The need to be worshipped...

Knock Me Off My Pedestal

What I realized about my desperate need to be praised, and learning to pass the praise where it belongs.

Personal Reflection

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I realized the other day that I have a sick and desperate desire to be worshiped.

Most of us probably do, without calling it that. But isn't that what it is?

When I want to be acknowledged. When I want to be noticed. When I want to be appreciated. When I want to be adored. In reality, I want what God actually deserves.

That is a tough realization.

So I have been praying for God to release me from these desires. Release me from the desire to be noticed. Release me from the desire to be recognized. Release me from the desire to be praised for anything I have ever done that could be praiseworthy. Instead, I have been praying that I be able to give HIM the praise.

You are probably thinking I have completely lost it. "That crazy woman, I knew all those kids would finally get to her someday."

Yes. It has happened. I have completely lost it. And now if I can only figure out a way to keep it lost.

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But honestly, this life we are living. We are absolutely bombarded. There are evil websites like Houzz that make me want to repaint every room in my house and buy all new furniture just so people will come praise my decorating. There are those impossibly fit women in their Lululemon making me think that if I spend three hundred dollars on leggings, somehow my situation back there will improve and people will notice. (I cannot believe I just admitted that.) And do not even get me started on the mom blogs where people write about hand-delivering homemade cookies to every homeless person in the city, and I think, I want to do that. Not because it is beautiful and right, but because then someone might say something nice about me.

My little realization helped me see that is not the point. None of it is the point.

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There is an amazing woman at my church who, every time I compliment her, responds the same way.

"Hey, I really loved what you shared last week."

"Glory to God."

"That is a beautiful shirt on you."

"Glory to God."

Every single compliment, every kind word, every bit of praise, straight back to Him. She does not deflect it awkwardly or wave it away. She receives it warmly and passes it immediately, gracefully, to the One she believes deserves it.

I think about how happy that must make God. And then I think about how I would feel if one of my own children did the same thing.

"Great job on your test!"

"Thanks, my mom helped me so much with that."

"You have such beautiful manners."

"Thanks, my mom worked really hard teaching me."

That would honestly make my whole week. Now imagine how much more deserving God is of that same response, because if I ever did a good job helping my son study, it was with God's help. And if my children ever learned how to behave... well. I cannot take much credit for that at all. That was entirely Him.

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So this is my prayer now.

• Lord, let people notice You when I do something good.
• Lord, let people praise You when I do something praiseworthy.
• Lord, let people admire You when I do something admirable.

Let me be the window, not the view.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

Faith & Life

Sweet Little Curly-Haired God

A two-year-old in my bed, sandals on the wrong feet,
and everything I never thought about the hidden years of Jesus.

Personal Reflection  ·  Advent

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My two-year-old has started coming into our bed at night.

Both my husband and I are pretty good sleepers, so we do not always notice when this happens. We just end up finding a big hairy head snuggled under our noses. She is a snuggler.

A lot of the time when this happens, I just get annoyed. Although it is sweet now, we have a twelve-year-old who did this almost his entire life and is just now starting to sleep in his own bed all night. So I can see exactly where this is heading, and it is not sweet.

My two-year-old is also going through a phase where she is desperately trying to be independent and make her own choices. She wants to pour her own glass of milk, buckle herself into her car seat, get her own clothes on. Waiting for her to do these things is sometimes tortuous for me, because it takes so much longer than if I just do it for her. But I know it is important. When I can spare the time, I try to be gentle and patient and let her do it herself.

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Then one day, I was meditating on those years of Jesus that we know almost nothing about. The hidden years. The quiet years. And I started to wonder.

Did Jesus climb into bed with Mary and Joseph? I mean, did children even have their own beds back then? There is a good chance he was simply always sleeping between them.

I started to imagine what that must have been like for Mary. To have Jesus snuggling her in the night. Sweet little curly-haired God, rubbing noses with her in the dark. I could not think of anything more delightful. And it was not hard to imagine, because I had a sweet little curly-haired child snuggled against me at that very moment.

Which took me to a whole other level.

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• I wonder if sweet little Jesus wanted to pour his own glass of milk?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus tried to climb onto his donkey all by himself?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus insisted on putting his own sandals on his own feet, on the wrong feet?
• I wonder if sweet little Jesus stalled going to bed at night by telling his mother he loved her five million times?

