By Sr Rhea Lei Y. Tolibas TC

The author is a Capuchin Tertiary Sister of the Holy Family. Sister Rhea Lei is assigned to Mater Dolorosa Formation House in Talisay City, Negros Occidental.

Life has its own amazing and extraordinary story, from the day we’re born until the day when we are gone but as Longfellow’s poem goes, ‘the grave is not its goal’.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life has an innate search for meaning, satisfaction, and for true happiness. This is the emptiness within that most of us are perhaps unaware of in a way that we are being misled to look for these in worldly desires and satisfactions such as material wealth, power, lust and possessions. But behind all these is the deep yearning for God.

When I was a child, simple things could make me happy: when my father came home from work with something for me, when my mother bought me a new dress, when my sisters gave me a candy. These brought a simple, temporary happiness. I never knew what happiness could really mean. I was thinking true happiness is only for those who are well off, who never suffer. I grew up in a poor family. I hated poverty, since it made us suffer, made my mother cry often, made my parents sacrifice so much. As children we never knew how to play as other children did. We needed to work hard and to sacrifice even if sometimes we could play.

Few of us like to suffer. We see suffering as pain, with no happiness or satisfaction. We don’t know how to embrace it with joy.

When we encounter people who are suffering we sometimes ask God, ‘Why?’ We even question God’s mercy and love when the world seems unfair and we can’t understand.

In many ways the nature of man is to escape from pain, avoid difficulties and run from problems. We even avoid people we don’t like to run away from reality. Before, whenever I was experiencing struggle and pain I prayed, ‘Lord, why do I need to experience this, take away this pain, I can’t bear it . . . why me?’ How many of us pray this way, a prayer of selfishness and self-centeredness? We become blind to others and choose to ‘carry the world’ on our shoulders.

Later on I realized that my prayer should be, ‘Lord, thank you for this opportunity to experience pain and suffering. It’s difficult, but thank you for giving me this chance to share in your Passion and death. Grant me the grace to embrace it joyfully and even amidst this situation may I still be an instrument of your love and mercy. Amen’.

In my younger years, when life was bitter, opportunities were nowhere and I was in deep frustration, I wanted to disappear from this world and even planned to end my life. I asked God why my family had to suffer in so many ways, why such a life. I was thinking happiness could be found when everybody finished their studies and poverty and difficulties would no longer have room in our family. But it wasn’t to be so and I continued to search for true happiness while the emptiness within continued to cry out.

Humbly I admit that I had a negative view about poverty, suffering, humiliation, frustration, problems. The negative experiences in life were bitter and if I could have vomited them out I would have. But I came to know God more deeply in my life the moment I realized that I wasn’t walking in this life alone. God journeys with me in every situation even when I’m stubborn and doubtful of his presence. He never ceases to love and accompany me.

Since I entered religious life and my formation goes on I’ve discovered that living in poverty, experiencing trials, suffering and humiliation are gifts from God. But how hard it is for us to discover our giftedness! Only by faith can we uncover the innate beauty and meaning in our lives. Science and psychology can’t explain the nature of God’s gifts, but they are made to be experienced by vulnerable beings. They are made to draw us closer to God and to make us realize that God is our all, that we are nothing without God.

It is in poverty that I learn to trust and depend on God. It is in my nothingness that I realize that all comes from God. It is in my weakness that I come to experience that God is my only strength. And it is in my wounds that I experience that I have a great healer and lover.

It is there that I found the true meaning of life, I have come to realize that the emptiness of man is God and God alone can satisfy and ease the restlessness of the human heart. It is an innate search and thirst for God. Emptiness will continue to cry out deep within if we can’t find God in our lives. Thus it is in experiencing and having God in every moment that we can find true happiness and satisfaction, not in what the world can offer us. I have experienced that I am loved by God no matter what I have or who I am. This is the most important reality, to discover and experience in one’s life and to respond to that love. Without God in us, everything in this world is empty.

Happiness doesn’t mean the absence of problems, pain, difficulties and humiliations; it is not in having wealth, power, titles, achievements, possessions and other worldly allurements. It is in having God in the midst of our different realities that we can find true happiness. Jesus showed us more than 2000 years ago how to live with poverty, suffering and humiliation, and especially in the ordinary events of life.

Now I’m also discovering how St Francis of Assisi fell in love with ‘Lady Poverty’ and left everything to live in nothingness. It wasn’t just for the sake of a life of poverty but to center his life on God through it. He was after an intimate relationship with God.

St Francis Meditating, El Greco, c.1595 (Web Gallery of Art)

Thus, life can remain one of misery if we can’t find meaning in each day. Trials and difficulties, suffering and pain don’t attract us but if we live with God, for God and in God they will mean more to us than chocolate and ice-cream.

As St Augustine said, ‘For you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they rest in you’.

What really is our deepest desire in life? What or who can make us truly happy? What is our heart really searching for? Are we really fulfilled in our lives now?

It’s never too late to search and discover.