I have come to understand that we are each on a path and God is our intimate fellow traveler, who seems to work faster for some, slower for others in bringing their life to fulfillment. I don’t have to understand how this happens, for some lives seem to be filled with chaos, pain and addictions, which cannot be over come and family cycles left unbroken. So yes there is no simple answer to the suffering and tragedies that seem to overtake so many lives.
I met a woman here who told me her life story. It was very powerful, how she went through much suffering, abuse and pain, yet has come out a beautiful loving human being. Her faith is deep and childlike; she has experienced God’s grace and mercy on a deep level.
She was abused, forced into a marriage at 14, had to do many things in order to support her children. Yet she came out loving God and filled with compassion for those who hurt her in the past. She knows that they were working out of their pain and suffering that also came from their past. She prays for them, and is still in communication with many of them. She understands how hard it is to break away from the past, from old ways of doing things. She understands grace and mercy and extends it to others freely. She has touched her mother’s life and she too is experiencing mercy; and learning to accept it….which is not always easy.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
