The inner freedom

(The personal experience and reflection in Paschal week)

I did experience God had prepared me before any trial coming across my life.

The patient whom I had visited was just fine and watching television when I entered his room. In my followings visit his body was terribly wounded, swollen, bleeding, festering with bad smell due to chronic renal failure. There was so much pain. I found he was struggling with the pain. Medicine reacted in his body.

He felt unconscious He bite his tongue. He removed all tubes of intravenous infusion.

Yet, he surrendered himself to God and told me his hour has come. He would soon meet God. In spite of his pain and struggle, when he came back to his mind, he was so calm and cheer, he made his loved ones feel happy and acceptant. I was touched by his manner.

I felt empathy toward him with a deep love in my heart for him. I admired him and was inspired by him. He turned painful experience to peaceful message to other.

God had prepared me to encounter a hard challenge in the next few days. When I got a terribly strong hit of being misinterpreted and misjudged. For me, it was just like the patient who got a serious wounded. He did not want to have kidney sickness just as I did not expect a sudden strike. Somehow, in life, things do not always come in correct way.

I entered the holy week with the event that shocked me. This incident was unimaginable to me. It was beyond my knowledge and understanding; it came suddenly, from far away, yet affected me severely. I was sad and in great pain. However, through this event, I started to discover myself in the paschal mystery, my relationship with Jesus, my God. From the feeling of sadness and pain, I was enlightened and blessed.

I experienced a deep peace in my heart. I let go my expectation of a right interpretation and judgment. I accepted limit of others.

I felt more to cling myself on Jesus whom I totally place my life on. I even felt happy and delight that the Lord had allowed me to accompany him in his passion journey. I also realized that the Lord invited me to let him accompany me in this very trial of mine.

This was a great grace, a blessing for me. I contemplated Jesus in his journey to Calvary. Jesus surrendered himself to his Father, thus he made himself be free from all the agonies.

The act of fully surrender to the Father brought inner freedom to Jesus, all trials could not conquer him, in contrast he was able to forgive to those who sinned against him. It was also in the act of surrender, one could find the deepest intimacy between the son and the father and their greatest love for each other and then poured out to human kind throughout generations.

I was grateful God for his preparation, which he had made ahead, in my life. This experience enriched me. I tasted a painful taste, yet I felt free. I tasted a sad taste, yet I felt blessed. I was able to forgive and to accept life reality. I felt consoled and strengthened. I came to understand a deep insight of Christ's passion, the heart-touched meaning of the mystery of death and resurrection.

Jesus had revealed to me the true way of liberation. It is only God alone whom one can count on, and it is God alone who can bring a true freedom to one's heart. My heart was set free for God. I experienced deeply an inner freedom, which no one could give me but God; no one could take this freedom and peace-filled away from me.

The experience was so deep and it permeated my whole being. I felt blessed. I have been tasted and smelled of love.

TD