Pause & Pray

 

I saw an interesting billboard the other day. It was one of those new fangled digital ones where the message doesn’t stay there for more than ten seconds.  It said, "Pause & Pray" and then the picture changed I couldn't see what it was telling us to pause and pray for.  But then I thought it really didn't matter what I paused and prayed for as long as I did it!

There are a lot of things to pause and pray for today as I write this. Horrific tornadoes swept through our part of the country four days ago leaving death and destruction for over two hundred miles.  I realize my husband and I have been pausing and praying each evening as we watch the reports on the news. Seeing the destruction just breaks my heart and we hold each other's hands and pray for all the families affected by these storms and realize how narrowly we missed experiencing them by only a few miles.

So I thought what an excellent message for a billboard by a busy intersection that way.  While you sit at the red light, why not pray? It beats loosing your patience waiting in line or worrying about getting hit by a red light runner.

I was talking with my life mentor last Saturday, also known as the pastor in the confessional, discussing my failure at curbing my temper among other things. I told him my biggest temptation was while I was driving. Honest to goodness if I could just jump up and fly like a bird to my next destination I swear I wouldn't lose my temper, patience or freak out in anxious worry about the driving conditions I meet each and every day.  He correctly pinned my problem on fear.  I am fearful while I drive because I worry about my family and friends out driving among some really selfish souls who are oblivious to other drivers.   I am by no means a perfect driver myself but my goodness I think I remember most of the rules of the road like not running a red light, signaling for quick turns and not racing around the side of another vehicle because you can't wait your turn.

After talking with Father I began brainstorming on ideas to help me stay calm while drive.  So after seeing the billboard today I got the idea to make myself a hang tag for my car.  I'm going to try it out and see if it helps!  If it does the rest of my family may get one and maybe, just maybe, instead of getting mad while sitting in my car, I'll just wave at my car neighbor, roll down my window and pass along a hangtag for them too!

When Life is Gone With the Wind!

 

I work in our parish office.  Every week I not only collect information, calendars and schedules for the bulletin, but I write it, print it and transport it via  a cardboard box on a rolling cart over to Church to be given out for the weekend.   I’ve had this job for over thirteen years. I’ve carried them over in rain or shine, and cold or hot.   When it rains, I cover the box with an umbrella or better yet a clean garbage bag. But there is something about windy days that causes me to lose all my common sense.

               

                 Windy days are the bane of my existence.  While I love the gentle breeze, the rising winds before a storm rolls in, and even the gale force breezes off the ocean while sitting on the beach, a plain ole windy day in Southeast Missouri drives me to insanity especially when it comes to carting my bulletins to the church. I think it has something to do with the subtle way Mother Nature does it. She thinks it’s funny to watch me as I look out the office door, see nothing going on in the weather, take my cart of bulletins and begin my journey down the ramp from the office building, blithely on my way and she makes all heck breaks loose with a wind gust.   If I haven’t remembered to secure my kite-like cargo, it’s off fluttering away and I’m making a mad dash doing a re-enactment of some old episode of “I Love Lucy”.   Bulletins are flying everywhere; inserts inside the bulletins are coming apart and sticking to the ground,  and try as I might, I can’t keep a hand on the remaining bulletins in the box and catch all the ones in the air or pick up the ones fluttering on the ground.

               

                And do you want to know the really sad part?  This has not happened to me only once. I’ve fallen for this misadventure on several occasions.  What am I thinking?  The voice inside my head says “Place a cover on the box before leaving the building, Lisa."  But instead the voice remains ignored as I march down the ramp fooled by the sun shining brightly on a cloudless day.   

 

                Kind of like when we ignore God calling.  We let ourselves get distracted by worry and anxiety. We stop listening to God who is trying to guide us away from the path to sin.  Do we listen? Nope, we're right back in the sin-cycle. The temptation to do things on our own gets stronger as we take that other path and listen to ourselves instead of God. We follow that bright shiny temptation into darkness  and find ourselves wallowing in our sins, trying desperately to find our way back to our loving God.  If only we had listened to that little voice in our heart.

