When faced with illness, loss, danger, rejection, failure – or even just with mild discomfort – we can spend quite a bit of our energy raging against the way things are. This is one of the ways that the mind creates its own suffering: by resisting life as it is.

The accepting and open attitude of mindfulness encourages us to live our life (and each moment) as if we had chosen it to be just as it is. Fr. Jacques Philippe writes about this from a different angle in his book, Interior Freedom (2007): "It is beneficial for us to train ourselves not only to put up with difficulties but in a certain sense to choose them. That doesn’t mean provoking them! But it means that when they do arise, we accept them with all our hearts, by a positive act of freedom, impelling us to move quickly from disappointment to acquiescence based on trust."

Don’t be surprised when things are hard, and don’t give up your power to live out your values in the midst of the difficulty. You’re living a story that will be worth telling someday – a story that’s interesting, unexpected, and never boring. Your story is one small part in God's bigger redemptive narrative, and he is with you. 

Is it dark? Shine light. Is there danger? Be courageous. Is there injustice? Speak truth. And when the suffering feels overwhelming and you need to break down for a while, even that presents choice – the option to offer our suffering to God as an act of love and union with Christ, whose suffering was chosen freely as an act of love for us.

Trusting that “God can bring good out of everything without exception" (Philippe, 2007) means that we are freed up to focus on living the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, ​and self-control. The circumstances of the world have little power over us when we respond to them with radical acceptance (what is here is already here) and then open ourselves to God’s love and light flowing through us, even in the darkest of times.

​“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing palms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God…” (Colossians 3:16-17)

This verse popped up other day, in a moment of parenting frustration when I was not living into “all wisdom” in my efforts to “teach and admonish” my teenage son. If you are a parent, manager, coach, instructor, or counselor, you know the feeling – our teaching is not always well received, and the enemy loves to focus our attention on areas where we don’t feel successful. My first impulse is often to withdraw in defeat rather than to burst into songs of gratitude.

Discouragement highlights the problem, which is forgetting that there is a deeper source of wisdom than myself: God dwelling within. The invitation to dwell within God is always there, with God as our ultimate place of safe and nourishing shelter. But God also dwells within us!

Our loving God is closer than our breath, fueling us with what we need from the core of our being. It takes times of prayer, silence, and spiritual reflection to clear away the clutter and connect with Christ who dwells in us richly. He’s always there, whether we notice or not.

A classic spiritual text by St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, suggests that our soul is like a diamond or clear crystal castle with many layers, and that God dwells at the center like a bright sun, shining in such a way as to have “given the soul all her brilliance and beauty.”

You will shine radiantly, not because you’re good at what you do (or because others respond favorably), but because the shine of God’s beautiful light will illuminate the otherwise dark diamond castle of your soul. God is within you, and within me too, and it’s beautiful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly!