ABOUT YOUR BEFORE AND AFTER SNAPSHOTS

“The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.” [UB 556:14]

Thought Adjuster: “Let us talk about your ‘before’ and ‘after’ snapshots. In any physical makeover, it is customary to take ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures so that, by comparison, the second one accentuates the positive changes you have undergone during the makeover. Moreover, to further emphasize your favorable transformation, you will be asked to put on a serious face on the first shot and a happy one on the second one.

“What about your soul makeover? Many of you have not realized yet that the main purpose of your material life is to give you a thorough ‘spiritual makeover’ at the cellular level of your soul. You are evolutionary beings and your actions determine in which direction you evolve—they set your spiritual course.

“Misguided actions have misguided outcomes and, eventually, in times of severe crisis, these adversarial results will hit you in the face like nasty ‘karmic’ boomerangs. There is no denying then that you need to wizen up for your own good.

“When such times of reckoning occur in your personal life, you better stop in your tracks to reassess your priorities. Tribulations come in many forms and shapes and occur at many levels since much needs to be corrected in your current life experience.

“How are you responding to your own challenging times? Are you endlessly complaining, stuck in a hopeless victim mentality? Or are you rising up to the challenges and asking yourself: “What are they teaching me?” Indeed, a challenge would not be ‘challenging’ if you had already mastered its teachings with flying colors.

“Challenges put the finger on your sore areas—the very areas in need of healing and strengthening. Any discomfort reveals that you are out-of-alignment somewhere in your being. The symptomatic pain you feel needs to be investigated in order to come up with an adequate remedy.

“Do not suppress any uncomfortable feelings that bubble up to the surface. Indeed, things rise the surface to be dealt with—the more swiftly, the better. In some way, you are like the dragon slayers of your folktales and the tribulations are there to lure the dragons out of their hiding places and subjugate them, once and for all.

“Look at your life in retrospect. Place your most challenging experiences under a spiritual microscope. You will then let out a sigh of relief and express a prayer of gratitude when you realize that they too were bearers of gifts—they acted as Petri dishes to ‘reactively’ make you wiser.

“Indeed, you are entitled to take great pride in your ‘A.T.’ (After Tribulation) shot. You may have shown up to the photo shoot somewhat disheveled but, after sufficient time to put yourself back together, you are definitely exhibiting some fine character traits that were previously undetectable. “I did not know I had it in me!” will be your astonishedrealization. You would never have known you had it in you if personal tribulations had not cracked open their hard shell. Keeping this in mind and heart, “Thank you, God, for the good contained in it” should be your constant mantra. Why not thank the Giver when He delivers His practical gift to your very doorsteps?”