A Quiet Morning with Play Dough

It brings me unspeakable joy to see my children beginning to play together. Amaryn is 15 months old and getting to the age of being able to play and pretend with her big sis. To see them having fun is gift enough, but it is also a gift to see them putting into practice sharing, cooperation, communication, kindness, self-control and love. Even when their play ends in tears, frustration, selfishness, and the like, which it often does, it provides an opportunity for apologizing and forgiveness. I think family life in general provides ample opportunities for practicing the Christian life!

This morning their play involved play dough and the quietness of the morning. Both kids are rested and so their interactions are friendly and patient. No one else is awake (my parents are visiting from California, and Jason is on vacation from work), and so I was able to take a few moments to sit on the couch and simply watch them. I really do enjoy and appreciate the rustle and bustle of a house with children, but my appreciation for quiet has grown tremendously as well!

Watching them play together from under my heating blanket on the couch. :)

Teá and her play dough creation.

The Tedium of Daily Life

There are two very basic facts about the spiritual life that are true for every Christian. First, we are all called to be saints, and second, saints are made in the tedium of daily life. Even the martyrs were made in their daily struggles. The virtues cultivated in their daily lives enabled them to be heroic in the hour of martyrdom.

~Stacy Mitch, Courageous Virtue: A Bibly Study on Moral Excellence for Women~

I'm often most challenged by the smallest of duties throughout my day. The moments unseen by the majority, except maybe those closest to me, yet seen always by God. Sometimes I forget those moments count, and they count a lot.

Over the years I'm realizing more and more how valuable and precious those moments truly are. In fact, the name of this blog is inspired greatly by that notion of how important those smallest of duties and moments of our days really are. For certainly, if we are faithful in those things, we are faithful in much.

In practice though, it is much less appealing and much more tiring. Personally my daily life tends to be monotonous. It's the same thing everyday. It isn't too difficult per se, most anyone can be a mom, cook, and clean, yet nevertheless it requires great effort and can be horribly draining. I struggle with impatience. It's tedious and mundane. I don't want to be misunderstood, my day is also filled with more love and joy than I could have ever possibly imagined. I get to be at home with my children, and that's the best kind of routine I can think of, yet still the days can be long, loud, and certainly with a lack of grandeur. My daily offerings seem small. 

Yet, is any offering really that small? The size of the offering isn't what God cares about, He cares about it only in reference to ourselves and our hearts and our own abilities. In fact, the best offering I can give God in a day is to remain faithful in the small duties He has given me. For our days are filled with those little tasks, and all of a sudden, we've offered God our entire day. 

As I cooperate with God and work on not only completing my tasks, but doing so with love, joy, patience, self control, mercy, grace, steadfastness, confidence in God, strength found in God, trust, hope, selflessness, etc, it becomes clear that God is using those tasks to make me more holy and like Himself. There are many opportunities to grow and love within a single day. Those opportunities are sometimes easily missed because they can seem so much a part of the routine of our daily lives, yet they are so very important! 

Our lives for the most part are made up of little things, and by these our character is to be tested...Little duties carefully discharged, little temptations earnestly resisted with the strength God supplies, little sins crucified; these all together help to form that character which is to be described not as popular or glamorous, but as moral and noble. 

~Fulton J. Sheen~

I repeat, it is necessary that your foundation consist of more than prayer and contemplation. If you do not strive for the virtues and practice them, you will always be dwarfs. And, please God, it will be only a matter of not growing, for you already know that whoever does not increase decreases. I hold that love, where present, cannot possibly be content with remaining always the same.

~Saint Teresa of Avila~

Confession: Days Like Today

When it comes to my daily, spiritual life, sometimes I feel so on-fire, encouraged, challenged, excited...and sometimes I just don't. Today has been mostly one of those days where I don't feel any of those things. Today I see the worst in me, and I mean the worst. Confession: I can be short tempered. Sometimes, it only takes minuscule annoyances that seem so much worse in the moment and that set me off into a stressed out wreck of frustration and anger. I become sour and sarcastic. I huff and glare. My body language sends one message: Watch out. Whether it's the refrigerator door that doesn't close all the way, the toy I step on with my bare feet, or the lamp cord in my path while vacuuming, my wrath is released. I slam the door, I throw the toy, I want to throw the lamp out the window but thankfully don't...it's embarrassing and petty and childish. I know it's bad when my husband can't even be around me while I'm in an angry mood. Lucky for him, he can leave. Ha, if only it were that easy for me. 

It's a struggle I have always had and I really don't like it about myself. I want to be patient, kind, self-controlled, and slow to anger. I pray daily for Gods grace and for the Holy Spirit to work in me and give me whatever is necessary for that change to happen. As much as I wish it could happen with the snapping of fingers, I'm beginning to catch on that that isn't how things work. I need to work at it (while relying on the grace of God). Of course, I've been working on it for years now, but I can't let that keep me from pressing on. A quick-fix-it kind of solution wouldn't produce in me what God wants to produce in me. I need endurance. 

"Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance, proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us."

~Romans 5:3-5~

"You need endurance to do the will of God and receive what he has promised."

~Hebrews 10:36~

"For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love. If these are yours and increase in abundance, they will keep you from being idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

~2 Peter 1:6-8~

It's so hard, but it's meant to be. I can so easily get frustrated at myself for becoming so easily frustrated at everything else, but I must keep on. It's tempting and easier to allow myself to get down and more upset and begin hating myself, but those thoughts are not of God. I must deny my ugly, short-fused, irritable self and replace it with patience, self-control, and love. It takes practice and a lot of it at that. Thankfully, I seem to have plenty of opportunity to practice it, especially on days like today.

Lord, have mercy.