s
doubtful he heard much of his 5th Symphony, his concerto for violin
and orchestra, his Masses.
In Beethoven’s life story, we read about his
inner and outer troubles, his disappointment with life, his isolation and
emptiness brought on by his disability. Beethoven addressed this isolation in a
letter he wrote to his brother Carl in 1802. He wrote:
“[F]orgive
me when you see me draw back....for me there is no relaxation with my fellow
man, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost
alone, like one who has been banished. ...But what a humiliation for me when
someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing,
or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard
nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I
would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back.”
In that same letter, Beethoven prayed,
“O Divine One, thou seest my inmost soul thou
knowest that therein dwells the love of mankind and a desire to do good.” At the end of his letter to Karl and Johann,
he wrote in his despair, “Farewell and do not wholly forget me when I am dead.”
These words were written at a point of crisis for Beethoven about his
deafness. Happily for us, the crisis passed and the great man rose above is
deafness to eventually write his 9th and final symphony at his peak
of creative power.
Although Beethoven used Schiller’s Ode to Joy, there is a spirituality
or mystical quality to the 9th. Symphony. It has a note of authentic
life experience. It contains energy yet a peace and an acceptance only won by
strife, and a wisdom only suffering can teach.
Here in this 9th symphony we see a triumph of human spirit
over adversity sustained by a spark of God’s love in a silent world. Yes, above
a starry canopy dwells a loving Father who can reach into the silent world of a
deaf genius and touch us even 192 years later.
In fact, I keep a bust of Beethoven on my fireplace mantle to
continually remind me of this. Yes, the right piece of music can touch my
heart. Still, when the last note dies away and the room is silent, I have often
been left to wrestle with my grief. It has been in the silence of my room that
His still small voice whispers, “Be not afraid, I AM with you.”
Grief of acquired disability or incurable illness cannot and should not
be stopped or avoided or it will back-up and fester. Perhaps you have met
disabled people who have become bitter and cynical.
Remember that suffering creates isolation that is difficult if not
impossible to express. It deepens the sense of isolation. The sufferer’s loved
ones see the anguish of the sufferer and they feel helpless to alleviate the
pain. This can create an excruciate sense of isolation for them too. Two
anguished solitudes. My wife LaRee speaks of this. She once said “It is easier
to be than to watch.”
She was watching me being ravaged by countless MS attacks.
Each one would take me further from being the normal, athletic and healthy man
she married. She believes that her pain of watching my situation, unable to
alleviate it, is as excruciating as mine. Yes, she
believes it is more painful to helplessly watch my deterioration than to be the
one deteriorating. Perhaps she is right: The thought of things being the other
way round is too painful for me to contemplate. My mind simply refuses to go
there!
Unresolved grief fuels euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The shock of loss due to acquired disability or incurable illness ―
whether it be you or a loved-one ― inexorably alters the expected or planned
course of life. No matter what you choose there will be a cost. If you choose to
move on with life, it will break your heart but not your humanity; if you
choose death under the guise of autonomous choice, it will break your humanity and
damage the greater human family that you leave behind.
The idea of independent
personal autonomy is diametrically opposed to the concept of interdependent
community. One person’s actions don’t
affect just them: They never do. If I choose assisted suicide it will not
affect just me. It will affect my wife, my children, my grandchildren. It will
affect my doctor because I will ask her to stop being a healer and become a
killer. My suicide will affect my community and, in a small way it will affect
my nation by helping to entrench the notion there is such a thing as a life
unworthy to be lived.
I do not have a right to
ask for assisted suicide. It will not just affect me – it will help to put in
peril vulnerable people who will come after me. No matter how sick I become I
still have a responsibility to the Common Good of society. I have a right to
expect the best palliative care available and those things that will foster
life with dignity even at its end.
