As the wind carries the northwestern air, with a little bit of childish faith, you ponder on yourself. You have been working tirelessly for years. You have a decent job, but you keep asking, “am I happy?” You look further and ask the Heavenly Father, “What’s Your plan for me?” You take a deep breath before taking a stance that seemingly suggests you are ready but are you really?
Even before the pandemic, some of us have been feeling some struggles in life. We ask questions that seem to have no answer. We can’t help but think about what’s out there for us. We wonder why we have to suffer and endure pain and hardship. We kept thinking about how exhausted and beaten we feel. We ask… is this the way to live? Is this really what’s destined to happen? For what?
Some of us carry on with only one thing in mind: I have to survive. We proceed to do something that we think would keep us afloat. We follow paths that have been taken by others before. We hope, and we continue to do so, even when we seem to go nowhere. We have to move further because we know we won’t get anywhere if we don’t start moving. Suddenly, we feel various levels of pressure. The pressure brought by our goals in life, our families, and the society we live in.
DO
Even when we think we don’t, we do know what we need to do. But because of circumstances, we experience difficulties in doing them. Sometimes, there are more pressing things that we’d rather deal with. Other times, we resign from thinking we can do something about one situation; we look for other things we can do. When we face multiple problems, some of us will overcompensate in solving other problems because we can’t figure out how to solve the others. We fixate on them because they make us feel useful and able until we forget about the other things we need to deal with. Never mind if we can’t solve them. We’re too busy fixating on one thing because that’s what’s making us feel good about ourselves, right?
But when these other problems catch up on us, we start to throw a fit and wonder why we’re suffering. We rant about how life is complicated and that we always have to work so hard to do something. We seek answers in unfamiliar places when the only place we need to look at is inside ourselves. Deep down, we know there are still things we need to work on and deal with – all waiting for us to face.
DID
There would also be days when we couldn’t help but count the things we do. We talk a lot about how we always have to suffer and carry the cross even when we don’t see why we are doing it. But have we actually asked ourselves why we did what we did even when we didn’t understand what they were for? We put on weight on our backs, thinking that we’d feel capable and less lonely, useful, and purposeful, by doing so.
We subscribe to the notion that the more we do things and spend time on them, they will eventually make us feel satisfied and fulfilled until they start causing us pressure and unnecessary stress. So, on top of the problems we haven’t faced just yet, we add another problem that shouldn’t have been a problem in the first place. Then we go back to asking why we always have to suffer. With the absence of childish faith, we wonder why we have to experience so many challenges when, to begin with, we brought it upon ourselves.
DONE
Some people pray, some don’t. But if you are one of those people who do, but you experience the things mentioned above, ask yourself this question; Why do you have to suffer? Ask yourself repeatedly until the very question reminds you of something that they keep teaching us – it is done. When Jesus suffered and carried the cross, it is done. He didn’t have to suffer for you to suffer too. He suffered so that you won’t suffer anymore.
So whenever you question yourself and the things around you, try to look inside you and remind yourself that maybe some of the things we worry about are the ones we shouldn’t be worrying about. Nonetheless, these things may need to happen for us to be reminded about childish faith, how faith is born out of the pure belief that something has been done – that something is finished. So, rest your weary heart and remember that our heart is restless until it rests in Him.
