Unsettle. To unsettle is strong word, just as strong as what I’m about to tell, my story, my adventure, the story of how I’ve grown inwardly; it is an incident that tells of a ray of light in a sea of dark, a light that is always able to triumph against the shades: The light of God. Some stories in life one just doesn’t expect, they come as fast as lightning and have an effect on the heart like a tempest, just as a continuing boiling of a pot filled with saltwater: the water, that is to say the superfluous, evaporates, and leaves only the salt in the pot, that is to say the sense in life: God. Everything began in a simple vacation in the mountains with my family. “My eyes feel cold”, I said to my mother. The next day I saw spots in my field of vision. From then on my eyesight was decreasing continuously. I went to see an ophthalmologist, a neurologist, I underwent a MRT. “The X-Rays and the doctors agree that an operation is going to be necessary because of a possible tumor.” My parents and all my relatives are under shock. The only thing for me to do is to be happy, to not make them even sadder. (…) I’m not a fortune teller and thus cannot predict the future: I can’t know of the projects God still has in store for me. Of one thing I am nevertheless certain: all the Good that my relatives, my doctors and the many people who have helped me were able to give me has unsettled me; it shocked me to understand just how merciful and good God is with us, how much he helps us and loves us.

(…) The following January I will have to undergo another check-up in Germany. The result of this check-up is very important because it could in case of a negative result compromise my future. About all this, however, I don’t care much: God is like a giant engineer that has already built roads for us, and I will have to chose which one to take, but I’m convinced that under his protection I won’t take the wrong one. This is what I was talking about at the beginning: My adventure has evaporated all my sense of superficiality, leaving me a spiritual blooming. My life is with God.

Matteo Farina, 1°A 17.12.2004