Amidst the beginning of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, lay a man and a woman. Humble circumstances, a place without abundance. 

Obscure for most of the world.

Long ago, even though it feels like yesterday. Some of it at least.

The year was 1983, probably late winter - February perhaps - conceived. 

Born, raised to some effect, migrated almost 30 years later. Landed on the shore of a country, one thousand miles away. 

Seemed like everything would play out well... so it seemed... and so it remained, as a vague phantom - ethereal, never truly substantiated, always elusive, often out of sight. None of the hopes and dreams had come to pass, but the worst of nightmares.

Sometimes the worst seems to happen, for one only to learn that it was a mere prelude to what is hidden around the corner - the dark alley of life. A blessing in disguise? Maybe. But you have to walk it alone. For the one person you wanted to trust, abandoned you. The penultimate rejection.

A man is worth only what he brings to the table it seems. Provide and protect. In this order... or perish, begone. "You are as good as dead to me now" - words reverberate in the soul. No one has said them verbatim, yet the meaning cuts into one's being, relentless and persistent, with a dull blade that crushes more than it cuts. It tears one's heart to pieces.

What can you do? Cannot force anyone to love.

A more important question...

What will you do? 

Take your own life? A wise man once said that a broken rib doesn't hurt as much as a broke heart does. 

And when it hurts, piercing it appears tempting. A permanent solution to a temporary problem. Or so I keep telling myself.

Life is temporary anyway, but... Sometimes, that one action feels like the only thing left in one's control. 

They broke you. And in perfect honesty, to share some darkest secrets, it is not the matter of courage to take one's own life. 

It seems like a natural consequence of despair, just like Judas' final act. He did not believe in the saving grace of God...

Because he thought that his sin could never be forgiven...

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I had to edit this entry.

Originally, it would go on to express something of a "self empowering", trite and corny sentiment.

The point, however, is that perhaps not all is lost. And to provide some evidence for that, here's a handful of proofs:

Proof of Noah - the flood that destroys everything, yet marks a new beginning...

Proof of Jericho - the city that no one could ever conquer lays in ruin...

Proof of Job - he did in fact lose everything... yet God restores him by His will

Proof of Daniel - sat in a den with hungry lions... yet not one hair on his head perished

Proof of Moses - the sea stood in the way of the desperately fleeing Israelites... God has led them to the brink of what is humanely possible, and then made the impossible

Proof of Christ - He died. And then He raised from the dead, as He foretold.

For God nothing is impossible: 

Proof of Sarah:

"numquid Deo est quicquam difficile iuxta condictum revertar ad te hoc eodem tempore vita comite et habebit Sarra filium" [Gen 18: 14]

Proof of our Immaculate mother Mary:

"quia non erit inpossibile apud Deum omne verbum" [Lk 1: 37]

Proof of the Universe:

"in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram" [Gen 1:1]

To create something from something requires work. To create something from nothing requires a miracle.

By Christ, by Logos. He is one's best friend. And sometimes He has to take one through the dark valley of their soul.

"sed et si ambulavero in valle mortis non timebo malum quoniam tu mecum es virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa consolabuntur me" [Ps22:4 - Vulgate]*

And frankly, God has never appeared to be gentle in his pedagogic conduct.

He yanked that little girl that appeared to be dead back to life.

He spat in the eyes of the blind man for him to see again.

He exposed an adulterating woman to a risk of death and tremendous uncertainty for her fate.

So why is one so reluctant to trust? There are many good reasons why Catholics retain our Lord on the Cross forever to be on display.

God says to us: here, look at Me, nailed to the wood of the cross. Look at My wounds. I did it for you. Do you not trust Me? 

Why? Oh, why, my God, do I look at you, shake my head and whisper under my breath: no, I don't...?

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Then, somewhere on the horizon, hope appears. Then it turns into torment, and later - despair once more. 

Finally it morphs into an unpleasant feeling of something gaind and lost shortly after. A missing piece, that one has longed to find. And once found, one's lost it again.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away."

Perhaps one fears that God wants to hurt, that God wants to strip, that God wants to take away, rob and steal?

But how can God steal anything if everything in man belongs to God?

"Even my will is but a gift from You, my Lord!"

Yet the fear of more loss in the face of loss already in great proportion is overwhelmingly petrifying.

Where to go from here? I thought You had given me a chance to start over... 

I thought that what had happened between then and now was somehow Your providence, that You tried to tell me something, teach me something, perhaps even grant me something - or maybe it was all just a happenstance? A set of wild coincidences? Yet nothing, as I am led to believe, happens without Your permission!

Or perhaps it is the uncertainty?

So what will happen next? No one can really tell. 

"It is willed where all is possible that is willed there". 

But is it willed? What is it that is willed?

Laudetur Iesus Christus

- L

* be aware of the differences in the numbering of Psalms in Vulgate (Ps22) and in the KJV (Ps23). Catholic translations of Knox and Rhemis-Douay appear to conform to the original numberings, yet the Jerusalem Bible onwards seem to propagate the newer scheme.