Live The Answers

     As I looked up at my Mom’s picture hanging above my desk today, I realized that it is now almost 15 years since her death. Thankfully, over the years the pain and sense of loss have eased while the memories of her life and her love have remained. I can still feel her presence as I write this. I am sure that she is not only smiling down on me from her picture on the wall, but from Heaven as well. I only wish she hadn’t left us quite so soon.

     The great teacher, author, and speaker Leo Buscaglia said that he was often asked by his classes why we have to go through pain, suffering, and even death. He stated that he never did find out why, but at some point in his life he stopped asking the questions and started living the answers. "That", he said, "made all the difference."

     How do we live the answers? I think we do so by choosing love, joy, and oneness with God everyday of our lives. We do so through pain as well as comfort. We do so through suffering as well as happiness. We do so even in the face of death. Some of the wisest, gentlest, kindest, most loving, and most joyous people I have ever known are those who have suffered the most.  The only difference is that they used that suffering to help them to grow into the people God wanted them to be.

     What good is pain, suffering, and even death if we don’t use them to grow more loving, more giving, more compassionate, more peaceful, more joyous, and more at one with God? I think my Mother knew this as she battled cancer in her final years and faced death at such an early age. She blessed us all with her love, her joy, and her gentle laughter right up until her dying day. I only hope and pray that I can live my own answers as beautifully and wonderfully as she lived hers. May all of you lovingly live your own answers then in this life and in the next.

~ Joseph J. Mazzella ~

[ by: Joseph J. Mazzella (joecool@wirefire.com) -- {used with permission} ]