Take Up Your Cross - Part 1

Take Up Your Cross – Part 1

Submitted by Thomas Stidl

         What does taking up your cross actually mean?  We all have lives to live.  We all have wants, wishes, and needs.  How many times in a day do we become disappointed when circumstances present themselves that are contrary to our desires?  Of course, all of us have these moments sometimes days, weeks, months, and years where things go wrong.  When we bear patiently with all the misgivings in our daily life and have a strong belief in the saving power of Jesus, we take up our cross and follow Him. 

         When God created our human bodies, He made it to last eternally in our natural state.  The human body has two lungs, two kidneys, and three lobes of liver.  Each of those organs can work independently of each other.  Then sin entered our world and our beings.  Bodies that were meant to live forever suddenly had a death sentence placed on it.  With death, sickness entered the world.  Sickness and death are the two greatest crosses human kind must bear.

         Let us think about sickness.  All of us will experience sickness at some point in our lives.  A sickly child bears a great cross.  The child cannot explain to his parents why he or she is constantly vomiting, for instance.  The parents take the child to the doctor, and after all tests are taken, the doctors are still baffled.  Parents usually get a verdict of a disease called “mind over matter”.  Take it from me, that disease does not exist.  The vomiting comes and goes.  Life returns to a certain state of normalcy until the vomiting returns and the process starts over again.  This cross that the child bears is also a cross that the parents bear also.  Eventually, the cause of the vomiting is found and it is either cured by medicine or some form of surgery.

         The medicine relieves the trauma, but it may create a financial nightmare for the parents, especially have little to no health insurance.  The surgery needed for the child will cause pain and suffering for the child and great concern and worry for the parents.  It will take great love and compassion to resolve the child’s medical problems.  Another aspect of sickness is the possibility that the child dies while under treatment.  Think of the grief that the parents will suffer if this happens.  This is a horrible cross to bear, having to bury their child.  The only thought of comfort for the parents is that their child is with Jesus and is out of pain. 

         Another scenario keeps the child living but in an extremely handicapped position.  It will take great love, patience, and compassion by both the parents and the child to overcome the obstacles in their lives.  This is what it means for families to take up the cross of sickness in a child’s life.

        Until next time, Laus Tibi, Christe.  Deo Gratias.  Gloria Tibi Domini.  Praise be to God.  See you in Paradise. Amen.