In Suffering, Author Dubus Discovered God’s Love

In Suffering, Author Dubus Discovered God’s Love, a person can "find" one's self through thought and compassionate association with what this man suffered.  Holding a mirror to the tapestry of your life and seeing what it reflects through the eyes of this man, puts everything into a whole new perspective and life changing event.  I learned so much from just a few sentences which rocked my world.  

"One of the central Christian mysteries, and one of the most difficult to understand, is the gift of suffering. The paradox of finding God’s love and mercy in the midst of grief, illness and doubt has challenged us all, regardless of the form our suffering takes.
The great contemporary American writer Andre Dubus was immersed in the mystery of suffering in a particularly brutal and absurd manner. Almost 25 years ago, on July 23, 1986, Dubus was driving home from Boston when he came upon the scene of a single-car accident. As an act of charity, he stopped to assist the two stranded motorists, one of whom was injured. While he was helping the injured man out of the car, a passing vehicle hit them. Dubus was able to push the other passenger out of the way, but the injured man was struck and killed. Dubus was also struck. He survived, but had one leg amputated and suffered the painful deterioration of his other leg. Dubus spent the last 13 years of his life in a wheelchair.


Flannery O’Connor once wrote to her friend and correspondent Betty Hester that “in a sense sickness is a place. … Sickness before death is a very appropriate thing and I think those who don’t have it miss one of God’s mercies.” O’Connor was writing about her own struggles with lupus, but her words are applicable to Dubus’ suffering as well, and the truth of her insight is explored and expressed beautifully in Dubus’ volume of short essays, “Meditations From a Movable Chair.”


There is a book shown on the link below to read the full story of this amazing man's journey.  Click here to see the title:

http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/2011/07/21/kingcommentary/

"Consider for example Dubus’ essay “Grace,” in which he writes of the freedom that comes in trusting God’s will: “surely grace flowed between us as we flung away certainty, and said yes to the unknown, out at the edge of light, where it ends, or becomes more brilliant.” Or, his essay “Sacraments,” in which he expresses the gift of seeing the sacramental in everyday life, simply by being aware that all our acts of charity are performed in the presence of God. Or, his short meditation “Girls,” in which he writes of seeing within an altar girl the gift of Mary who “embodied for all of us the miracle and the mystery and the conflict, the flow and ebb of faith.”
Then there is the perfect truth of “Bodily Mysteries,” in which Dubus writes of his disability, “Most mornings, I wake up alone. Each day is a struggle against sorrow, with every physical action in the empty house showing me again and again what I have lost. I cannot win this struggle alone.” So, as he did for most of his life, he goes to Mass.


Of the joy of receiving the Eucharist, Dubus proclaims he is “one with all the people in pain and joy and passion, one with the physical universe, with Christ, with the timeless dimension of the spirit, which has no past or future but only now; one with God. Me: flawed and foolish me. I drove my car to church and consumed God.”

In Suffering, Author Dubus Discovered God’s Love meant a great deal to me personally as I have had a very difficult life trying to achieve health through the thick and thin of allergies, aging, accidents and aching.   And all the rest in between like everyone else suffers just dealing with the stressors of life.  This man's teaching is very, very profound. I was deeply moved by his suffering and the beauty in his realization of his life's path in what he terms: "the timeless dimension of the Spirit".