In the Good Shepherd psalm we read you guide me along the right path for the sake of your name (23:3). This is easy to say when things are going well. But what about those times when life deals us a heavy hand, when we do not feel we are on the right path, and we find ourselves questioning everything we knew or believed in? What then?
Then is a time to remember: these moments do not need to define us. L Giussani writes Life is not a tragedy. Tragedy is what makes everything amount to nothing. Yes, life is a drama. It is dramatic because it is the relationship between our I and the You of God, our I that must follow the steps which God indicates. (343)
Just as any path will at one time lead us up and another time take us down, so having a relationship with the Divine has its peaks and its valleys. God is big enough for us to question, to be angry, to ask why. Our task is not to stay stuck when we hit the valley. We must always continue forward, knowing that in order to come through the valley of darkness we must learn to fear no evil, for the Lord is with us, with his staff and his rod, to give us courage. It is just another way of saying, life does have meaning, even in its low points.
Life amounts to something. We must hold on to this thought when we are tempted to think of it as a tragedy.
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