Many's the time I've told my husband, "You don't even know who I really am! All you know is how I am when I'm pregnant, or postpartum, or pregnant and postpartum, or hypothyroid, or how I am when I've gone six years without sleeping. You don't understand!" I will say, as he watches me melt down under stress and exhaustion. "I'm not really like this!"
This may have been true, for a while. But we've been living this life long enough that I really have to face facts: this is my life.
I'm not complaining, mind you. I have a good life. But it is crazy, and it makes me crazy. The way I respond to the craziness of my life? That's who I am. This is my life, and this is me, living it. It's time to give up for good the idea that there is some other, calmer me waiting in the wings to deal with some other, calmer existence that may or may not come about.
It's a pretty common mental trap to fall into -- clinging to the notion that we're just getting through this rough patch right now, but that our real life lies waiting for us in the future, and our real selves are the ones who have to deal with that real life. The trap says: This, just now? This is temporary. This is a glitch, and we need to cut ourselves some slack until our real lives start again.
Now, obviously, we do need to be reasonable with ourselves when things are very hard. Sometimes, it's only prudent to give ourselves permission to settle for less than perfection, or even to give ourselves permission to feel overwhelmed when life is overwhelming. We're not robots; we can't just immediately reset ourselves for a higher capacity just because life starts demanding more.
And so it's only sensible for me to tell myself, "I have nine young children -- it's okay that there's always dirty laundry. It's okay to say no to a good opportunity, because I don't want to leave a nursing baby. It's okay not to take up some voluntary extra penance or spiritual practice that's all the rage on my Catholic quilters' message board, because I'm barely keeping my head above water. It's okay to put such-and-such aside, or give this project a spit and a promise, because things are crazy right now, and this really is the best I can do."
But it's not okay to say, "I don't have the time to pray today. I can't be expected to go to Mass or go to confession. I can't be expected to be good to other people -- can't you see I have problems to deal with?"
It's not okay to say, "This is not who I really am! In real life, I would be devoted to Mary. Under reasonable circumstances, I would certainly be kind and thoughtful and unselfish. This is not really me, shrieking at my kids, treating my husband like an incompetent servant, neglecting my prayers for weeks at a time, and not making any effort to do better. This is not really me, never even thinking of the Cross."
Yes. It is me. And it is not okay to say, "I'll be a good Catholic later. Right now, I'm too busy suffering."
We can fall into the trap of regarding the whole world as a sort of temporary aberration. When something awful happens to us -- a sickness, a death, a betrayal, a horrible derailment of plans or desires -- we think, "Why has this happened to my real life?"
We see the effects of original sin, and we think, "Why aren't things good and simple and easy, the way they're supposed to be in real life?" We may not realize it, but when we strain and fuss against evil in the world, we're essentially saying, "But my real life is back in Eden! When are we going to get past this rough patch and get back to my real life?"
But this world -- this post-Edenic world, with our fallen selves and our lives that are filled with work and pain and struggle -- this is our world. This is our life. Who we are is defined by how we deal with life as it is. There was no cross in Eden. But we are not in Eden now.
The good news -- and I mean the Good News! -- is that we're in a place better than Eden, because we're not only post-Eden, we're post-Calvary. The Preface prayer at Mass last Sunday said to God,
For we know it belongs to your boundless glory, that you came to the aid of mortal beings with your divinity and even fashioned for us a remedy out of mortality itself, that the cause of our downfall might become the means of our salvation, through Christ our Lord.
The cause of our downfall is the means of our salvation. There is no squirming out from under the shadow of the cross -- not yet. It is in that shadow -- in that shelter -- that we find out who we really are. Who we are is people who have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved -- as long as we're willing and able to remember that this is our life. What we do here, now, under these circumstances, is who we are.
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Wow, best column ever. This is exactly what I say to myself also. I will go back to being a nice, sacrificial, loving person as soon as soon as I get through this illness, or this rough week of schooling, or until the kids are out of the house. I don’t think I’ve ever realized that this IS normal life and I need to learn to handle it gracefully.
