Fast
Remember the first time you had a moment alone with your first child. What did you promise him? Do that. Be that.
Pray
Begin a gratitude journal. At the end of the day, jot down five things for which you are grateful. Think upon these things.
Give
We can only expect what we inspect. For every task you assign today, follow through and before it's truly finished, esure that there is praise from you.
Fast
If it doesn't build you up and strengthen you in your vocation, why read it, why listen to it, why do it, why bother?
Pray
Remember that work can be prayer, too. Give God your most gruesome tak today. Do it with diligence and love.
Give
Think of the kind of person your husband was when you were dating. Love and serve that person today.
Every so often, I get reader comments or email that sound something like this, "I love your blog, but I hate it. I just can't read it any more. You have a better [husband, house, child, job, not job, town, health] than me. I read your blog and it makes me feel bad about myself and my life." That last one gets me every time. Health? Really?
At first, those comments made me feel guilty and I worked to not make anyone feel bad when I wrote about...well, anything, because it turns out everything can be a trigger for somebody. Then, I recognized a couple of things. Try as we may to explain (great explanation here), some folks don't understand that blogging is a snapshot. I document what I want to remember. Sometimes, I do want to remember the bad, particularly if I've slogged through something and survived. I want to give glory to God for the grace of survival. I want to go back and read it and see how I grew and reassure myself that I can survive. And grow. There are plenty of those stories here.
Mostly, though, I want to remember the good. I want to remind myself that this life is good. I want to take the sticky and the messy and the bits and the pieces and make sense of it all for me. It's in the process of writing and photographing that I bring myself back to center and bring God's gifts into focus. Then, it's only natural to want to share. Gosh, I hate it when my good makes someone else feel bad. Except really, I know that it isn't my good that makes her feel bad, its something within her that needs healing.
Occasionally, the wounded part of me reacts similarly. I know that when I read other places, comparing and competing can lead to complaining. It happens. It happens to all of us. (Seriously, if you've never compared yourself to another woman and felt yourself lacking, please correct me in the comments. I'd love to hear your story.) Mostly, I have my own strategies for not falling into that trap. It doesn't happen very often. I know better now. I avoid certain places particularly when I'm tired or discouraged or hormonal. But every once in awhile, the compare-monster rears its ugly head and I'm just as vulnerable as the next girl. It happened just last week. Read about it here.
Pray:
Blessed Mother, you have been called "Our Lady of the Smile." I want that title, too! Please ask the Holy Spirit on my behalf to remind me to smile as sweetly and kindly as you would.
Act:
In May of 1883, St. Therese of the Child Jesus was a bedridden child who was very ill. She faced a statue of the Blessed Mother that was near her bed and prayed for cure. "Suddenly," Therese writes, "Mary's face radiated kindness and love." Therese was healed and the statue has since been called Our Lady of the Smile. On Mary's face that day was an expression of beauty, bounty, tenderness, and, above all, "a charming and enchanting smile." That smile has become a simple summary of St. Therese's Marian devotion. We are all wounded, all in need of healing. A smile has such a therapeutic effect, both on the person smiling and the person receiving the smile. Challenge yourself to genuinely and tenderly smile early and often every day this week.
The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-filled people pray for one another.
Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.
How about this idea? What if I pop in here every weekend, share Sunday's gospel and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?
{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.}
Gospel
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Think
“I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: "The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness." . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision.”
~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Pray
Jesus, Open my eyes. Help me to recover my sight. To see. Truly see.
Act
Slow down. Look around. And really see.
I'm Elizabeth. I'm a happy wife and the mother of nine children. I grab grace with both hands and write to encourage myself and others to seize and nurture the joy of every day. I blog here with my daughter, Mary Beth, a wholehearted young lady on the brink of adulthood.
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