Life has been getting me down more often than not lately, but I've been doing a lot of much needed reading and reflection. (I recently re-read St. Therese's
Story of a Soul, and for Advent I am re-reading
Consoling the Heart of Jesus by Father Michael Gaitley . I *highly* recommend them both!)
The last two weeks have just not been good, and I needed a new one. I was so thankful as I walked to work in the angry, gusting wind this Monday morning that it was a new day and a new week and I could start fresh. And that even though it was mid-December I only needed a light jacket!
The first thing I saw when I got to the coffee bar was a note from an old co-worker and dear friend, who must have visited the store the night before and couldn't leave without leaving her love. As is her way. I was so warm and light inside knowing that even though the time and place are gone for good, there is still so much love in the club.
The morning was going smoothly until my first customer rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, I know that I should know better than to let half-sleeping people get to me so early in the day, but it happens. And it stirred up feelings of frustration and anger at how rude, inconsiderate, and thoughtless people can be.
I prayed, "Lord, how am I supposed to love this? This behavior hurts my pride. It's inhumane. How do I just smile and not let this get to me? Surely you don't want me to simply ignore this injustice?"
Jesus' face came to mind, sweaty and bloody as he hung on the cross. He tried to answer me with his voice but all he could do in his pain was gasp for breath, and then I didn't need an answer--grace intervened to make it clear: He is in pain too. And there's something I can do about it.
As a kid in a Catholic home, I very often heard the phrase, "offer it up" when life's injustice's hurt me. All that meant to me as a kid though, was that I should "suck it up" because my problems weren't real problems in the grand scheme of things.
What it really means to "offer it up," is to offer up my pain--of inconsideration, of other people's ignorance, of humiliation, of biting back snarky replies, of silencing my complaints, of keeping my gossipy observations to myself--
in union with Jesus' pain--of his passion, of rejection, of betrayal, of sin.
It's the same as sitting with a friend when they are hurting. You can't take away their pain, but you can sit with them and console them to help lighten their load.
When we offer up our suffering in union with Christ's, these sacrifices made in love, console Him. This opens His Heart and allows the rays of His Love and Mercy to shine through us.
As St. Therese said, "To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul." It's these little acts that, done with the eyes of our hearts fixed on Jesus, become acts of love and make all the difference.
So at work, I displayed cookies with love, and brewed coffee with love, and cleaned up sweet, sticky messes with love, and listened patiently to things that I had less than zero interest in with love. Another customer annoyed me and I took a moment to breathe in my frustration, prayed that Jesus transform it, and breathed out His Mercy with love.
Feeling full of love, I drank my coffee like I did in the old days before I gave up (*read as: tried to give up) dairy: in a ceramic mug with some good old whole milk. My hope was that even though it might upset my stomach, the vitamin D in the milk might help make up for my current state of D-deficiency due to lack of sunshine.
It was delicious, but the fact remains that I am highly dependent on the sunshine for my happiness. (Note, "happiness," not "joy." There's a difference.)
These last few days have been gloomy and overcast, but warmer than usual for December. Saturday felt very much like it did when I was in Seattle last October. I loved Seattle and Portland, and every bit of the Pacific Northwest that I saw. It's gloomy a lot there too, but at least it's near the coast where the ocean is a constant reminder that there is a whole world out there beyond the gloom. Here in Ohio, we're landlocked, and rather than rain clouds, we have whitish, grayish blankets of clouds that cover us for days to the point that I begin to feel claustrophobic.
Anyway, my coffee tasted like sunshine this morning, and after a few hours of rain, the dark lumpy clouds stretched apart just enough so that the light caught our eyes and we looked out the window, barely believing that it could be real, and yet...there..."stupid cloud, move over just a little bit more"...there it was...THE SUN!
Thank You, Jesus. For everything.