I think it’s a typo but did you mean to say, “...Catholic guilters message board” because if so I totally know what you mean!!
How you act under pressure *is* who you really are.
A lot of your posts are very funny - but I love these types of posts the best. I feel inspired when you write about something I’ve been struggling with and somehow clarify it and make it a little more beautiful. Thank you!
There’s an old saying that goes something like this:
“If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy!”
“If you’re too busy to be with God, you’re too busy!”
“If you’re too busy to experience the peace, joy, and love that God wants to give you, you’re too busy!
Unfortunately, in this world, too many of us are too busy for God!
But Br. Anthony, what if you’re too busy *because* you’re following Church teaching and therefore have a large family or lots of little kids? That’s the irony in this, and something that’s rarely mentioned.
Fortunately, the Church allows NFP, and I think feeling so overwhelmed you don’t have time for prayer is definitely a serious reason to avoid pregnancy (at least for me).
I admit I felt a little defensive while reading this article, but maybe that’s because I’m truly in one of those very difficult stages in life (small children).
You hit the nail on the head again! You’ll have to tell us all how you do that. ;-D
You mean this freak show really IS my life? My Pottery Barn living room ISN’T right around the corner???
I sure loved reading your article today. We have raised six children and I can only imagine the chaos in your daily lives. We live in central Ohio and the Amish are only a few miles from our home. Right now, I’m thinking about a 43 year old Amish mother of twelve. She makes 80 pies every Friday plus bread and cookies. On Saturday, her husband travels in his buggy and sets up a roadside stand to sell her baked goods. On Sunday, everything stops and they honor Our Lord. When I look in disbelief at her work load, she says “I don’t know how I do it…I just do what I have to do.” That’s where you are at and where we were. With God as your co-pilot,you do what you have to do. Instead of praying the Rosary, you have to be content to just hold your Rosary. Wrap your fingers around the crucifix and feel the warmth of God’s love. Breath deep and smile. LIFE IS GOOD.
@S Simcha is in that same place of life as am I in a “very difficult stage” due to small children. In a Bible study once I challenged the idea that we are supposed to pray constantly and a very wise older woman asked me how much I can get done with my baby in the room. Well, I read blogs, fold clothes, pick up toys, prepare meals, talk on the phone and many other things. When I am feeling especially overwhelmed is when I am in the greatest need of prayer and that can be as simple as an intentional deep breathe and a reminder that Jesus is with me parenting my brood as well. “Prayer” has a bigger umbrella for me - even reading blogs like this one is prayerful when I take a minute to reset my thoughts and be intentional about being open to thoughts from Jesus. Scholars call it “spiritual reading.” I put the works of Mercy on a plaque in my home because clothing the naked, admonishing the sinner and feeding the hungry are all acts of service that can be prayer but can also totally overwhelm me. I also know that I have to let go of superwoman - clothes and dishes can stack up and I may need to simplify. Morning prayer (even when it takes the form of a story from the children’s bible with my lap stacked) is like a phone call to a friend helping to lift my spirits. I don’t want to make you feel more guilty - that is totally not the point, but sometimes for me, guilt can be the Spirit’s nudge saying “let me help you” “you are only overwhelmed when you think you are in this alone”
Dan Fandrey ,
We have Mennonite friends who have large families & I’ve spent quite a bit of time in their homes, & occasionally in their church,bakery, & school.
Sure, they have issues with stress & fatigue,too, but they have much more support for families from within their community & church. Kids are disciplined differently, too & different things are expected from children as far as behavior & responsibility.And of course there’s a minimum of influence from the media, etc. coming into their homes.
I really think the support system is key. I just haven’t seen anything like it for families in Catholic parishes.And I never have seen any bickering, nor heard any gossip from the Mennonite ladies.I’ve really learned a lot from them.
