The cost of living rises steadily. The stark reminder is ever before us as we stop to fill up our tank, drop by our friendly grocer, or open the mail and check out our monthly utility bills for the house. The pressures on one’s budget can lead to stresses in the areas of our lives that seem unrelated. These can create tensions in relationships, making many of us susceptible to temper outbursts, moments of misunderstanding, irritable lives. What can be done? While few of us are economists, all of us are people in need of peace of mind. A remedy or two is to realize that we need to call on our strengths in times of turbulence. In his remarkable book Forgotten among the Lilies, Ronald Rolheiser writes that we sometimes fail to realize the depth of our strengths. We do not have to be “reeds shaken by the wind” but more often than not are capable of being rocks of courage and determination. In the face of challenge, we can not allow to lay dormant the rich potential of our courage. We must will to overcome that which are the obstacles to our legitimate goals. Consider Jesus stating to his disciples, “Courage, brothers and sisters!” However, we must also realize that when our strength is spent, when we seem to be overwhelmed by life’s twists and turns, that there is Someone who beckons us to Him for consolation, refreshment and renewed strength. Prayer helps channel the powerful force of God’s love to worthy and necessary needs. “Come to me all ye who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” and “Ask and you shall receive”, says Jesus. A further thought is that many of us have become used to living with excess. We have set a fairly high bar for our wants. Perhaps the present state of affairs is a wakeup call for us to decipher what are our wants from what our real needs might be. Consider Jesus’ constant reminder to establish our priorities, and the need to live unencumbered by possessions that subtly begin to possess us.
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