Life Interupted

I struggle with perfection and inflexibility. I want my house to be neat and clean (I crave this). I feel that if my house is in order, homeschool is planned, play dates and schedule is set, the laundry is done, food is in the house, toys are put away, and everything is clean, that I have it all together. This list of requirements I just laid out happens about 10 days a month and then the proverbial wheels fall off (I'm tired, kids get sick, I get sick, something breaks, snow drops in Florida)and I'm left in the muck of a life interrupted. But is it really interrupted? I think not.

C.S. Lewis was a brilliant, creative, and holy man. I loved his books as a child and I love reading them to my children.

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s “own,” or “real” life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s “real life” is a phantom of one’s own imagination.

- C.S. Lewis

 

Life interrupted is our real life. This quote hits home for me. I want to dance in the middle of my plans and what life is presenting to me, just as my girls find a place in between mine and my husband's legs when we are dancing in the kitchen. I want to feel the love they soak up in our embrace. The embrace between my plans and my life interrupted is "real life." That is the real life I am not living. With me it's all or nothing. When my life is interrupted I chuck the plans. I'm so mad that my plan is not going to happen that I'm unable to function and give up. I just need to dance. 1, 2, 3... 1, 2, 3 I start again, I begin to twirl, and soon I'm dancing in the middle of my "real life."

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I Want More

I want more....and I always have and I believe I always will. What is this "more" that we speak of and long for in the deepest recesses of our heart? When I was a child, I always wanted more things, more clothes, more shoes, more material things, but those material desires have transformed into a hunger for "spiritual things." I keep taking a good look inside that deep dark place we see when we quiet our minds in meditation or prayer and I keep finding "stockpiles" of old habits, old desires, old fears. I keep tossing them out by the boatload and when they threaten to overcome me....God takes my face and gently turns it to Him and the light. He bathes me in his warm and loving embrace and gives me a vision of who I might become. With this vision in hand I return to the shore of my life and begin to make the changes and "Katy bar the door" if anyone gets in my way.

I often go back to the Beatitudes for inspiration and the one that has stuck in my head this year is "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." [Mathew 5:8 KJV] So this "more" that I want is to see God. First, I need to give Him the space to make my heart pure and try not to get in his way too much. We like to do that don't we--get in our own way? I see a vision of what my life could be....the kind of person I could be....and then I question immediately--oh yeah right, how am I going to do that? If it was just me doing it then I'd be in a heap of trouble, but lucky for me I have help that is greater than me.

I heard recently at our daily mass the story of the leper that begged Jesus to heal him. I like the words that are used in this translation.

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can heal me.” Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made well.” [Mark 1:40]

The word "choose" stirs something deep within me. I put myself in the place of the leper and kneeling before Him I say those words "If you choose, you can heal me." And once He cleans our heart and makes it pure we can reach out our hand to another and "choose" to help them. We want more...the leper wanted more...we all want more...be sure that you take a good look at what it is that you actually want. What are you really longing for?

 

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