Everything is fine!
The Father, charioteer who governs and moves with invisible threads the laws and forces of creation, allowed sparks of slanders and falsehoods to fall upon me. It was not punishment, but preference. In the vast planisphere of his mind, which encompasses today, yesterday, and tomorrow, the Father had designed for me a pedagogy that would lead me, along a path of thorns and stones, to the kingdom of wisdom and freedom. He cannot allow irreparable harm to his child.
In short, surrendering means placing a blank check in His Hands, a vote of confidence, and proclaiming to the four winds: Everything is fine! It was for the best!
But it wasn’t enough. Despite this evidence, my emotional world continued to be shattered into pieces, and mental clarity brought me no relief. I had to address, at least on an analytical level, that ripped-apart, scarred universe, a painful situation that reached very deep levels. At that point, I knew nothing about Abandonment.
Despite all the theoretical clarity, the truth was that when painful memories came to mind, I could not avoid an internal outburst of indignation. How to extinguish that fire? The events are already past, and at that moment, no one could do anything to make what had happened not have happened. On the other hand, I had already given up counterattacking and giving evil for evil. I had seen theoretically that the solution was to surrender. But, speaking from a vital perspective, what would one have to do to surrender?
I began to sense that the problem might be the mind. I was realizing that when my mind started to remember some of those scenes of persecution, my heart would ignite with anger.
I became aware that whenever my mind dwelled on and relived those persecutions, the fire of irritation remained alive and high, which, in turn, turned into resentment, which, in the end, only burned me.
Apparently, then, the solution consisted of reducing my mind to silence. There would have to be a tribute of silence. Symbolically speaking, I would have to lay my head in His Hands with a quiet mind and a turned-off heart.
I needed to bring the problem to the emotional level because I was dealing with highly sensitive emotional material. I would have to annihilate the sprouts of rebellion and pride, but how? I would have to transform pain into love, but in what way? Apparently, the solution was to intertwine faith and love.
My Father, who is a vast ocean of love and had already given me a taste of it -and in what a way! – and everything He allows in my life will be for my good, because He loves me. So, any eventuality, drama, or outcome that happens to me cannot be a misfortune, but a sign of affection; and if today I do not see it that way, it is because I am caught in turbulence, but one day I will see it. Thus, if the Father allowed that cruelty, it is fine! If He has allowed the persecution to coil around my waist, it is fine! And if He allowed my name to be mudded by defamation, it is fine!
Oh wonders! I began to realize that by saying with all my soul, “it is fine!”, the indignation immediately vanished. Even more, I also noticed that, at the same moment, the bitter memory was erased from my mind. It was a discovery, a eureka. Over time, I found that this simple formula (“It is fine”) was exactly equivalent to the biblical formula of the Poor of God: “Thy will be done.”
Source: “The Rose and the Fire” Chapter III, section “Crisis”, by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
