No one likes to embrace their crosses

Lily said she HATES math…especially math homework! She tried cajoling, manipulating, praying and pleading to keep from having to do it, but her mom told her she would have to sit at the kitchen table until she was finished, which made Lily think she would be there until bedtime.  “But I don’t like to do it!”, she said.  Alicia reminded her that in life we all must do some things we would rather not do but that are necessary for our success.  She still whined about it for about 10 minutes while we all went into the family room to watch a little TV.  She must have finally realized she should go ahead and get it done, because about 15 minutes later, we heard her shout “Hallelujah, I’m done!”  I thought the word ‘hallelujah’ was ironically appropriate for my meditation today.


No one likes to embrace their crosses (not even Jesus). We want to get rid of them, but the only way to experience the thrill of resurrection victory is to go through the cross. This means accepting our crosses instead of looking for the easy, most comfortable life.


Can you embrace your difficulties as you would a good friend? Indeed, that is what trials are: They are good friends if we let them bring us closer to God, if we let them mentor us into greater holiness, if we let them stretch our ability to love and to forgive those who make our journey unpleasant.


This is what it means to deny ourselves. It does not mean ignoring our own personal needs. Nor does it mean treating ourselves poorly. It does not mean that we become our own worst enemy.


Denying ourselves means that we "lose our lives", as Jesus describes it, in the crosses that we embrace rather than fight to protect the lives we'd rather have. Don't we want everything to go our way? And when things don't go our way, we want to cajole and manipulate and pray and plead to protect the illusion of how our lives "should" be (it's an illusion because it's our idea, but it's not reality), right?


We could, if we put enough effort into it, shape our lives into what we think is best for us. But what is the cost of that? Jesus says it destroys us. We lose touch with God. We lose human relationships. We lose ourselves in the process of getting what we want.


In today's first reading, Moses invited us to choose between God's ways and our own ways. He pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of our decisions.


Of course, we do want to do things God's way. We know that he's smarter than we are. But embracing our crosses and denying ourselves is painful, oh so painful!


There is only one way to do it: We must also embrace Jesus (and thus let him embrace us) as we cry our way through the Way of the Cross.


The joy that's available in suffering comes from knowing that Jesus is on our side, and from trusting our Father for a good future, and from being rooted in the Holy Spirit who affirms us, and from realizing that Jesus the Great Redeemer will transform every curse into a blessing.