There are acts or situations in life which can be resolved by resisting them and combating them. Every day and at every turn we find ourselves faced with adverse circumstances which bother and hurt us, but that with certain strategies and sustained effort, may be neutralized and on occasions completely resolved.
Therefore, when painful unexpected emergencies cross our paths, it is helpful and necessary first of all to ask yourself these questions: Does this thing which hurts me so much have a solution? Can it be altered, changed or made better? Is there something I can do?
If you glimpse some sort of solution on the horizon, even though it is not very great, then this is not the time to surrender. It is the time to fight and enter into combat with every weapon available, along with the help of others in order to change whatever can be changed as much as possible.
While possibilities exist and horizons are open, you should not surrender for any reason, but instead put all of your energy into play in order to face every possibility and work towards a final solution.
Nevertheless, looking at the reality with a cool head, a person too often discovers that a great many of the things that irritate him/her, make him/her sad, or ashamed, have absolutely no solution; or the solution does not lie within him/her hands. These are called limiting situations or factors, absolute barriers, accomplished facts. We will call them “impossibles”.
In other words, it is an answer to the question: “This thing that is happening to us and destroying us, does it have some solution?” If the answer is “There is no solution possible; nothing more can be done,” then it is futile to cry over it. Realities, unfortunately, are like that. They are unalterable. They are impossibles. At this point, no one can do anything to prevent whatever happened from having occurred. These are impossibles.
Very often people live aggravated, ashamed, or resentful because of something that ended in failure, bad luck or something else, that dreadful accident, that appalling error. These are facts that will never be altered by even one millimeter for all eternity. The impossibles.
To resist the impossible is crazy and suicidal. It’s like banging your head against a rock; resistance means being irritated, indignant, afraid, ashamed, sad… all at the same time. To sum it up, resistance is a violent mental reaction.
To a very great extent, the things that infuriate or embitter us have no solution, or if they do, it is not within our hands, because we are surrounded everywhere by irreversible situations and accomplished facts.
So in the end, when faced with impossibilities there are only two reactions: either you surrender or you explode.
The more we resist the impossible, the more that it oppresses us. The more it oppresses us, the more we resist, and that is how we enter into a vicious, deadly circle, in a self-destructive frenzy.
This is how people degenerate into depressive, obsessive and manic states.
We repeat once again: matters which have a solution are resolved by combating them. Things which have no solution are resolved by surrendering, leaving the impossible in the hands of the Father in silence and peace. It is not that they are resolved, because from the beginning we have been saying that they have no solution. Whenever we say that unsolvable matters are resolved, we are saying that that terrible disgrace, from this point forward, will no longer be a source of anguish and bitterness for me; instead it will be one of silence and peace.
After all is said, what do we do? Here is where we open a broad avenue through which peace and wisdom will come: the prayer of surrender.
If there is nothing more to do, it is useless to weep and complain. From this moment on, I bend the knees of my spirit; I lean my head upon your bosom, and I surrender myself into your hands unconditionally:
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in your creatures –
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
Amen.
Charles de Foucauld
And peace will be knocking at the doors of your heart.
Taken from Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga’s book: Journey towards God