The Encylopedea
Britannica defines the Common Good “that which
benefits society as a whole, in contrast to the private good of
individuals and sections of society.” The Catholic Church definition is broader
and teaches :
“…The
Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the Common Good is “the sum of
total good conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to
reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily.” (Catechism of the Catholic
Church, 1906)
The Common Good concerns
a responsibility we have to the life of all. (1914)
The Church teaches that
the sick and handicapped should be helped to lead lives as normal as possible
(2276). This is inclusion.
Advocates of assisted
suicide and euthanasia are masters of twisting words and using euphemisms to
make evil appear good and good appear evil. They make death a blessing and
living a curse. Human fulfilment is never reached by killing or suicide.
Be careful of
language. Those who control language
shape attitudes and set agendas.
Effective use of words that disguises evil can muddle good people’s
power of thoughtful discernment. Hitler and Nazi officials knew this. They
believed that they could manipulate public opinion by manipulating language
with propaganda including euphemisms, name-calling, fear and creating a
bandwagon effect.
We must ask where do
euphemisms come from and why they were coined? Euphemisms are intended to
disguise something.
“Medical aid in dying”
is meant to give an air of medical legitimacy killing the incurably ill whereas
the word euthanasia still makes many people recoil. Cloak lethal injection of
the sick with clever euphemisms … and it is still murder.
The phrase Death with dignity is designed to give
the impression of compassion to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The 20th
century theologian Dr. Francis Schaeffer said, “the word euthanasia becomes a
respectable part of our vocabulary and consciousness in a subtle way via the
phrase death with dignity.”
Death with dignity is
not achieved by injecting someone with poison when they are at their lowest
point, or starving or dehydrating them to death. That is abandonment not
dignity.
Let me tell you
something about death with dignity: It is not an event rather the end of a
process of having lived with dignity.
There is talk about
quality of life, or the lack of it. Let me tell you something about quality of
life. It changes with time. When I was twenty-five year old, if some
clairvoyant told me that within a few years I would be disabled, that my career
would be over by the age of thirty-eight, and I would eventually be wheelchair
dependent, I would have said emphatically, “There’s no quality of life in that!
I reject it!” And yet today, at the age of sixty-three, all those things
happened and my live has quality. How? My standard for quality of life changed.
Today what gives my life quality is to love and to be loved.
Mercy killing is not
mercy. Providing pain relief is mercy. The great Christian thinker, Malcolm
Muggeridge, had this to say about mercy killing.
“Jesus healed the sick,
raised Lazarus from the dead, gave back sanity to the deranged, but never did
He practice, or include, killing as part of the mercy that occupied his heart.
His true followers cannot but adopt the same attitude.”
People talk about a
right to death. There is no right to death regardless of what Canada’s corrupt
Supreme Court or Parliament decrees. Death is an eventuality that will come to
us all. The Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms, the American Declaration of
Independence, the United Nations declaration of Universal Human rights all
declare a “right to live.” None declare a right to death. And even if they did,
there is a higher law no human court or government can override or eliminate.
Grief can distort our perceptions. Let me illustrate with an
example from my own life: A number of years ago my mother was dying of bone and
brain cancer. Her physical pain was well controlled. Her suffering was of an
emotional or spiritual nature. But overall her symptoms were well controlled yet
I heard friends and loved-ones talking about her terrible pain. When I would
rouse her and ask if she was in pain, she consistently said No. You see, friends
and loved-ones observed her dying through the lens of their own sorrow. Sorrow
and grief can distort reality.
My mother died without intractable physical pain, thanks to
a skilled family doctor who knew modern pain control methods.
Medical assistance in dying is palliative care not
euthanasia.
In 1984, Pope John Paul II wrote his 1984 Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (The Gospel of
Suffering). It was written the year I was diagnosed with MS and contains such
profound truths that I find myself continually returning its wisdom. If you
want to a Christian meaning of suffering, I suggest you get a copy. Much of what I am saying is rooted in the
spirit of that document.
I said unsolved grief is a fuel for assisted suicide. Here’s
a reason why:
The sufferer can begin to perceive a perverse solace with
his despair of life. His despair can masquerade as destiny. It is a twisted
perception, granted, but it is a dangerous state because death can become
preferable to life. Fait accompli. Suicide is seen a deliverance from physical,
psychological, emotional, spiritual agony. Detachment from living can create a
rejection of life.
My journey through chronic illness and disability and paralysis involved
a re-discovery of the natural human dignity that is the possession of every
human being beginning at the spark of life we call conception. The source of
that natural human dignity is God and the image he planted in us all. Jesus Christ
will make sense of our anguish if we invite Him into in to our lives and remain
surrendered to His leading and sensitive to His voice and love, for He is the
light of the world.
But even those of us who
have met Christ may not allow his full penetrating light into every corner of
our being. His light is so intense and perfect. As with any intense light, its
full intensity may be too bright for our current state to take in. We squint
and cover our spiritual eyes ― we may be too spiritual unprepared, too immature
to take in the true and full vision the light reveals.
We cannot yet accept
Christ’s perfect light and divine love. It may only come later, as our
Christian pilgrimage toward the Celestial City progresses. Our spiritual
maturity develops and Christ’s love continually transforms us to be more like
Him.
God is a God of love. He wants
to forgive us and purify us. He wants all humanity to come to know Him and be
conformed to the image of his Son. The most famous words in the Bible tell us
this:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John
3.16)
But it goes on from there and address darkness and enlightenment.
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but
that the world through Him might be saved. “He who believes in Him is not
condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For
everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest
his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the
light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
(John 3.17-21)
We are people who follow
Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world. In Him there is life not death. He
offers hope to humanity not despair. The most important decision for a person
with a serious disability or chronic illness is to choose to cross their river
of grief to the opposite shore to see what awaits them. It is the choice to
live and redefine their new sense of self within their new reality and within
the identification of their human community. The old self is gone as surely as
if he died. A new self can emerge. At a personal level, I discovered the new
Mark could be just as vital as the old Mark as long as that new self was
interconnected in some way with community and responsible to the greater common
good.
Whether I am disabled or
not, sick or well, in the prime of life or the end of life, I am still
responsible to the greater common good of the Human Family. We are not
autonomous beings.
I have no right to death. If
there are any rights they lie with the right to life, its care and nurture ―
not only my own but others around me and those yet to come.
It was John Donne wrote
these immortal words:
No man is an island entire
unto itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; … any
man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
There cannot be personal autonomy
if we also cherish community. There cannot be personal independence if we
desire human interdependence. Lovingkindness is what defines civilized
societies. But love needs the Divine. Love without God becomes selective,
coercive and arbitrary – turning the lives of the weakest and the unwanted into
hell on earth. Human benevolence on its own is fleeting and fickle. The brotherhood of man needs the Fatherhood
of God.
After more than 30 years
with chronic degenerative MS, I am convinced that human enlightenment is
impossible without God. Pain, sorrow and grief are often the vehicles for
spiritual maturity.
Here is the hope that
surprised me: I have been invited to unite my sufferings with the sufferings of
Christ. Tears of anguish and tears of joy can run together. Paul wrote to the
Colossians about Christ. He said: “For in him were created all things in heaven
and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or
principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.” That
includes me. I was created for him.
The course of my life has
been within his plan. I have discovered
purpose and meaning in and through my suffering. It has increased my desire for
the kingdom of heaven and to be with Christ. I have discovered that by placing
my trust and reliance in Christ, and His promises – even when my body was being
ravaged by disease – there has been grace and consolation through the help of
the Holy Spirit. Our Catechism reminds us to “Hold fast to the confession of
our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” And that the Holy Spirit … he poured out
richly upon us through Jesus Christ our Saviour. (CCC.1817, cf. Heb.10.23,
Titus 3:6)
The hope I have found in
Christ has lifted me from discouragement. It is hope against hope, hope in what
at times seems hopeless. The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ (and how people respond
to them) defines human destiny.
