The truth that changes everything.
Life is challenging. Many times, we can’t make sense of so much pain. And we ask ourselves why. We look at the sky, and no one answers us.
Nothing makes sense.
Padre Pio once said, “Accept the pain and misunderstanding that comes from above. Thus, you will be perfected.”
Therein lies the haunting meaning of every burden we bear.
The cross, it sculpts us. The cross transforms us into divine beings.
The cross is the way of entrance to the resurrection. By resurrection, we mean closing stages and becoming a better person.
When you accept the cross, all kinds of magical things happen.
You are less reactive.
The more you accept the painful things that happen to you, the less power they have over you.
If something or someone can make you angry, it controls you.
You regain your power if you don’t get angry and operate from calm.
If you are less reactive, you think more clearly, making better decisions.
Making better decisions makes your life easier,r or as you can read in the bible, “Let the yoke be easy, and the burden light.”
Being mindful
Awareness of things that upset us shifts the focus from the cross to the wound.
My cross for a long time was my mother. She was always getting on my nerves with her comments and attitude.
Until I accepted my cross, I began to take care of it as she cared for me as a child: with unconditional love.
It was then that I discovered the wound. Mine.
Many things hurt me; I had many reproaches towards my mother, and I blamed her for many things that were my responsibility.
In doing so, the wound began to heal, and the cross (my mother) stopped feeling like a burden.
Patience melts the heart of ice.
Once you accept the cross and let the pain change you, you begin to see the wound, and it starts healing.
But the process continues.
When you stop being so reactive and selfish, you realize that you were reactive and selfish 🙂
And that melts your heart.
I started to realize how badly I talked to my mother, how much I criticized her, how much I contradicted her, and how little I listened to her.
And I felt ashamed.
When you clean your way of seeing things of selfishness, you discover your lack of control over your subconscious interests, and you can begin to correct them.
The process extends
The cross makes you realize what you don’t want to learn: your share of guilt and selfishness.
The most disturbing thing about the cross is that once it acts in one area of your life, it spreads to the rest.
You begin to see all the secondary crosses and all the wounds: the nails in your hands (my compulsion to eat), the one in your feet (my tobacco addiction), the spear in your side (my narcissism), the crown of thorns (alcohol).
You realize a truth that changes everything.
The reactivity you had towards others was reactivity towards yourself.
I hated myself; that’s why I was self-destructing.
The cross saves you because it makes you realize and allows you to be reborn.
The slow process is about knowledge passing from the intellect to the heart.
And that takes time.
So don’t be anxious; accept your cross, and you will see how little by little it transforms you into the beautiful person you are because, as Michelangelo said, “Beauty is the purgation of the superfluous.”
A virtual hug
AG