Question: It seems that nothing in my life has turned out the way I have prayed that it would. The sadness over my situation is overwhelming, even though I have tried my best to give all my failures over to God. Where do I go from here?

Answer: Can you think of any example from the past of where some great individual who became an instrument or vessel of the divine arrived at that relationship without suffering consciously for the sake of that communion? Even the few sages reputed to be born already illumined gave at great cost their lives… not to mention what they may have had to bear prior to that incarnation. At some point we must not only recognize that if we are to give our lives to God/the divine, then this means that our lives must serve His purpose… and not the one that we imagine we ought to have as a result of our surrender. To give our lives to God means we give everything to Him –including our self-loathing, our sense of inadequacy, our hypocrisy, and our suffering over the same, whatever that condition may be. This may be the hardest of all things to do… but in the end is the true indicator of the depth of our intention to serve the greater life whose timeless love is our greatest wish. It may be wisely said that the last attachment a man has upon the path to his perfection is giving up the attachment he has to his suffering. Consider these words and start over.