Learning to Die, So He Can Remake Us

“See Mother, I make all things new.”

He uttered these words in the middle of the greatest pain (read more in yesterday’s post).

In that moment, covered in His own precious blood, with the world hating Him, spitting on Him, killing Him, He was making all things new.

And only three days later, the greatest darkness was followed by an unprecedented light.

How many of us go through this: our own dark valleys followed by resurrections?

Once you’re in the light, it’s incredible how much darker you realize those valleys were, the valleys sin create. But when you’re lost in them, your eyes adjust. You forget you’re not meant to stay in the dark.

I dragged myself through years of darkness, a prisoner of fear. It was only when the fire within me finally died that God came to blow on the ashes, and the Holy Spirit found sparks within them and remade me.

What this time last year looked like is so different, it’s unsettling. It can make me afraid that this peace and beauty is temporary, that the darkness was more real than the light.

But then I look at our Lord, His Passion, His Resurrection, all contained within a few days, but enough for all, forever.

For some of us, we have a “once and for all” experience too. We have great trials we have to endure until they finally wake us up, until we finally die so we can bear fruit, like the grain of wheat.

In the past, the first moment of feeling better was met with my scrambling to go back to “normal”, to rebuild my life the same way.

It is only this time I have learned to let God build it His way, differently. I can’t live the way I tried to for years, because when I do, I build my own Babel, trying to climb to Heaven by my own merits.

Instead now, I ride Little Therese’s elevator to God, carried up by His pierced and loving hands.

It’s humbling. But it’s so much sweeter, and it makes even the hard things light.

In the midst of my pain, He was making all things within me and my life new. And now, I can see it. May He give you the grace to see it in your life, too.

Praise be to God! ❤️