The illumination of my sickroom taught me that it is not
suffering that destroys people, rather the bitter experience of suffering
without meaning. My own experience with protracted suffering has come in the
form of seven spiritual blessings:
1. Surrender. My first spiritual blessing came in
the form of surrender: I asked myself how Jesus handled suffering. My answer
came from Christ’s agony in the Garden. Luke tells us Jesus was in such agony
and prayed so fervently that his sweat became as blood. Three times he asked
that the cup of suffering be lifted from Him. He said, “Father, if you are
willing, take this cup away from me; still not my will but yours be done.”
(Luke 22.42). “Not my will but yours be done.” That’s the key. God wants us to
totally surrender to Him, regardless of circumstances. That led to my second
spiritual blessing:
2. Humility.
Multiple sclerosis stripped away my foolish illusions of self-sufficiency and
autonomy. It’s hard to be Proud and puffed up when I couldn’t even dress myself
and had to get someone else to tie my shoes. Yes, at times I had to rely on
others for simple personal, daily tasks. It mortified me and gave rise to
honest, sometimes brutal self-examination. With my insidious Pride shattered,
the light of Christ started to shine deep into my heart, and my love for Christ
began to grow. And that paved the way for my third spiritual blessing of
suffering.
3. Trust.
Having a degenerative disease has given me the opportunity to trust God when
the stakes were horribly high. The example of Christ’s Passion taught me that
fear and pain sharpened my focus on Him.
4. Patience
and perseverance: My 4th blessing found in suffering with my chronic
disease helped teach me to patiently persevere. Long days, months and even years spent
convalescing have encouraged these virtues (and boy do I need them). The
silence of the sickroom gives context to the Scriptural exhortation: “Be still,
and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46.10).
5. Faith:
My 5th blessing found in suffering is that it teaches Faith. In so many ways,
my Christianity was shallow and counterfeit and would likely have remained that
way if it were not for the MS. Even in the midst of calamity and tragedy,
however, I have learned that God abides with me.
6. Courage.
My 6th spiritual blessing found in suffering is that it rouses courage in
cowardly people, like me. Courage develops as we begin to understand that our
hope lies elsewhere. Rather than cower in disease and defeat, I learned to
strive confidently on in my journey toward the gates of the Celestial City.
7. Eternal
perspectives. My 7th spiritual blessing in suffering was it gives a
desire for eternal perspectives. Suffering cuts away those things that are
extraneous in life, leaving only bare essentials. My loss of physical things
(like body function) awakened a desire for eternal perspectives and God.
The deep valley of anguish
and paths of trials, have raised my eyes toward the celestial city – which is
the hope and reward of every believer. As the Catechism states, “…through the
merits of Jesus Christ and his Passion, God keeps us in the “hope that does not
disappoint.” Hope is the “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. … that enters
where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf.” (CCC. 1820). This is not
just theological teaching of the Church. It is true. It has real applications
in real lives, in my life. I am here to bear witness to this truth.
I began this presentation
telling you about a young woman named Kimberley with MS.
She is at the
edge of her river of grief. She must choose what she will do with her life.
Life as she previously knew it is gone. Will Kim muster the courage to cross
the river of grief to discover what awaits on the other side? Or will she
refuse to cross, choosing instead to cling to memories of yesteryear, growing
increasing bitter at the loss of previous function? The journey across the
river of grief is risky. There are eddies and undercurrents that threaten to
drag her under the waves of their circumstances.
But is it so different for any of us? We all face our own rivers of
grief. Perhaps it is the loss of health, the loss of a mate or a loved one, a
career, a fortune or a reputation. What will you do when you encounter a river
of grief?
Use it to draw nearer to the Saviour. Use it for your good and the good
of those in your circle of influence, and those who will come after you. In
other words, the Common Good for today and tomorrow. Thank you and God bless.
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