Centered in Christ: On Suffering

I belong to a web based group for women called Blessed Is She (BIS for short). (Catholic and Christian women reading this post: if you're interested in joining go HERE to check it out.)

So, I belong to this group and on the FaceBook page the women post prayer requests. There are so many people out there struggling with so many facets of life.

Suffering...

It's all around us. Sick kids, parents in hospice, no job, not a good enough job, mean people that we have to deal with, broken cars, etc., etc., etc.

While I've had my share of suffering, I have to admit that right now, life is pretty good.

Our vehicles run (I have mine back from the body shop where they replaced the front end and radiator after a run-in with a parking lot curb- not mentioning any names.) The kids and I are healthy for the most part, two have lingering coughs from colds last week.

I work with really nice people since I'm a stay-at-home mom and help take care of my dad and babysit the grandchildren every once in a while it's all family and we all love each other.

On my tired days, I sometimes find myself murmuring about one aspect or other of my life that could be different. I honestly have nothing to complain about.

The Your Morning Offering page that comes to my email daily included these two gems today:

"All the science of the Saints is included in these two things: To do, and to suffer. And whoever has done these two things best, has made himself most saintly."

— Saint Francis de Sales

"By accepting the sufferings ‘offered’ by life and allowed by God for our progress and purification, we spare ourselves much harder ones. We need to develop this kind of realism and, once and for all, stop dreaming of a life without suffering or conflict. That is the life of heaven, not earth. We must take up our cross and follow Christ courageously every day; the bitterness of that cross will sooner or later be transformed into sweetness."

— Fr. Jacques Philippe, p. 49 (from his book Interior Freedom)

I spend quite a bit of time in prayer. I find that all this prayer time makes what would be hard suffering for some, not quite as hard for me. I can give it all to God and He takes it and turns it into something beautiful.

My morning routine is 5:15 wake up, breakfast with morning prayer, go to Mass, take the kids to school, go to stay with my dad so my mom can go to Mass, and then the rest of the day is mine to figure out what to do with. Usual mom stuff for the most part.

Well in my weakness, while I was driving home from the school this morning, I just wished that I could go straight home and start on stuff that needed to be done here. I thought about it a bit and showed up as usual to stay with my dad.

I had a crossword puzzle with me and my phone so I could Scrabble with friends meaning there was no lack of entertainment. There was hot chocolate available and all the food in the house was at hand. Then it hit me, this is a tiny suffering for me. Then this move clip popped into my head: