The price of passion

Last Friday evening, JC, an old school-mate and good gal pal picked me up in her chauffeured-driven Bimmer and bought me dinner. We both had a great time catching up, sipping limoncello and wine, and dining on deliciously prepared Italian cuisine.

Her driver dropped me off after dinner and I walked up to my flat and into my room feeling distinctly blue.

There are aspects of my previous life that I miss at times. I miss dining out in ritzy restaurants on a whim. I miss travelling on business class. I miss taking off to exotic destinations or going on dive trips whenever I feel like it. I miss being able to buy something frivolous without batting an eyelid at the mind-boggling cost.

I DO mourn the loss of those fat paychecks and what I could do with them from time to time, even as I am grateful for the generosity of friends.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life the way it is now for I do NOT miss the stress, the inability to find meaning in what I did at work, the overwhelming despair I felt from being a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, and the battering my self-esteem and self-worth took as I struggled to fit into an environment I found absurd.

I was living a life without passion and it was truly a meaningless existence, made interesting and bearable only by the pleasures that the financial spoils afforded.

Would I go back to such a life? The answer is a definite no.

Would I do it again, that is to walk away from my previous life knowing what I know now about the opportunity cost of such a decision? It's a resounding YES!

For the decision was not so much motivated by fear or an act of cowardice, but by love, a new-found passion - for Jesus.

There is a saying by Lao Tzu: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage."

This revelation of love in my life gave me both strength and courage to "leave the boat" and "walk on water", to choose a radical approach in life by submitting my will in all things to the Father (remember I am an "all or nothing" kinda gal).

There has never been an easier or a more difficult decision in my life. While I've experienced great joy and gained much, I have also suffered great loss and grieved tremendously.

What makes it all worthwhile is how fulfilled I am in this living, spousal relationship I have with Jesus.

Yes, I can just hear my friend, PC, say how I've been brain-washed or "psychoed" myself into thinking this way for how can it be possible to have an intimate relationship with a man who walked this earth over 2,000 years ago?

To paraphrase the angel Gabriel: "All things are possible with God."

Even as I experienced desolation last Friday evening, He spoke to me comfortingly and prophetically in the gospel of the day, words that were again echoed during Sunday mass two days later (see John 14) and at the Shaping Progress talk that ICPE's Woman to Woman ministry organized at CANA that afternoon.

There is a price to pay for passion, Jesus paid for it with His life as he sought to do the will of His Father.

If I choose spiritual progress, to become more and more like Him, then I, too, must be willing and able to pay the price.

Albert Camus said: "A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing."

I hope to spare nothing in pursuing my passion for "the Way and the Truth and the Life" every day.