RESILIENCE
«And He said to them: ‘When I sent you without money boa, knapsack, and sandals, did you tack anything? So they said, ‘Nothing (Luke 22:35).
My mother (J) was widowed when my sister and I were five and two years old, respectively. The assigned pension was insufficient because my father’s salary was largely based on commissions. This poverty was not only a threat to our present but also to our future since we needed money to live and also needed to pay the mortgage of our house that my parents had just begun to pay for. We had to go through many tough situations, but this gave us great character lessons. We learned to appreciate and make do with the little that we had, to be flexible with our hobbies, not to be wasteful, to always exercise self-control, and to give thanks to God for everything. It is true that with more resources, it would have been easier to solve certain problems. After all the challenges, we got by and we could truly answer the question, «Did you lack anything?» with the answer found in today’s text: «Nothing.» And the biblical promise is accurate: «I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread» (Ps. 37:25).
Resilience can emerge out of numerous difficult situations, one of them being financial issues; but it can also lead to learning a myriad of lessons. When Mariette Jacobs found out that both her parents had lost their jobs on the same day, she decided to help them as much as she could. But Mariette also lost her job and her family could only count on her younger sister’s salary. For months they had to cope with serious difficulties. One day, when Mariette was talking with her sister about the family’s need, her sister told her:
«I would like to eat an ice cream, more than anything in the world.» Mariette answered her:
«No. We don’t have money. Do you know how much an ice cream costs? As much as a roll of toilet paper!»
They both joke about it and decided that the roll was more important, and that,
even if they could not have ice cream, they could indeed afford the toilet paper. Out Of this joke came about a very famous devotional book: The Day I Ate a Toilet Roll. The author revealed the various lessons she learned from her experience of financial straits: humbleness, diligence, obedience, generosity, integrity, discipline, acceptance, patience, loyalty to God, faith in God up to thirty that are included in the book. Let us meditate upon the text: «And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus» (Phil. 4:19).
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Tomado de: Lecturas Devocionales para Adultos 2020
«Buena Medicina es el Corazón Alegre»
Por: Julián Melgosa – Laura Fidanza.
Colaboradores: Alejandra Zavala
