God's gifts are often pocket-sized
Cooperating with grace, not glossing over my blessings, and the simple secrets of happiness
I don’t know if it’s a me thing, a Melancholic Temperament thing, or a human thing, but I’m quick to gloss over my blessings.
I often catch myself keeping a record of all my life’s little wrongs and inconveniences and sacrifices and disappointments and hours of sleep per night.
But God’s gifts are also often pocket-sized. What if I let those add up, instead?
I wake up naturally one Saturday morning—a full two hours later than my weekday alarm—to soft morning sunshine and the smell of waffles and the muffled sounds of family life.
I open the door of my room to start the day, and realize that my husband plugged in a box fan in the hallway to help me sleep in.
I get to read aloud a beautiful new picture book all snuggled up on the couch with my third grader, and nobody interrupts us. He lets me do silly voices and semi-passable British accents.
I finally finish a book I’ve been trying to read in tiny pockets of time for weeks. My heart is full of the happy ending—but overflows when I see the next book in the series happens to be (yes!) available at the library.
On an early morning walk, I spot two does and a tiny fawn migrating to their daytime home in the woods at the end of our cul-de-sac.
I am able to take a long lunch break at work and join my mom, dad, and grandfather for lunch after they take him to a doctor’s appointment. I can’t remember the last time I had such a nice conversation with my grandfather.
I bring a picnic blanket out to the backyard on a cool, magically-mosquito-free fall afternoon, and lay down for a few minutes. One of my little boys comes out, and without a word lays down to snuggle next to me.
Through the living room window, I spot my 15-year-old son taking his baby brother for a ride on his new electric scooter. They are the sweetest pair.
There is one tree on my street that burns a gorgeous bright gold in the fall, a queen among the muted, muddy autumn colors of Louisiana foliage on the rest of the street.
After a chaotic evening, one of the kids shares a prayer intention during family prayer that makes tears of surprise and gratitude and affirmation and joy sting my eyes. I look across the room at Michael, and he is looking at me with wet eyes too.
My little first grader colors on one of the kid doodling cards in the pew at Mass. I watch as he folds it into a tiny rectangle, tucks it carefully into an offering envelope, and slides it surreptitiously down the pew towards me, eyes shining with pride. I open it, and it reads, “I LOVE MOM.”
When I get home from work, I scoop up my toddler and he takes my face in his hands, gives me a “forehead kiss,” and then does a light little love-pinch of my nose—just like I do to him.
My thirteen-year-old daughter asks me to read a poem she’s written, and I choke up with wonder at her beautiful way with words, her purity, her good heartedness.
I crack up laughing with the same thirteen year old over an inside joke that’s just between the two of us. The laughter finally breaks the tension lingering from a discipline moment the day before.
My fifteen-year-old son walks into the kitchen when I’m having a hard time one evening. He quietly grabs the dustpan to clean up a mess a younger sibling made.
I read a gorgeous poem in the latest email edition of our south Louisiana Catholic arts and culture magazine. The beautiful words are rich and beautifully crafted and feel like a kind of food for my soul.
I get an email from one of the children’s teachers; she just wants to tell me what a gift that my child is in her classroom, and how she is often a leader in goodness for others.
I hear giggles as one of my daughters tiptoes dramatically into my toddler’s bedroom to wake him up for the day. She is cooing the same thing (in the same sing-song voice) that I always do: “I heard a baby waking up in here!”
I often allow self-pity and self-reliance—my old enemies—prevent me from receiving the gifts of the present.
That precious “I LOVE MOM” card at Mass turns into, “His handwriting is awful. And weren’t his older siblings able to pay better attention by this age? What am I doing wrong?”
My teenager picks up that dust pan without being asked, and I immediately think, “Well at least somebody is noticing that I’m the only one doing a thing around here today!”
That cool, fresh air on my morning walk turns into grumpy thoughts about how the weather will be hot again by lunchtime, and isn’t that just like Louisiana…ugh.
I may be working on this my whole life long—choosing my thoughts about my daily life.
But God. But Christ in me—in the Eucharist, in my Baptism and in my Confirmation and in the grace of confession after confession after confession, year after year.
Elisabeth Elliot has a great quote that sums up one of the greatest secrets of happiness, one I go back to over and over: The secret is Christ in me—not me in a different set of circumstances.”
“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”
- St. Francis of Assisi
I pray for the grace to discover the true abundance of my life, day in and day out.
I pray for the grace to catch myself when I fall into negativity.
I pray that I would grow in the spiritual and mental skills of letting all the little sparks of joy, quiet pleasures, and holy moments of each day add up in my heart, mind and soul.
I pray that He would help to accept whatever each day brings with complete trust in His goodness.
I pray that He would help me to cooperate with His grace and live peacefully within His provision for me in the present moment.
