Over the weekend, my son was invited to enjoy the afternoon
and spend the night with his cousin.
When he returned the next day, he shared about all the fun activities
and yummy food that they enjoyed, and I was happy he had a good time with his
relatives. That is, until he hinted that he would prefer living at their house,
with them, over our home, and us.
Ouch. Now, before you might think
badly of my son, know that his Control Freak of a mother encouraged him to be open
with his feelings. I knew as I was
asking him that I was also asking for trouble, and for a quick wounding of my
ego. Sure enough, even though I
understood what he was saying and why he was saying it, I wanted to rescue my
pride. I wanted to (and did, to some
degree) rationalize to myself and to him why their home environment might
appear to be better, but that the grass wasn’t necessarily greener.
The truth, though, was that I had been praying for more
peace and joy in our home for a long while.
The noise and chaos drives me crazy, and because I am so darn
responsible, all the activities and school projects stress me out. I am so overwhelmed that my temper is short and
often times I unfairly lash out at my son.
OR hold too high of expectations.
OR micro-manage his schoolwork.
OR nag him about how inefficiently he does his chores. Of course he enjoyed the laid back
personalities of his aunt and uncle!
Yes, I can rationalize to myself that they might have been trying their
best to make sure he enjoyed himself, but perhaps not. Perhaps they are like that all the
time. It doesn’t really matter, because
if I stand in truth, I know God is asking me to allow more of HIM and His joy
in our home. I must beg Blessed Mother,
Queen of Peace, to reign in our home.
Now, in my mind I want to be strong and organized, while
remaining gentle and loving and present to my loved ones. But according to my track record and my
awareness of my personality, this doesn’t work. I am always so tempted to rely on my own strength (which is
non-existent) rather than allow the One to live in me and through me.
So as we celebrate this third Sunday of Advent, I am
reminded of the pink candle – JOY!
Christian faith most fully expresses itself in the joy of discovering the
personal love of God, which you can depend on and to which you can entrust
yourself. Faith experienced in this way
eradicates the attitude of the dramatic fatalism toward one’s own evil, which
our contrition can change into a “happy fault.” Christian joy flowing from faith is like a stream of God’s
love. It is faith that tells you to
smile at God, to be joyful in His love.
Then you should look at yourself, whom you take much too seriously, from
a certain distance and with a humorous perspective. The virtue of humor lets you defeat the poison of sadness with
which Satan tries to permeate your soul.
This virtue of humor causes you to stop worrying about yourself and
allows you to live a life of joy flowing from faith. (Tadeusz Dajzcer, The
Gift of Faith, 3rd ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: IAMF, 2012), 99-100).
So if I read that right, I can ask Blessed Mother to
be contrite with me and for me, and allow her to rescue me from my sadness over
my temper with my children. I will not
be a perfect mother, but I can bless my children by being a channel of grace
and of the pure love of their Heavenly Mother by allowing her to carry me. I can trust that God, in His infinite
wisdom, has paired my soul with the particular souls of each of my children for
our greatest good. Yes, this is reason
for joy. The fact that I am being
reminded over and over how very much God loves me as I am is
cause for great joy. So I am grateful
for the conversation with my son, as it allowed me to stand in truth and be
reminded of how very much I need God. I
am reminded that I must fall to my knees with empty hands and simply ask for
the grace to respond to His Love (in the arms of Our mother, of course!). 
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