Ouch.
So the, “I’ll make meals every night when I have a husband to cook for, and a dishwasher (machine or human) to take care of the mess.” isn’t a viable excuse for microwave meals and eating out? You mean, this IS my life?!
.
Well, crud.
Okay, all kidding aside…Once I had this really sweet youngish woman as a spiritual director. I think I really scandalized her with my general honesty. She is so sweet and good that I once confronted her about it, demanding to know, “Don’t you have a mean bone in your body??” She confessed to something nearly awful from when she was a little girl and I laughed. I told her about this gay couple that my husband used to know. They gave us a place setting of exquisite china on our wedding. My husband would go on and on about how good, and kind and thoughtful they were. They dined in the best restaurants, they had the best taste, they were so utterly genteel. It confounded me how I could be trying so hard to be a good Catholic, sacrificing my twerpy little body on an altar of poopy diapers, sleep deprivation, loneliness yada, yada, while the kids I went to school with were still out partying, and I could feel so crummy. The NICENESS of that gay couple was like an accusation to my face. I didn’t feel smooth, serene and genteel like them. “Julie!” I said to my director with alarm, “the more kids I have, the more temptations I have to impatience!” That was and is the conundrum. But the rejoinder to that disturbing reality was and *IS* to picture a big black pot of gold, with a raging fire lit beneath it. I meditate on that gold that is being purified in the fire…that the raging fire makes the dross rise and bubble to the surface where God can skim it away. “It’s okay God”, I tell Him. “I don’t want to waste any time in purgatory when I could be with you. Let’s get it over with here.”
I’ll post this quote from St. Teresa again. A lovely Catholic friend sent this to me after a conversation about our crazy lives:
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“Since I have become a prioress, burdened with many duties and obliged to travel a great deal, I commit very many MORE FAULTS. And yet, as I struggle generously and spend myself for God alone, I feel that I am getting closer and closer to Him.”
—St. Teresa of Avila
“some voluntary extra penance or spiritual practice that’s all the rage on my Catholic quilters’ message board” Quilting isn’t penance enough? Shesh.
So true, I remember watching “Life is Beautiful” and being struck by the new realization that you are the same person *in* the concentration camp that you were before you got there. Emergency responders and soldiers know from experience that when TSHTF you revert to your last level of training, or mastery. It’s hard to accept that the hidden, small humble choices build virtue and character. Pride causes us to reject this truth and dream of a final, noble, heroic action that will spring from some imaginary “real me” that is in there, despite all assurancs to the contrary. Humility is the magic key that prevents both discouragement with flaws and mediocrity *and* refusal to do the small ordinaries that become extraordinary in the long long view. Thank-you, Simcha!
This is such a good message - our lives are NOW. Right now. They aren’t something that we imagine them to be, in some better circumstances. What you see is what you get! And, really, if you think about it, that is sort of freeing, isn’t it? We get to work with just the materials at hand, inferior as they are; and that sure takes some of the pressure off.
A brand new perspective for me: that when I fuss against evil (in my case, the ‘evil’ of being worn out or having a headache), I’m essentially saying, ‘But my real life is back in Eden!’ Wow. A brand new perspective.
FACT: It is not true that robots can “immediately reset [themselves] for a higher capacity” when more is demanded of them. First off, robots cannot reset themselves unless they’ve been programmed to do so, which implies that the act of resetting is not done of their own volition. Secondly, additional robot capacity typically demands either a faster processor, more RAM, or additional subroutines—none of which could be implemented immediately, even if it were possible for the robot to implement such upgrades on itself. A more typical robot reaction to a demand in excess of their existing capacity (whether in order of magnitude, depth, or scope) would be an attempt—within its pre-established programming, of course—to keep up with the increasing demand utilizing its current capacity, sans resets, until such an attempt either yielded the successful resolution of said demand or until the robot severely damaged itself.
It would be nice is robots could anticipate excess or unprecedented demand and then somehow auto-provision extra capacity and implement additional programming and then “reset” (in layman’s terms) themselves, but this is a fantasy.
I needed this today. Thank you! No more excuses!! :)
I never knew you could write something so meaningful and helpful. Just beautiful - thank you so much!
Bravo, Simcha! Just what I needed. Thank you.
Thank you for this post! You’ve just described my life and reminded me that I’m not the only one with over-three-times-the-national-average- number of kids. My priest is ever exhorting us to remember that “this is not a dress rehearsal for life!”, and “All the way to heaven is heaven”. Keep up the great work! and may God bless you and your family!
In my REAL life I’m 30 pounds lighter! :)
I really enjoy the honesty in what you’ve shared here. My mother married a devout Catholic (and converted 8 years later). She went on to have ten children. I heard a story once that when she learned that she was pregnant with her 10th baby, that she sat down and cried (the youngest 2 are only 16 months apart). There were times when day-to-day functioning was too hard for her…at one point her doctor ordered my father to stay home for a while and help her, and to let her rest. He ran the house like it was the army, lol…but it helped. In spite of whatever struggles there were along the way, my mother never regretted having any of us - she never complains. However, I “only” have six children and I still struggle with the day-to-day and I tend to be more of a complainer than my mother. Our youngest has autism and sometimes his behavior is “manic” and out-of-control. We do our best to work with him, teach him, keep him safe and we laugh through some of the ridiculous things which go on at times (like when he grabbed the box of uncooked spaghetti noodles and ran back to his bedroom and threw them all over the room before we could catch him…and then while we were picking up those, he went to the kitchen and threw the cooked noodles all over the kitchen floor). We laugh afterwards…sometimes hysterically. But things ebb and flow, get better and then worse, but this is the most realistic preparation for “real” life for our children that there can be. Real life is messy and difficult to face at times.
@Anna Lisa: I laughed out loud and almost spit my sandwich at the computer screen. Freak Show. That. is. perfect.
@Simcha: I read your stuff on a regular basis. I am profoundly jealous and in awe of your skills. To be a brilliant writer and have 9 children alive at the end of every day. This. is. true. skill.
Thanks for the pep talk. Now I must get back to my real life.
“Pride causes us to reject this truth and dream of a final, noble, heroic action that will spring from some imaginary “real me” that is in there, despite all assurancs to the contrary.”
I knew this post was trying to tell me something, but couldn’t put my finger on it. Ah, yet this comment hits it. I spend far too much time thinking about what a holy person I could be in face of persecution or martyrdom, yet I can’t even get my lazy bum out of bed on time or stop reading these blog posts when I should be working.
My friend is starting a “novena” from today till the election, no more reading blogs at work till then. And for 40 Days for Life, wake up on time (which means no more TV after 9pm). Hopefully putting this in writing will help me to accomplish this! Ah, Lord help me to be a better person starting today.
My youngest is looking at college applications and I will be at home with no children for the first time at age 62 next year. I can actually cry when I think of how fast the years flew by. Young mothers: ENJOY THESE YEARS! BTW the best thing I ever did was have a baby at 44…skipped all the mid life crisis/peri menopause/menopause angst. I was too busy being Mommy to notice anything until I found myself shocked that I was turning 60!
Here’s my favorite “re-set button”. My husband and I have the alarm set for 6am. (he finally changed it from Banjos to harps!) We give ourselves 10 min.s to wake each other up, and then we kneel side by side in front of the crucifix, praying silently for a couple of moments…“Serviam…All for You, in union with the most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass…” Serenity. ...power, to start the battle.
Very nicely written. It is indeed good to take things in stride realizing here and now is where God wants one to be. I also find solace in the fact that each day when I look up the ‘Saint of the day’ on my liturgical calendar - almost none of them had children. I might not be a saint, but as a parent, I’m in good company.
Catholic quilters? Really?
