Is not the same to live with God than to live without Him.

Many people think that a life with God is the same than a life without God, particularly those who do not believe in God or those who think that whoever your God is, all are the same.

In the time of my grandmothers they use to have from 6 to 10 children or more. In those times they lost several children in the process because the lack of medicine resources we have now days. My great-grandmother lost her mother and brother as a result of Tifo, at the time of the Mexican Revolution, and a revolutionary general also kidnapped her teenage sister. As a consequence, my great-grandmother was orphaned at 9 years old, taking care of the rest of her little brothers along with her father, which forced her to mature quickly. When she got married, my great-grandmother had 4 children, 2 died when children due to illness and one died as a teenager, and suffered from cerebral palsy from birth. Then only my grandmother survived. As a result I grew up and believed for a long time that she had been an only child, later I learned that she had other siblings who had passed away. Both my great-grandmother and my grandmother, her daughter, also had to endure the Cristero persecution, and my grandmother had to be baptized in secret.

My grandfather, (my grandmother\’s husband), was orphaned as a child, placed of his aunts while his mother went out to work. Later, his mother married again, but her new husband did not want my grandfather and his brother to live with them, leaving my grandfather aside with his aunts. He worked from a young age, and his brother was shot to death. My grandmother and my grandfather got married and had one of the most ideal marriages I have ever known despite everything they had to survive. They also had 6 healthy children who have all had a good life so far. The marriage and love of my grandparents was an example of a family to be like.

The vast majority of the above sounds like tragedy right? Yet they went ahead and ending having a successful life. Life was hard, much harder than we have right now, and we don\’t realize how well we are doing today compared to the past. When these issues were discussed in my family, it was natural, you could not see the suffering on their faces or great sadness, much less they were victimized. It was all just part of life and you had to get ahead.

My very healthy grandmother died until she was 78 years old. She was run over on the door of her house by a drunk taxi driver who passed a bump. As a consequence, she ended up with a fractured skull, ribs and pelvis. She lived approximately 15 more days in agony and pain, obviously with medications to mitigate the respective symptoms. She was always very calm despite the severity of her injuries, surgeries, and pain. There are patients who become very restless and aggressive in such circumstances and families who become very desperate. Not so, neither she nor my family, simply because we have Faith.

My father could not say goodbye to my grandmother when she passed away. In the same way when my grandfather passed away I was a teenager and I couldn\’t say goodbye to him. My grandmother came to my father in dreams to say goodbye to him and tell him that she was fine and that he had nothing to worry about. Neither my father nor I, saw these situations as a tragedy. It was just like that and there are times in life when you just can\’t say goodbye, that\’s how it happens and it\’s nobody\’s fault.

When we look back on everything they went through, it seems as if the pain in our ancestors was more organic, it was part of life. If a loved one is lost today it is a great tragedy, and I am not saying it is not, but in the past, they seemed to understand much more easily that death, pain and suffering are part of life. They seemed to face difficulties more easily, to overcome grief in a much healthier way, without living bitter or blaming God for their difficulties. Obviously it does not mean that they had a heart of stone, but simply better assimilated things.

A constant that I see in our ancestors, is that at least in my family, (who went through all these tragedies) is they were people of Faith. My grandmother knew that she would die li2 years in advance, thanks to the fact that she prayed the rosary daily. Thanks to that she prepared for her death.

Today it is about ending suffering at all costs, as if suffering and death were the worst, without realizing that they are part of life itself and that we are all going through this in one way or another, sooner or later, because it\’s just inevitable. Obviously this does not mean that we should not live life to the fullest, with an optimistic vision and enjoying every moment.

When people are given a diagnosis like cancer or a fatal disease they collapse and while it is our job to take care of ourselves and do our best to stay healthy, and try to save lives as much as possible; there is nothing wrong with dying, we are all going to do it and it is part of life. Is in that moment when we go to know God, when we go to the Father\’s house. People who do not have a firm Faith tend to collapse easier.

Recently with the epidemic that we had, I saw that there were people who fell into panic as if this were the apocalypse. It didn\’t matter how much you try to calm people with Faith, with science, with statistics, no human power could to get them out of their panic. Suppose they are right, suppose we all will die of coronavirus. What is the problem with it? We are not immortal in this life, and at the same time we are eternal thanks to the fact that God created us like that, but not in this life, but in the one that follows.

The Christian knows that suffering has a sense of being, that it is not in vain, that it is a form of purification, a form of paying for our sins or others sins, that we can offer suffer for the conversion of souls, to avoid purgatory. We know that death is painful just like birth, but that it is in it that we have our fullness. We know that there will be no pain or suffering in this life that does not have a reason for being. God does glorious things from human suffers such as redemption.

Christians generally have greater peace and less hopelessness when facing the difficulties of life and we see things in a more organic way.