Last week was a rough week. Really rough. From my safe vantage point of Monday Morning, I wonder what was so difficult about it, and why I couldn't handle it.
Nothing truly dreadful happened all week....Unless you count being pulled in many different directions by kids who need to "go here" and "do that".... Or The Slipcover from H. E. Double Hockeysticks which went wrong every. single. time. I worked on it. I might get a few inches of a good seam, but the very next seam would have to be ripped out. Aaargh.....Or there was my son going back to college yesterday....Or the 5th anniversary of Mom's death yesterday. And I don't count any of those as particularly dreadful, but the combination was a veritable Perfect Storm.
My sweet husband did what he could to make me feel better, offering me choices of goodies or getaways to make me happy, but nothing held any appeal, because I knew that it was all in my head, and I just needed to get through it. Get past it, and it would be better. You know that saying, "If God brings you to it, He'll bring you through it"? It sounds kind of trite, especially when you see it on FB, but in the darkness that pervaded last week, that was all I could hold on to.
All I could do last week was pray. On my worst day, Thursday, I begged extra prayers from friends. Friday was better, and Saturday was better still. I think I was back to normal yesterday, even though you'd expect that day to have been the hardest.
The Chair and the Lord were with me all week. It seems as if all the difficulties I had emotionally were reflected in the problems I had with the slipcover. I would work on it a little every day, dreading it, but facing it with renewed determination every day, only to make very little progress, yet feel utterly defeated. I went for extra-long walks with the dog, so I could pray the rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours, or just listen to L'Angelus, which usually cheers me up, all the while just knowing that God was the only true constant. That He was with me and He was all I needed. He wouldn't sew the slipcover for me, or give me back my mother, or stop my children from growing up, but He would be there at my side.
The Chair and the Lord were with me all week. It seems as if all the difficulties I had emotionally were reflected in the problems I had with the slipcover. I would work on it a little every day, dreading it, but facing it with renewed determination every day, only to make very little progress, yet feel utterly defeated. I went for extra-long walks with the dog, so I could pray the rosary or the Liturgy of the Hours, or just listen to L'Angelus, which usually cheers me up, all the while just knowing that God was the only true constant. That He was with me and He was all I needed. He wouldn't sew the slipcover for me, or give me back my mother, or stop my children from growing up, but He would be there at my side.
The Chair, with its frustrating slipcover, is finally finished. It's not perfect; it's not beautiful, but it's done. Like last week. And right there on the sidebar =====>
is the prayer from St. Teresa of Avila which should be my theme for the year.
God is enough.
God IS enough, but pain is pain and we still have to live through it. I think a lot of people are having a hard time right now. We turn to God, which means eventually we will make it through our hard time. That doesn't mean it will be less hard. It just means we don't give up. We don't turn on God.
ReplyDelete"May nothing disturb you" means there are many things that could.
I often think we complicate our lives ourselves. I am striving for simplicity. Come with me.
I was reading some of St. John of the Cross writing, St. Teresa's contemporary. Look at how different his perspective is: "Do the most difficult, the harshest, the less pleasant, the unconsoling, the lowest and most despised, want nothing, look for the worst."