We tried that at a former parish once.Only a couple ladies actually wanted to continue after the first session.One suggested we just give the quilt to the Amish to finish, pay them & then raffle it off at our parish fundraiser.She missed the whole point that the important part of the quilting was not just the end product, but the fellowship we shared while making it.
Oh well….
Glad to here it’s not that way in every parish.
Thank you for this! I needed it. And right now I needed it. I have been sad for months about miscarrying, hoping that one day I will be healed and can move on. But the reality is there will not be a magical day where I will be “healed.” There will be healing, and there has been some already, but a scar may remain. I will not be the “me” that there was before because that “real me” doesn’t exist anymore. A more mature me exists now that, unfortunately, has suffered a loss. This doesn’t mean I can have an excuse to be sad and depressed until some mystical moment of joy suddenly ends my suffering. It means that I am a person with a different perspective on life. Not a worse perspective due to the sadness, but actually a much better one. I appreciate my own life, and my husband’s life and our marriage more than I did before.
Next week marks when my due date would have been. I have been waiting, thinking that maybe after that day passes I will feel like “myself” again. But there is no reason for that, because I am “myself” every day, and have always been. It’s that “myself” changes with every change in my life. Anyone is lying to themselves if they say that they know exactly who they are in every way. We change daily and it is spiritually healthy to reflect on that regularly. We should think about who is the “real me?” on a regular basis, because it never stays the same.
This is seriously what I needed to hear today.
Yes, I fall into that same trap: But that’s not the real me! And its’ many versions, when things are
better, et al. We all do it, it’s because there is a perfect us, a perfect condition. But where is it and
how do we get there, where we can all be at our best all the time? Say the Our Father, Jesus Christ
is the answer.
all’s I can say is spot on as always Simcha and when you get to your 50’s it is GREAT!!!! It is a better life because you realize the beauty of who you are of what you have and what you did…no matter how badly…and you get to be a grandma…it doesn’t get any better than that…!!!! Oh, and seeing your kids pass 18 is another great adventure..all you lovely young mothers hold on tight…every moment of suffering is worth the end result..keep your eyes on the prize and hold on tight!!!! And try really hard to not do anything you’ll regret too terribly because “What we do here, now, under these circumstances, is who we are.” Your kids will be you!! Teach them well by your example…!!!!
Yes. The care of the Soul (spiritual life) ought to be working in tandem with our physical existence. And that on a here-and-now basis. Or if you wish “the eternal now”.
Simcha, this is my favourite of all your posts ever! I’m so glad I read this today. Your advice, as ever, is so wise. Thank you so much for writing this, and all your other wonderful posts!
@Kristina thank you for sharing your story- unfortunately, many of us can literally feel your pain- even though everyone is different. We lost our John-Paul (20 weeks) a bit before Pope John-Paul passed away. and we still remember (but I promise, it will get better. There will come a day when you can ask for your baby’s intercession in heaven without crying)
So true, I cried. I’ve never been keen on those fuzzy self-help books because they are by definition self centered and seem to always point to a brighter shiner YOU, just waiting to burst forth after assimilating the epiphanies lying in wait between the pages. The gospels promise us that we’ll be quite new and changed from living a life in Christ, but not in the pie in the sky way. Here and now is life, here and now is the time to be salt and light. There’s a lot of joy in reflecting that the Lord Jesus knows completely how we *really* are, and still chose to love us, still chose the Cross for our sakes.
Wow is my response to this post also.
Simcha, You really have a gift. Thanks for sharing. It’s all about embracing the cross instead of fighting it. This post reminded me of something a priest said about being so annoyed by a little kid sitting behind him on a plane or train or bus or whatever. The child kept popping up and touching him and talking to him and the priest wasn’t in the mood. It finally occurred to him to offer it up and he said as soon as he made up his mind to do that, the child didn’t bother him. The cross disappeared. By smiling at the child and talking to him he ended up enjoying the ride and the little one. The hardest part is deciding to embrace the cross. God bless you and your family. Treasure in heaven!
