Suffering As A Gift, Not A Hardship

In browsing through newspapers and the Internet, I found myself drawn towards first a story about a Downs Syndrome baby and then about a young girl who had bone cancer and is now up for canonization. I know I said that I was looking for the positive stories, the ones that uplift a person, and I believe that these two stories will do just that. We need to look beyond the surface here and see the joy and the love these two stories show us. We need to use these stories as a guide in our own lives.

The first is about a mother's journey through pregnancy and beyond, knowing she was going to have a Downs Syndrome baby. So often today, people hear that diagnosis and can only think the words "Why me?" There is sadly a percentage of people who never move beyond those two words and choose to end their child's life before that question can be answered. In this story though, Nancy (the mother), let that question be answered by her beautiful baby girl, Lily.

http://www.nads.org/pages_new/new_parents/birthstory.html


The second story I want to draw your focus to is about a 19 year old girl who battled bone cancer during her teenage years. Chiara Badano learned early and quickly that we can't always explain why things happen. Acceptance, hope and love are what we need to get through those times of inexplicable suffering. Throughout a very painful and frightening time, this young girl was able to turn to her faith in God, he love of God and therefor her love of those around her to help draw her through that time. Because of her constant yes to God, that yes that brought pain and suffering but also unimaginable joy, she is now in the process of officially being declared a saint.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=8608&CFID+402654048CFTOKEN=56110933


In a time when most teenagers, and yes even adults, are focused on the latest fashions, whether someone likes them or not and what expensive thing is now in fashion, Chiara was encouraging others to become closer to God. Thinking of those other things isn't bad, it's quite normal in fact. But putting those things before God is what makes life more and more difficult as you get older. You aren't learning to put others before yourself. You aren't learning to say yes to difficult things. You aren't learning that there are more important things in life then your own personal desires. It is easy when you are young to think that you have all the time in the world and I have to ask, why does it take those who don't have that time to make us stop and think about what is most important in life? No one searches for suffering, even the most holy people don't! What shows a person's true mettle is when suffering comes, can they say, like Nancy and Chiara, yes to it with a smile?