               

                 So once again, it’s a beautiful looking day as I head outside with my cart, and it's cold too, only it’s fifteen degrees as I roll my cart down the ramp and wham, the wind hits it and in an instant the air was full of whirling papers and  this time is the worst ever!  Bulletins begin flapping through the air flying across the street, down the alley, all over the playground and into the next block. I run inside my office and yell for help.  Co-workers come running and it takes us twenty  minutes to retrieve the bulletins back to the safety of my box.

               

                My fingers are beet red from the cold, my fingernails broken from scratching up paper from concrete.  I was exhausted!  All my co-workers could do, beside laugh at me, was say, "Have you STILL not learned this lesson, Lisa?"

                "No," I shake my head disgusted with myself.

 

                I think to myself, does God shake His head at me too when I'm back in the confessional with the same sins?   I wonder if I'll ever get it right, both covering my bulletins and not committing the same sins over and over. But my faith convinces me that God does not chide me on my repeated sins.   He will always forgive us when we ask Him.  And my co-workers, family and friends also forgive my short-comings.  They pat me on the back and tell me at least I was spreading the Good News and it was gone like the wind.  And then after hearing my story later in the week,  my father-in-law presents me with a heavy brick of wood to cover my bulletins in the box.  The wood block is inscribed, "Lisa's wind-tamer."   Thank you, Lord for your forgiveness and for my family, friends and co-workers.  They remind me of your love and mercy.

 

 

Out of the Mouths...

I'm a grandma now, but it doesn't seem that long ago that my own kids were little and uttering loads of wise comments in the backseat of the car.   When my youngest daughter was only three I would take her to Mass during the week.  We sat in the back and watched all the school kids including her older brother and sister come into church.  One day during the singing of the Holy, Holy, I heard her singing her heart out, "holy lasagna…"  Oh my goodness.

Now that youngest daughter has her own two daughters, ages four and two, and the signs of wisdom didn't stop with my daughter.  These two beautiful girls  have a habit of not passing by a statue of the Blessed Mother without giving her a kiss.  Nothing doing,  Frankie, the oldest always has to climb up on a bench to give Mary a kiss when we pass by the four foot statue in the window in our church narthex.  And of course, Ellie, the two year old, mimicking her older sister, needs help climbing up the bench to also kiss the feet of Mary.  Neither their mom or grammy taught them to do that, they just decided it was the thing to do.

Last Christmas the parish had the Nativity scene set up with really beautiful almost life size figurines of Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and of course shepherds. Frankie knelt down next to Mary and gave her a hug and then leaned over to kiss Baby Jesus.  Yup, Grammy had tears in her eyes.   It is so beautiful to see them acting on their childlike faith. 

My daughter told me the other night she was getting them ready for bath time.   They've been watching a variety of movies for the last several months, old ones that their mother grew up watching, 101 Dalmatians,  Mary Poppins and just recently, the Disney cartoon of Robin Hood.  Frankie has gotten fixated on the Robin Hood tale and goes to bed at night talking to Robin Hood and planning adventures, and as they headed for the bathtub she suddenly shouted out, "let's get clean for Jesus, Robin Hood and Little John!" It made me want to hang a sign near the church confessional, "Let's get clean for Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit!

As earthly families, we often don't realize how we 'evangelize' to our own families. It was always natural for me to point out Jesus on the cross at Mass and during the consecration point to the host and chalice and say that was Jesus.  I didn't make a big deal out of explaining why it looked like bread, I just said it was Jesus.  We naturally said prayers at meal times, bedtimes and prayed for family members.  Every picture or statue of the Holy Family was commented on when we passed it.  

My daughter does that now too and I love to hear my granddaughter make comments like, "Mary was sad when Jesus died," or "I love Mary and she loves me too!"  It sounds so natural coming from her.  But her mom is doing what I did too, just making comments on spiritual things like you would on beautiful flowers or the clouds in the sky.  Sometimes we think too hard about how to explain God to our kids.  God doesn't need explaining. It's when we point out the things  God has made all around us that they learn about Him.

So be sure to listen to your children. And let them hear you talk about God's love for you and for them.  They are listening and learning and helping each other and us get to Heaven!