If We Are Left Alone

One of the great problems that Cubans, like people of many other nationalities, have had to face is family separation. The development of international communications and transportation, as well as the disparity in economic conditions between first-world countries and the rest, has led many people to leave their countries of origin in search of a better life for themselves and their families.

The saddest part is that not all families manage to emigrate together. On many occasions, fathers and mothers watch their children emigrate, or children watch one of their parents leave, and a separation begins that does not always end in a happy reunion, since a multitude of circumstances prevent it.

In New Jersey I met a Guatemalan mother who longs to be reunited with her four children, whom she has not seen for several years. Her story touched my heart because it is the same story as that of many Cuban men and women I know. She makes sacrifices and works hard, but the absence of her children is a heart-wrenching experience. When will she be able to embrace them? We truly do not know. In the meantime, she provides for their needs and hopes for a miracle from God that will bring the family together again.

Is that God’s plan for the relationship between a mother and her children? I am sure that life sometimes forces us to make drastic decisions for the sake of survival. But ideally, we could all live near and in close relationship with those we love. The years we spend in this world, which are not so many, can be sweeter and brighter if the people dearest to us are by our side.

What, then, should we do when our reality is different, those we love are very far away, and we do not want to succumb to depression and hopelessness? I would venture to say that the first thing is to strengthen our relationship with God. Psalm 27:10 says: “Though my father and my mother forsake me, yet Jehovah will take me in.” This teaches us that the absence of our loved ones’ company, whoever they may be, leaves us deeply in need of divine companionship. When we feel alone or abandoned, God is an inexhaustible source of comfort and strength.

The circumstances that keep those we love far away can have different causes and, unfortunately, do not always have a prompt or effective solution. Being far from the people we love is a wound almost impossible to heal.

Nevertheless, deep communion with God will always help us fill the emotional void we feel in such cases, providing the comfort, hope, and strength that only God knows how to bring to our hearts. That is why Jesus, as he said farewell to his disciples, spoke to them of the comfort that the Holy Spirit, within them, could provide.

If we have God, we will never be orphans; we will never be without shelter. He never abandons us.

God bless you!