After having a string of bad events happen to close friends and family this past month, I have been walking around feeling so depressed and wishing for things to get better again. Thank you for writing this. You are right in every way and I’m so grateful to you (and the Holy Spirit). God bless.
One of the blessings of a large family is that they will take care of you in your latter years.
We all have times when we say “this is not who I really am”. I have 4 grandchildren under the age of 7 so I have seen business and chaos first hand. I work full time and I am very involved in my parish. I often struggle with if I am giving God enough of my personal time.I have found that prayer is key to staying connected amidst all the business.
I’ve always loved your writing…but this… Was just what I needed right now!!! Thank you!!!
A much needed meditation, thank you!
Ouch. Thank you for this piece. In the TLM we pray that our hearts not be inclined to evil words, to make excuses for sin. I always thought it was *other people* who did that. Mea culpa. Now, where’s that confessional?
Thank you for the encouragement. I think we all feel discouraged sometimes, and to remember that we’re not actually in Eden is really helpful! God bless.
The biggest problem with the mindset you describe, at least in my personal experience, is that it is easy to keep moving the goalposts. Every time you fall a little shorter, that becomes your standard of what you’re not really like. Eventually you end up not doing much of anything, and even then, you make excuses. And by you I mean me.
@Victor: So robots would keep doing whatever they are able to do, only faster and harder, until they succeed and/or burn themselves out? Funny. That’s kinda how it works for people, too, isn’t it?
What you wrote reminds me of a time in my own life. When my two children were two and four I was divorced. I began frantically following my ambitions, trying to finish an art degree and then a writing degree, and trying to write and sell fiction and memoir pieces, anything to establish myself in a creative career. At a great cost to my kids and myself, I still kept a clean house, made three meals a day from scratch, make our bread and yogurt, grew sprouts in the cupboard of our subsidized apartment. I never had enough time to do everything I thought I had to do, hardly any money, no family to help me. We lived in Fargo and then Minneapolis and if a child lost a pair of mittens it was a tragedy since I didn’t have money to buy another pair and the child could actually lose fingers in that climate. I did a lot of shrieking at my kids because we were all on a treadmill that would never stop, and there was no time for dawdling or making mistakes, or for rest for me. I even began staying up one whole night every week to try to keep up. An opportunity came for me to stay home with my kids for a few years, about the time I relapsed to Catholicism. When I reluctantly returned to the rat race after my time off was over, I started paying to have my laundry done. The truth is that we can’t do everything. Priorities should be Catholic, wife, mother, and homemaker first, all while making sure that you (along with everyone in your care) get enough rest. A career should be way down there in importance. I hear from many young mothers of babies that they hardly have time to even go to the bathroom. How can you have time to blog and quilt? From my experience, I’d especially recommend not blogging, unless it brings in enough money for you to pay someone else to do the housekeeping or laundry that you don’t have time to do. I would also recommend not blogging if you ever find yourself, as I did, trying to get your children to behave by yelling at them from another room while you take care of something like answering a comment in your combox. I wish I’d realized how much they need you to be with them and show them how to do what they need to do. If God wants you to use your impressive talents as a writer, He will show you how to do that without shirking any of your other duties and without having meltdowns. Sure it’s hard to give up anything that takes you away from your duties. That’s the Cross for you.
My grandmother had 4 small children in her late teens and early twenties. What helped her stay sane was listening to Fulton J. Sheen. His voice still comes to her mind in the midst of suffering. He says to not waste suffering and to offer it up in reparation for sins.
I think God’s knowledge and wisdom is greater than I could ever imagine. I pray for the mothers and fathers who give thier all to their children. God bless!
