Carrying My Cross

" Jesus said to all the disciples: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?' " [ Luke 9: 23 - 26].


One of my favorite pastors used to say, " God is the Master of Irony." And so, I see that in Scripture, it is said that " the humble shall be exalted." Or, " the meek shall inherit the earth." These seem to be such opposing concepts, we wonder how the ideas even make any sense?

In Luke 9: 23, we are told that by saving your life, you will lose it. But by losing your life, you will save it.

We are urged to "take up our Cross daily, and follow [Jesus]." I recently said to my teen son that as a Christian, I am trying to live what it says in the Bible. My son's eyes widened and he blurted out, "Wow! That is REALLY hard!"

I also told him how it says in Matthew 25, whatever we do to the least among us, we do to Jesus Himself. So, if another person hurts my son, and he does it back, then my son is really doing it TO Jesus. And my son said, "Mommy, that is SO intense."

As Mother Teresa said, "Love, to be True, must hurt. The more one is willing to suffer for the others' sake, the greater is one's Love." In other words, True Love is a sacrifice. ["Where there is Love, There is God", Doubleday, 2010].

Mother Teresa goes on to say, "Where there is Love, there is God. There is a longing for God in each of us, and though it may not be recognized or consciously expressed as such, the search for Joy, for Peace, for Happiness and above all for Love, is a manifestation of this longing."

I was having a conversation with my Wise Advisor recently. I was telling her how my father used to spew ethnic slurs at everyone. He would even yell a racist name at the car ahead of him in traffic, when he did not even know who was in the car. My Wise Advisor said, "It is a wonder that you did not turn out the same way, filled with Hate." My voice broke and tears sprang into my eyes. I could hardly speak. I choked out the words, "A child does not want Hate, she wants Love."

The ugly cousin to Hate is Pride. I grew to see that my father hated everyone. He had some awful notion that he was somehow better than anyone else. This is not Love either.  It was not easy, growing up in that house, loving everyone in the world. If I protested about the name calling, I was told that I was "too sensitive."

I would ask that my family give to charity. I was told mockingly, " We do NOT give our money away." I figured out that refusing to share some of our blessings with others, when you have so much, is not Love either.

This is Greed, pure and simple. My father reminded me of the rich man in Luke 12: 18. This man tore down his barn and built many bigger ones, where he hoarded his grain. He was determined to " take life easy; eat, drink and be merry. But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night, your life will be demanded from you. This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich with God." And one day, my father, not a God-believer, woke up, drank his morning cup of coffee, suffered a massive cardiac event and immediately died. And everything he had hoarded to make himself feel more powerful, more superior than all others  in the world-- did him no good at all. My dad lived by the bumper sticker slogan, "Whoever dies with the most toys, wins." My dad may have thought that he won in this life, but in the process, he lost his Very Self.


I was so horrified at my family's lack of generosity, at a certain point, I stopped asking for Christmas presents. I would tell them, "I don't want anything." And, if they lavished gifts on me, I refused to open them in their presence. I would throw them in the trunk of my car and take them home.

Closely allied to Greed is Power. My family was all about Power. They tried to tell me what colors to wear, who to be friends with, what employer to work for,where to go to school, where to live, whom to marry, etc. They tried to bribe me with money, to make me comply, or threaten me with disownment. I decided that I had to make their "grain barn" and their Power irrelevant. I became a blank, a Nothing. No one could touch me and I touched no one. I emptied myself, like Jesus. This infuriated them.

Without even knowing it, I had taken up my Cross for Jesus. . . . all because, all I ever wanted was Love.

In Galatians 1:11, it says, " I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the [Word] preached by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human being, but . . . through Jesus Christ".

Very simple: if you determinedly win in this life, by walking over everyone in your path, wielding Greed, Power, Pride, Hate and and Control, you are not following Jesus. You are making this life more important than the next. You are " gaining the whole world, but losing your very Self."

Mother Teresa, quoting St. Paul, said, "Are you so convinced that 'Nothing can separate me from Him?' [You can] cut me to pieces and and every piece will [still] be yours."  ["Where There Is Love, There is God".]

And so, what I say to you now is--- "If you think that anything you could ever do to me could make me give up on God -- then you do not know what I am made of!"

[Related Posting, " I Died to The Law", June 11, 2013.]

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