Although I had earlier been in Venezuela, and passed through Cusco, arriving at my destination – Sicuani – was a huge, rude awakening to reality, though not only because of the altitude sickness or the cold.
Ah yes! The cold! Chapped hands, burned faces, badly damaged feet, the water in the fountain frozen each morning. Sometimes it found its way so deep within that it was almost paralysing, yet they always gave witness to courage, strength and commitment in spite of the hard conditions.
Blameworthiness must be transformed into gratitude for what we have, and having done nothing to merit it. For all that God gives, but also, and perhaps much more so, for what He takes away from us. For the good fortune of having been born into this time, this place, this family. For all that we have received on the journey that has turned us into who we are today, without realizing it, letting us be exactly where we need to be.
And for me, the most important learning, my ongoing lesson with Him is to feel how God accepts and EMBRACES my fragility, my smallness, my insecurity, my poverty, my doubts, my wounds… caressing my life with tenderness: awakening the desire to be capable of looking at myself as He looks at me. He doesn’t expect great things of me beyond allowing myself to be LOVED, and place myself in His hands, letting my fears push me to have even more trust in Him.