What’s the deal, Denver?!

Since March, we have repeatedly had days of beautiful sunshine and 75-degree weather followed closely by a blizzard and sub-freezing temps.

Many times, I’ve been surprised by the massive effect that weather can have on my mood. I can almost guarantee that I’ll be chipper on sunny days and dragging on cloudy ones. Digging deeper, I realized that it’s not only the weather that affects me dramatically and without warning. My emotional highs and lows are so often wrenched one way or another based on the things going on around me. A bad story on the news will wreck me for days. The tragic stories of some of my friends on the street can occupy my mind and trouble me for weeks.

Okay, fine. I’m empathetic. Highly affected, you might say. But the emotional ups and downs tend to affect so much more than just my emotional equilibrium. When I talk with my friends experiencing homelessness about the intense things happening in their lives or hear the latest news of the disturbing things happening in the world, I am tempted to allow them to get to my very core. I am tempted to doubt that God has a plan in all things. I am sometimes brought to a point of near despair feeling that goodness is not winning in the world.

Recently, one of these cloudy, “doomsday” emotional states came over me. Thankfully, I remembered a quote from my dear friend St. Teresa of Avila:

“Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.”

And it struck me that as a Christian, everything is different in light of these words. All things are passing away; God never changes. We’re currently in the tail end of the season of Easter and what an important time to remember this truth. It is because God doesn’t change that we can look at the Passion and see that it makes sense because of the Resurrection.

This has made me reevaluate my own faith and has tested my trust in God. When I am allowing myself to be thrown back and forth by the tough things in life and allowing them to make or break my day, I am not actually trusting that Jesus has my back. I’m not trusting that no matter what good or ill comes to me, the Lord is there holding my hand and directing the waves. I’m not seeing that the only thing that makes my suffering make sense is knowing that if I trust God through it all, I will reach the Resurrection.

God alone suffices. He’s enough. He’s all we need. He’s got my back and life with Him means that I don’t need to be affected by the highs and lows. He is holding it all together and there is nothing for us to be disturbed by or afraid of. My interior peace comes from knowing that Good has already conquered evil and nothing that I or anyone else does can change that. God is so good!

Sarah joined the CIC team as a Formator in 2017. She’s most content in the presence of good people, good wine, good music, and good mountain views. In August, she will be heading off to pursue a role as a Behavioral Health Specialist for the US Army!.