By Christopher Lenart, a parishioner at Ss. Peter and Paul Parish, Naperville, who is posting once a month, every month, on this blog, writing about faith-related matters, To contact Christopher, email him at clenart@comcast.net. To learn more about him, go to his website: https://www.disabilityawareness.us/
Happy New Year to all of you. It has been a rough holiday season for me because my dad has been in the hospital and rehab since December 18. Although he is getting a lot better, there is some worries inside of me. Dad thinks he will be back to his old self soon, but who knows for sure? Only God knows what will happen.
We want to trust God, but we do not surrender over to Him fully, so we act like we know more. I like the Hallmark movies because you know the endings. The movies take place in a perfect world, and we long to be in it. After the movie, we have to return to reality, where there are many ugly things going on. We want to blame God for what is going on in the world and what happened to my dad, but God is not the problem. It is we who created a world what it is today.
I chat online with many different people who are quite broken to say the least. We often surround ourselves with people who are like us. When we deal with people who don’t have the similar background, it is scary to hear what they are doing in their lives. Naturally, they might be joking with you, but sometimes you can sense their true self.
With all of the social media around us, I think people are not living in reality at all. What do I mean by reality? What I mean is living in the present day and in your own life. Sometimes I do daydream about what if I didn’t have Cerebral Palsy, but after a while, I have to get back to reality that I have Cerebral Palsy and am nonverbal. That is what God gave me, and I accept it. I know that this is my cross to bear.
Today, the young people have no understanding of what “carry your cross” means. They just want to be loved. They don’t even know what love is anymore or maybe I should say they never knew what love is. Sometimes in chat rooms, I see people wanting to be slaves. Sometimes I try to tell them that they don’t want that, but they just ignore me. Other times, they say that I am so wrong.
I think it is great to be with people who are living a holy life to best of their ability, but sometimes I think it is good to see what God sees. You can say we watch the news, so we know what is going on, but if you see what is happening in chat rooms, you would be totally shocked.
You are probably saying what can we do. Start off with praying for young adults so that they understand what they are doing is wrong. A lot of them don’t know what sin is. There are many marriages where the spouses don’t know what love is, and, as a result, they invite sinful behavior into their relationships. Teach your kids their faith really well because it is so easy to go on the internet and have “fun.” Besides praying for your kids, start praying for each other so you can stay faithful to each other. Trust me, I get really lonely, so I look for people to talk with. People think I am holy. I am so far from being holy, and this post shows that. I am not proud of that, but we all are sinners, and we need prayers.