Life is a challenge, meet it!

January 18, 2021

Do you ever feel like it takes forever to journey through January?  Do you ever just have one of those days where you feel like your energy is zapped and it is only 8am? For me, I do not think this is even related to COVID...January just feels like the longest month!! Where is the sun? Where is the inspiration? 

I decided I needed to go search it out or I would have a miserable day staying in my own head!

I went into the Parent Room (it missed all of you!) and was doing a little sanitizing and saw this picture on the wall. It caught my eye in a new way (since I have looked at it everyday for the last 3 years!), and I found myself just looking at it. Like, really looking at it.

Mary has her eyes on her baby boy....she is attentive to Him and is with Him on their journey.  

It then struck me....If I think January is a long month to journey through, I wonder what it must have been like for this Holy Family?  In pondering this, I had to bow my head and think how easy I really have it. Cold, snow, lack of sun, etc., it doesn't even compare to what they must have had to journey through to get to a place they wanted to call home!

As I looked around the Parent Room, my eye then caught this picture:

"Genuine love is demanding, but its beauty lies precisely in the demands it makes." Saint Pope John Paul II

Now, if that quote doesn't give one something to ponder, I do not know what will!

It is in that genuine love we have for our children and one another, that we have the power to change the world.  Genuine love IS demanding!  It demands us to look beyond ourselves to the great good.  We just took Tabitha back to college for the spring semester yesterday.  Why it is harder on the heartstrings this time than in the fall?  Genuine love demands that we let her 'go' even though it is hard.  

All of this brought me to realize that a little inspiration would be helpful, so I turned to one of my favorite saints (Saint Mother Teresa) and found this:

"Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
life is a challenge, meet it.
life is a duty, complete it.
life is a game, play it.
life is costly, care for it.
life is wealth, keep it.
life is love, enjoy it.
life is mystery, know it.
life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is a sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is Life, fight for it!.”

Today, as we take the day to remember Martin Luther King Jr. who helped change opinions, attitudes and actions towards one another, let us be inspired to do all that this poem suggests.

I found my inspiration! I am ready!!

Life is a challenge, let's meet it!