Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?" Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go?” // John 6:67-68
When my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer—four months before he died—one of my biggest fears was that my faith would be shaken. Faith really is a gift and I wondered if walking through the death of my dad would be more than I could bear. Could I handle it? Could my faith handle it?
I wondered if Jesus would still feel real to me once I suffered this loss. Would all the truths of my faith stand up to this test, to this devastating separation?
Maybe I’ve shared about this before and here I am again. But it’s worth repeating: God’s promises are true. He provides for us in all we need. And we see that in how He implemented His plan of Salvation. While death and sadness were not part of God’s original plan and are a result of our sin, Jesus’s Death on the Cross redeemed all of it for us. God walks with us in the midst of this suffering because He has gone through it before. Death conquered death.
As I worried I would be tempted to leave Jesus, I realized what Simon Peter does in today’s Gospel: “[T]o whom shall we go?” (John 6:68)
Sister, there is no place beyond the reach of God’s love. Whatever pit we may find ourselves in, God can be there with us. He can take our suffering and redeem it for good. He can take our mourning and turn it into joy.
Why would we go anywhere else? To whom else could we possibly turn?
Rachel Balducci has a Masters degree from the Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia and teaches at Augusta University. She and her husband Paul have five sons and one daughter and are part of an intentional Christian community in Augusta, Georgia. Rachel is the author of several books and is the co-host of The Gist of CatholicTV. Find out more about her here.
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