This day was so crazy! Beginning with an urgent need in the morning for prayer of a dear friend. This friend has been struck with a loss that I can’t even fathom to understand (and hope that as I live on this earth that I never have to) and she needed prayer over her to calm down this heightened since of ‘spiritual attack’…as I prayed and began to hear her calm she suddenly asked me, “Who needs my prayer?” She startled me with her question and I just spoke the first person that came to mind (which, in all truth is more the Holy Spirit giving the name). She then asked why this friend might need prayer and I gave her the first reason, that again, came to mind. “Oh yes,” she said. “Yes, I need to offer this suffering and this attack for her pain and suffering. Yes, this helps me so much,” she said.
I immediately went to Mass after that phone call and lifted BOTH of them up to God, specifically during the consecration of the Eucharist. I was in awe of my friend who, during a specific time of her own valid need of personal prayer that she took that and chose to offer it up for someone else’s suffering. I am in no way trying to lift her up as ‘better than’ others because if I know her well enough she’ll read this and be mortified at such a thought…but I will say she impressed upon me a new taste of God’s love.
I was merely a thread between the two women and yet I might have been the most affected. I could not continue my day and not want to show others the same kind of love, compassion and mercy. Throughout the day I was called upon to instantly walk away from the pile of work at my office to take care of someone else’s need and not once did I get irritated.
When I picked my kids up from school had a melt down in the hallway, taking off his brand new back pack, throwing it down on the floor, shoving his fists down by his side, saying, “I can not use this backpack. It is horrible. It is not big enough and I’m sick of it!” Stunned for the second time today, it took me a brief millisecond before I reacted to my grown, pre-teen son, acting like a belligerent 2 year old. “Pick up your back pack and walk out that door without saying another word.” I said this threw clenched teeth, trying desperately to not yell at my son among the teachers and students that were beginning to file into the hall.
Once outside he kept going, “I can’t believe you let me buy this back pack. It is no good! It just won’t work. You have to buy me a new one!” 🙁 Um…I’m sure all of you moms out there can only imagine what I wanted to do by this point…but I held my cool till we got into the car.
Did you get that I said, “until”? 😉
Once in the privacy of our vehicle I unleashed the MOTHER of all MOTHERS upon my wonderful oh so hormonal pre-teen child/man. I made sure he understood that he is not to speak to me in that tone of voice, or to blame me for the mistake he made by choosing that backpack! I repeated that a few times… his mistake…his choice. Once I was done I turned up the music and tried to calm down.
Finally, once I knew I could try to speak without flying off the handle, I asked him what the ‘real’ issue was. His answer… STRESS. He is just (now picture this, he is waving his hands, uptight and just oh so dramatic) stressed.
“What are you stressed about,” I asked calmly trying desperately not to role my eyes.
“This backpack! It cut off my oxygen and it just stresses me out!”
Okay, well I won’t bore you with the rest of this exchange but I was very proud of myself for listening calmly, telling him I did understand that he was stressed and that all of our levels of stress are different but valid to each one of us and that next time if he could take a deep breath and try to talk to me about what is causing him this stress that I might be able to help him find a solution.
And that we did. Seth was more than happy to trade backpacks with him…Seth loves his ‘new’ backpack because it’s ‘cool’ and Ryan is happy because now his ‘new’ backpack holds all of his books.
*sigh*… if life could be so easy to relieve stress!!!
Funny thing, as they were figuring out their stress relief I was tensing as I saw the many demands that were not yet met here at home (dinner, laundry, bills, etc etc)…but I thought about what I had said to my son, I began to take it one thing at a time, and before I knew it Seth was asking to help me with dinner. It was just tacos…and do you know that he ended up MAKING dinner for me?? Everything is caught up. No more stress (well, ha, who am I kidding, BILLS will always cause stress!).
You know what, I offer all of this up to all of you. I’ll take on this chaotic, crazy day and hopefully take it on for you so that maybe you can have one day this week that is peaceful and without stress. 🙂
My pleasure.
Blessings
Shannon