What is Your Cross Today?

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"When you accept the cross and simply allow it to do the work God intended, you will be happy because you will see what good fruit is produced in you." Fenelon

Before I can accept the cross in my life I must recognize it. It's complicated. Some crosses are easier to identify than others.

I've spent enough time in a cast to know it's suffering work. Three times I've sprained my ankle and needed a cast. I had to slow down. I had to shift my priorities. There was no choice. But there was an end date. I knew it wasn't forever. So I bore the cross. Physically, I healed. And, after the pouting period, I connected deeper with God and reaped the fruit of peace that's found in slowing down.

Chronic pain, and life threatening illness, is a different kind of cross. There either isn't an end of the pain in sight, or the end awaiting you is death.

That sort of cross, that level of suffering, brings different challenges. Personally, I lost fifteen years to chronic pain. I described the pain as excruciating; the word invented to explain crucifixion. I'm not sure if I can identify any fruit from that experience. There were pockets of profound depression, suicidal thoughts, desperation, and I became a universe of one. But there were also times of deep spiritual connection impossible to reproduce now that I'm well. As for terminal illness, I haven't faced it. I've watched people I love deal with it. This too is a cross of a different type. Without the hope that God is Love, I can't see the fruit in it.

Temporary cross bearing, even if resulting in physical death, is one thing. However, some people are born bearing crosses. What of those?

Right now we, and by this I mean white people, are beginning to understand how 'White Privilege', has shaped our lives. Further education, available by fully listening, enlightens how POC are born into systematic discrimination. I have no reference to compare this to in my life. But I have found voices to learn from.

This Pastoral Letter from Nadia Boltz-Weber is a beginning. I aim to read, listen, learn and love more on this daily.

Even though I have no reference, no point of comparison with this level of cross bearing I do have hope. I come back, again and again, to my core belief that God is good all the time; All the time God is good. From here I see that it isn't He tripping me up causing my ankle to sprain. Chronic pain, cancer, ALS, and all the other horrible diseases, do not originate from His hand. God is not the source of racism, even if some religions wave that banner.

It's up to all of us to find the fruit in the crosses we bear. It's also up to all of us to help bear other's burdens. Run to the struggling cross-bearers. Scoop up part of the heavy cross. Reach out to the marginalized and lonely. Just because we all have a cross to bear doesn't mean we can't also help others.