PARADOXICAL

Forgive me for resenting your will for me, Lord. I resent my lot in life. I resent being born poor and still in poverty. I resent having poor parents. I resent it that, as a result, I need to provide for them and my siblings when I’m single and couldn’t provide for myself well enough. I resent it that I couldn’t break into a regular writing job, writing being the only thing I really like doing. I resent that I have no close friends left that I could ask for help any time of the day. I resent that I am trapped, it seems, with the wrong people. I resent a workplace that seems to stifle me. I resent not being in control, being so helpless about my situation. I resent a dead-end for a job. I resent the hard commute, the traffic, the noise, the pollution, the crowd. I resent my rented abode which is drab, cramped and unartistic. No, I resent that I’m renting at all. I resent the confines of my dog poo-strewn neighborhood. I resent the parish I belong to. I’m annoyed by the lector and commentator’s diction. I reset it that the church looks more like a godforsaken chapel, not fit for worship and divine inspiration. I resent it that I go to Mass all alone. I resent it that I had to cut my phone connection because I couldn’t afford the bill. I resent it that I have no cable connection. I resent it that I couldn’t buy all the books and magazines I want when it is probably the only vice I have. I resent it that I couldn’t buy all the clothes I want when I only want them cheap and common-looking, nothing showy, just stylish enough. I resent it that I’m almost all alone in m community. I resent feeling like an outsider always. I resent it that I’m the only active single male in the group. I resent it that I couldn’t do a lot of things many guys my age can do. I resent problems that are neither my choice nor my own doing. I resent it that evil people prosper, while I barely scrape by. When You know, O Lord that all I ever want is to live in dignity and peace, without the slightest intention to dupe or harm or put one over my fellow, without the vaguest desire to compete nor to profit selfishly.

Lord, I dare ask you whether all these constitute your will for me. I couldn’t, for the life of me, take a bitter pill for a will.

Lord, for resenting your will for me, forgive me. Help me focus on the positive, the things you’ve given me, the blessings I refuse to see and take for granted, the blessings-in-disguise I refuse to recognize. Don’t let life’s storms drown me. Let the burdens weighing me down right now be lifted off my shoulders. Let me hope in you, that you’d turn each cross into crown, each yoke into plow. Let everything, in your own sweet time, be blessings in disguise. I refuse to let resentment and regret rule my being. Help me in my unbelief, Lord, that You will eventually calm the storms of my life, that, in confidence, I could walk on the water towards You.

8.1.2002

posted by Resty Odon  # 2:23 AM