Everyday Living in Christ is a series of guest posts where we reflect on people’s spiritual desires and struggles as they seek to live Christ more intentionally in their daily life. This post was contributed by Bridget P.
We live in a world where productivity, efficiency, and immediacy are highly valued qualities. Like many things in life, these have a certain value, but they can affect our lives negatively when they are not held in balance with other values like creativity, trust, and spirituality. One of the negative impacts of overemphasizing productivity and efficiency is that we can, even unknowingly, approach relationships and human interactions with a transactional mindset: “I give you something, you give me something.”
This transactional mentality can even seep into our faith life: “I give God my time in prayer, and God gives me a response.” When it feels like God hasn’t given me what I needed or wanted, I may start to wonder if I have done “my” part. Then thoughts like these might take over: “I did things like pray and make sacrifices, and I felt no response, so I must not have done all the things that God expected. Surely after I have done more things, I will get a response.”
This trajectory leads to a dangerous belief that if there is no visible response to prayer, it isn’t because I have not done enough things, but that “I am not enough.”
You Are Aways Enough
You need to know this: you “not being enough” or “doing enough” is never the case. God loves you immensely. Sometimes, God is just quiet. He may keep still not to punish you or to teach you a lesson, but to invite you deeper into his love. You were made for this love out of love.
Often, our first experience of love is in our family. Although unconditional love on the part of parents for their children would be amazing, we know that we all are frail and fragile. At times, we are even hurting. By loving, by giving as much love as we can, as well as we can at the moment, we actually grow in the capacity of loving better. Our human love can never be perfect, but love can grow.
The same happens when we begin to take care of our own parents as they age. We now become the caregivers to the ones who used to care for us. This experience challenges us to grow in love in ways that we may have never expected, as we give of our time, resources, and finances. We might even realize that we don’t love enough, that perhaps we haven’t loved our parents the way we wish we had, that our capacity to give to them isn’t as great as we believe they deserve. Remember, and say to yourself often, human love can never be perfect, but love can grow!
God Delights in You
God delights in your love for your family. He sees the sacrifices you make for your spouse, your children, your parents, and those around you. You may not always see or feel this delight that God has in you, but it is there.
There is possibly nothing more sacrificial than being a parent. The act of emptying yourself out for your children, and at times also for your parents, is a participation in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. It is, in fact, Jesus’ gift of himself for us on the cross that shows us the way out of a transactional love. Jesus did not wait until we proved ourselves, changed lives, or promised to love him sufficiently before he gave his life for our salvation. He just loved us and left us free.
Through the sacrifices you are making for those you love, you become more like Christ, and this is a good sign in a relationship. Isn’t it true that when we become close to someone, we pick up their mannerisms? The same happens with us and God. The more you love, even if you feel you aren’t loving “enough,” the more you become like him, and the more you show him to others.
When the stress of parenting becomes a burden too heavy to bear, especially if you are caring for your children and supporting your aging parents, hold this in your heart: God delights in you. If you can, go to a church and spend some time with Jesus in the Eucharist. If you can’t get to a church, you can even find a Eucharistic adoration chapel online. Just rest before Jesus. Look at him on the cross. Receive his love and mercy. Tell him what is in your heart and then listen. He delights in you and your effort to choose love each week, each day, each hour, and each moment. St. Paul prays this prayer for you:
“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21, Revised Standard Version Second Catholic Edition).
Photo by Pixabay
