Truly Our Lord was demanding more patience and trust from me.

As we scrubbed the area and washed blankets and moved my son, the newest victim, to the sick room, a part of me gave way to my old anxiety — my nemesis — as I inwardly lamented the fact that I’d been looking forward to some time to just enjoy my family over the Christmas break.

Surrendering poorly 

But I was also aware of a new part of me, a part Our Lord has been working on for some time . . . the part of me that trusts and surrenders all circumstances to Our Lord so that He can do some good with it.

I prayed for the souls in Purgatory, knowing my family’s suffering would not be wasted.

But I still hung onto the anxiety, the worry about what was to come, and I realized I was not truly surrendering the situation as I’d thought.

“I’m offering this up so poorly,” I thought, which gave rise to even more misery.

It’s one thing to finally think you know how to surrender difficult circumstances to Our Lord. It’s another thing to realize how poorly you are doing it.

Finding consolation

A friend had reminded me of a chapter on “Imperfection in Suffering” in The Mystery of Suffering by Hubert van Zeller, and therein I found consolation, especially in the following points:

•  “Of course we are going to be disappointed in the way we are meeting this particular trial, but the disappointment is part of the trial,” said van Zeller (p. 27). “It calls for considerable courage to be disappointed in oneself without being discouraged about oneself . . . Disappointment is a corrective, and highly profitable to the soul.”

•  “Disappointment does not waste suffering. Weakness does not waste suffering. The only thing that wastes suffering is unwillingness to suffer” (p. 28).

• “The acceptance of suffering, in the terms outlined by Christ, is the main thing. Absence from defect in suffering is not the main thing” (p. 31).

•  “The problem of human suffering is not what people suffer, but what they can miss when they suffer. If we miss Christ, we suffer more than ever. And if we find Christ, we learn the meaning of His falls” (p. 33).

Desire to surrender 

God does not ask for perfect suffering, van Zeller noted, but for desire.

“So long as the soul wants conduct under pressure to move in a God-ward direction there is nothing to worry about,” he said (p. 28).

In other words, Our Lord is pleased even just with our desire to surrender our suffering, even if we are disappointed in the imperfect way we are doing it.

Just our desire to give all things to Him makes a difference.

Unite suffering to His

This thought consoled me as I faced another night of sleepless uncertainty in my household. When would I be able to put all this illness behind me and just simply enjoy my family again?

It seemed a small thing to ask. But I realized instead of asking that question, I should be asking for the grace to simply offer it up in complete trust to Our Lord.

Above all, I know without a doubt that He accompanies us in our suffering.

So, as best as I humanly can — no matter how imperfectly — I  need to aim to strive to unite that suffering with His.

The key is asking for the grace to do it.