Amen, sister! ;)
Roseanne, this is my sixth try at responding to your comment. The truth is I’m so angry I can hardly see straight. You know from personal experience what it’s like to be desperately poor—so poor that it’s hard to buy the bare necessities for your kids. And yet you assume that any mother who has a part-time job is only working out of self-indulgence, or to further her career? Why would you make an assumption like that? If you’ve been poor, how did it not cross your mind that maybe she’s working in order to provide those necessities for her children—and that as high a priority as rest and laundry are, there may be some priorities that are even higher, like food and heat for the winter (not to mention mittens)? Tell me I’ve misunderstood, because I’ve never heard anything so mean in my life.
Abby, I didn’t read what you did in Roseanne’s comment. It sounded more like “your vocation is most important, not your career” which is very different from “how dare you have a job to provide for your children.” If anything it would affirm that sometimes it is necessary to have a job to provide for your children.
I come at this as a child of a single mother who went to school full time and held down several jobs to provide for us. I still admire how much she went through to take care of us, but thinking about it as an adult it was “so we would have a better future” which never really came. By the time my mom had enough education to get a good job I was away at college and now she cannot get a job due to the market. We don’t know what the future will hold. Even as a child I recognized that my mother was not happy and was very stressed with all she was trying to keep accomplished. I took Roseanne’s post as more of a “don’t get so caught up in the career that you miss on who you are doing it for.”
Roseanne Sullivan ,
Were your comments directed at the author of this blog? I’m kind of assuming that NCR compensates her in some way for her contributions.Sounds like a great way for a mom to help support her family.
Well done, Simcha! I always love reading your posts, but this one is special to me, because I needed it so.
I make excuses for not getting up and praying daily. I have a small child and one on the way, and the laundry, dishes, etc. are endlesssssss… It is so easy to say this isn’t me, that I’ll be a better me and a better mom in a few years when I have it “all figured out.” But there will always be challenges, so I need to learn to work around them and MAKE time for prayer.
This post also reminds me of what a priest told me one time in confession when I was confessing *again* that I wasn’t making enough time for prayer. He told me to start small, do what I could, work up from there, yadda yadda yadda. All the good advice, and I’m so glad I didn’t tune out after that. Because then he said, “Even praying a simple, ‘Jesus help me’ or ‘Jesus I trust in You’ is a prayer, it’s like a dart right to the sacred heart of Jesus.” That has stuck with me, so when I’m drowning in this life, I think of that, and even though it is a small offering, I can offer it up. And it gets a little better every day, as long as I remember to actually DO it.
Thank you for this post. I had lost sight of it, but now it’s back in focus for me again. Even the little prayers mean something…
I didn’t read all of the comments, so I apologize if someone has already said this. St. Therese, the Little Flower, said that “weather and illness do not make us what we are; they show us what we are”. (I hope I got the wording right, as I’m writing it from memory). “Real life” shows us that we are weak mortals who depend on the good God. :)
The Kitchen Prayer (posted on my kitchen wall for years, came from my mom)
Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I’ve not time to be
A Saint by doing lovely things or watching late with Thee
Or dreaming in the dawn light or storming Heaven’s gates,
Make me a Saint by getting meals and washing up the plates.
Although I have a Martha’s hands, I have a Mary mind;
And when I black the boots and shoes, Thy sandals, Lord, I find.
I think of how they trod the earth, what time I scrub the floor.
Accept this meditation, Lord, I haven’t time for more.
Warm all the kitchen with Thy Love, and light it with Thy Peace,
Forgive me all my worrying and make my grumbling cease.
Thou who didst love to give men food, in room or by the sea,
Accept this service that I do. I do it unto Thee.
Amen.
In case you would study Buddhism, you would find the basic principle of Buddha’s teaching:
- There is a suffering (anxiety, dissatisfaction)
- There is the origin of suffering
- There is the cessation of suffering
- There is the path leading to the cessation of suffering
It is great to follow the christianity path, as it also leads to end of suffering, if one understands that the root cause of all of this is ignorance of the real nature of all existence.
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