There always will be a time when man will be faced with a tragedy of a kind, but how he manages this tragedy is what best defines him as resolute or not.
Life is beautiful and, in its beauty, lies its varied lessons. These lessons unfold in different shades of colour, which often we unintentionally do not see nor personally experience.
Life is like a staged drama; each scene presents us with characters. Many a time, each character equals a lesson. As these characters play their respective roles, with each scene or act we are taught what we need to learn.
A careful attention to the events of life brings to comprehension what is being revealed in the various scenes of life. We are also, shown how various characters play their roles to depict it.
This brings to question now, in the event of tragedies or anything that is not planned for by us or people close to us, how do we accept them?
Have you ever prepared for an accident or any disaster of a kind?
I doubt if you have in anyway done that at any point in your life. If you have, then, you are a genius and can easily help us find a lasting remedy to this scourge of Covid-19 and even future ones (we do not pray for any of such things to come our way again).
I have been privy to a few conversations with regards to God’s role in our lives especially during hard times. There seems to be the notion that God is not always with us, although He says He is. Why? because He appears to enjoy a greater silence in our moments of difficulties.
I believe in one way or the other, we have been faced with a challenge of a kind, we have had so many questions pop up in our minds regarding what God is doing to help remedy our situation.
Where is our God? Which God allows His children to go through such situations to glorify His name? Does He really care about us? If yes, why are going through this?
I take solace in the fact that a hungry man is always an angry man, hence, until he is satisfied, he says things he is uncertain of. Often, we tend to forget about all that we say when we are angry with and at God for one or the other thing that has befallen us.
My piece of advice is, be careful what you say when you are angry or faced with a challenge. When there seems to be no hope anywhere for you to hold on to, be careful of how or what you vent. Continue to hope beyond hope, even when you are caught up in your own disbelief and you want to give up, please give yourself another chance to believe yet again.
Two things happen in the event of a misfortune or a tragedy.
1. You either lose faith in God or, your faith in God is deepened
2. Either your fears deepen to derail your faith, or your faith deepens and dispel your fears.
Life is a faith journey, many of us lose it on the grounds that we journey on better without faith. The faith of a man is what propels him to go on even when there’s no hope of surviving the moment you find yourself in. If you want to be successful in life, not necessarily that you become rich but to live a meaningful life and to impact on others, you will have to be a person of prayer and FAITH.
When challenges come, you are either strengthened by it (cf. James 1:1-3) or you are broken by it.
Again, your fears about the unknown maybe heightened or your fears dispelled.
When we are unable to handle situations, we blame God for it. The interesting part is; though we blame Him for the unfortunate situation we find ourselves in, we still call to Him to come to our aid. This is a puzzle I am really working to solve some day, maybe when I become older than I am now.
To accuse God of being absent, not caring about His children in their time of need, and still calling out to Him to save us is for me an irony of belief.
The beautiful thing about God is that in all these situations, He points the answers of these realities, but we are unable to grasp the full meaning of what He says to us. Cf. Isaiah 55: 8-9.
One thing which is beautiful about life and disaster is that after it comes something good. For instance, in the Old Testament, we realize that there is a sort of recreation after every disaster.
Examples could be given of the flood in the days of Noah; though it brought destruction to the world, out of this same disaster, He showed His face of mercy and brought salvation to Noah and his family.
We can also think about the devastating famine in the days of Joseph, out of which He saved a nation and called them to believe in Him. Lastly, He brought a destructive earthquake after Jesus died, out of which man was saved.
Is there any good in disasters or tragedies?
I know many of us reading would say a big No. My answer is a big YES, every misfortune carries an amount of fortune in it. It is only for you to work hard and take away the ‘mis’ so you can possess the ‘fortune’. In fact, you must work hard not to ‘mis(s)’ the fortune. There is a blessing in every misfortune that comes your way. It does not matter what you suffer now, that which you suffer today cannot be compared to the joy that awaits you when you are able to persevere to the end. In this life, I have learnt that in whatever situation I find myself, the words of John gives the assurance “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me” Cf. John 14:1.
In our hopelessness, the Lord will never abandon us. He is always with us, fixing us up again. No matter the tragedy of life, we should always know that He is a God who HEALS.
He cares so much about us, the infirmed and would come to our aid in our time of need. Cf Psalm 147:3.
From personal experiences in life, I have come to realize that sometimes our silence in our moments of grief is far better than to say something that would trivialize the horror we face.
I am tempted to believe that it is same with God, that His seeming silence in our lives is for our own good when we are faced with the tragedies of life.
The events of our life challenge the limit of our faith in our good and caring God. Why am I saying this? Anything that hurts us or our friends is considered to be evil or called a disaster. What about when it does not hurt or affect us or our friends but others? What do we call such things? How have we considered the gravity of our sins which continually affects God?
I am not by this write up attempting to answer all the questions you may have in your head, however, I seek to help you understand that nobody in life prepares for an accident but when it happens, we are quick to find remedies to it.
There are certain questions we will never find answers to, we may try answering them by ourselves, but will never be truthful to our own selves even with the answers we give.
Let me quickly share with you the story of the earthquake that happened in Lisbon that shook the whole of Europe at the time.
On November 1st, 1755, there was an earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal. It is reported that the earthquake was between 6 to 10 seconds but caused a lot of disaster. About 75% of the city was destroyed within a blink of an eye. It was a day when the Church was celebrating All Saints Day.
There were Masses being celebrated all over the City and there were people in attendance. The Chapels and Convents were greatly destroyed by the earthquake not sparing even those who run into the chapels to seek for refuge, those who were already there at Mass also were not spared. An area that was spared was a street that housed a lot of brothels.
This narrative has a lot to analyze. Why the brothels and not the chapels? Well, the lesson to clutch here for me is this; this disaster afforded a lot of the people who survived the earthquake to begin to rethink of how the mercy of God works and about how to live life hereafter.
Conclusion
As a people whenever we are faced with challenges, we are torn between turning against God because He seems powerless or doesn’t care about us or turning to Him believing that He has power to bring good out of the evil of our world.
Always know that in moments of disaster or tragedy, we have more people clinging to faith than departing from it.
Faced with a similar tragedy in our time, what is your response? How can you help the other person come to faith in God and not despair? God bless you.
Source: Fr. Winfred Charles Lwanga Jr
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