"The beauty remains, the pain passes."
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
During the last years of his life, painter Renoir was in tremendous pain as a result of arthritis. It was terribly painful for him to paint with his arthritic hands, and a friend asked him why he continued to paint through such pain. He answered with, "The beauty remains, the pain passes." We learned this during our homily Saturday night, as it was applied to being a follower of Jesus. Truly following Jesus can be difficult, painful, and surely have life-altering consequences. In yesterday's Gospel (Luke 14:25-33), Jesus tells us to pick up our crosses and follow him, turning our backs to worldly trappings and possessions. He even tells us not to allow family or friends to come between us and a life lived for God. All that can be so difficult, as we are spinning around on this planet! But we are assured, in the end, the beauty of our life with Jesus will outshine anything the world has to offer. The awesomeness will remain, the pain/stress/inconvenience/isolation/whatever-it-is-that-is-undesirable will pass. I thought it was such a beautiful lesson, I wanted to share it today. Blessings on your Monday! Love, heidi
No comments:
Post a Comment