Getting down to what really matters

   As I watched on the News about the devastating fires raging out of control in the beautiful state of California, I felt so very sad to see such loss of lives, people’s homes and businesses. I began to pray asking Our Lord and Savior for Divine intervention. I also realized how precious life is and it can change in a minute. In any given day, we take for granted that our homes and businesses will be just fine and our loved ones are safe as we continue to live each day. In our lives tragedy and death can rear its ugly head without much notice for us to prepare.

   When every material thing is destroyed in a fire or some other unforeseen tragedy, the loss is overwhelming. Where do we turn? Who do we turn to? Many of the people said they were just thankful that their families were alive regardless of losing everything materially they worked so hard to acquire.

   Tragedy can bring us to our knees begging Our God to help us or we can choose to blame God and end up distancing ourselves from His Divine Help. After we process through all our feelings and sorrow, we can then choose to surrender to God who is the restorer of all things.

   This tragic fire reminds me of the following prayer:

Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola

“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, All I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me your love and your grace. That is enough for me.   Amen.”

   When I really ponder this prayer, I slowly begin to realize that if I have God’s Love and God’s Grace in my heart, then all will be okay for today.

   Job in the Bible lost everything he had: his possessions, his children and his health. Job went through terrible loss, grieve and trying to figure out why this happened to him. Job began to believe that God had turned away from him.  Job’s wife told him to curse God and die. While Job continued to search for answers, he resolved to praise God. Even though he was experiencing great suffering, he had to choose to praise God. This must have been really hard to do. But Job had deep faith in God.

God did not abandoned Job but seen his faithfulness. “After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before.”  Job 42: 10

   Our God is faithful and hears the cry of the poor. He is the restorer of all things. He is the healer of our broken hearts.

    May we each seek the kind of faith that Job had in the midst of great tragedy. Let us also pray for those who are going through great difficulties. When we ask for Divine assistance, God indeed hears our prayers in His time.