Seeing my crazy, demanding, desperately independent two-year-old in light of the child Jesus has taken this whole Advent season to a completely new level for me.

Imagining what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph
to literally raise the Son of God as their own child
must have been the most amazing and humbling thing
any human beings have ever been asked to do.

Although I am sure they never had to discipline Jesus, he is perfect after all, they must have had to teach him things. They must have helped him do things he was too young to do for himself. Or even more amazing, they must have waited patiently for him to try to do things on his own, and then lovingly convinced him to let them help.

They must have loved him the way a parent loves a child, with astounding patience and gentleness. Not because he needed correcting, but because he was small, and little, and growing. And he was theirs.

What was that like? I just wonder.

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Thank you, God, for helping me to see these years, as I raise Your children, in light of what it must have been like for Mary and Joseph to raise Your Son. Help me to have their patience and their gentleness. And help me to always remember that these children are gifts from You.

Amen.

Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏

A Personal Blog on Faith, Life & the Journey

Selfish Servants.... yes I am resorting to name calling now...

A friend of mine recently explained a discussion that she had with students of hers that were discussing women not being able to become Priests in the Catholic Church.  Her explanation that she shared with me, was inspired!  Below are her words!

"It's not fair," they insisted. "If I really WANT to be a priest I should be able to be one," and if I feel strongly that I'd be a good priest, why should I be denied that chance?"  etc.

I tried to help them see that the focus should be on being a servant.  No matter what ministry we do for God's people, or what role we have when doing anything from the littlest acts to the grandest, the focus should be on those being served, not on me at all.

It's like the people should see the sunlight streaming through a window.  We're the means by which the sunlight gets to the people, but it's Jesus that they need and not me or you.  When we start thinking about whether I should be the one leading or seeing, we smudge the window, obscuring the sunlight.

Let me put it another way... did any of the women who became a Blessed or a Saint from Catherine of Siena to Theresa of the Little Flower to Mother Marie Rose to St. Teresa of Calcutta insist that they be a leader or a priest?  No.  They went about serving the needs of people without regard to themselves, their personal "rights" or personal "Feelings" or "desires."  It was all about  THE OTHER with humility and love.

Blessed Marie Rose Durocher actually had a chair in the Chapter Room reserved for the Superior of her order/community.  It was there for the Blessed Mother, the true "leader," not herself.  Any priest who loses sight of being in Persona Christi has lost sight of his true vocation.

This was exactly the model that Jesus Christ himself taught by his words and actions.  Heaven truly will come to earth, if we could all be content with lifting others above ourselves.

Could you imagine how HUGE this impact would be if we all could live this way?  Not just in church, but in every part of our lives. Think about how happy marriage could be, raising kids, and even life in the work place if everyone just let God love through us all the time.

My personal problem with living this extremely difficult message is when I get nervous that someone is not going to love me as well as I love them.  Then I need to compensate and love my self a little better.  You know what I mean?  We all do it.  It is called being SELFISH.  That's not a pretty word.

O well. I guess that is what heaven will be like.  Everyone lifting each other toward God.  Wow, that will be awesome!

Until then, I pray that all of us could truly desire service to others over power for ourselves, and that the Holy Spirit will guide each of us clearly and boldly to make wise decisions for the good of all.

AMEN!!!

Who is even reading this???

SO I ask myself often.  Who am I writing to?  Why am I doing this?

Ill be honest, I am doing it for myself.  I enjoy it and it helps me think clearly to write things out.  For the most part this is a jumbled mess of a few fanatical ideas about my Catholic Faith, and how it relates to my life.  But who cares?

Maybe I make you laugh.  Maybe I have made you think. Maybe I have even made you angry.  But I do hope at the very least my craziness has intrigued. 

Most of what I write I post to the Disciplechic.com facebook page.  But you can also choose to follow me directly from this blog. 

There is a box in the right hand corner of this page, where if you put your email address there, you can have this nonsense sent directly to your inbox. 

Thanks everyone for all your support and interest!  If you have any favorite topics or questions, or things that have inspired you. Let me know!

Hope you all have a BLESSED Advent!

Katie

Happy Advent Everyone! Sorry it has been a while...

Oh life, you get so busy.  One of my favorite books opens with the line that "Busyiness is not from the Devil, Busyiness IS the devil."   Yikes, I guess you could say I got caught in his snare for a while.

I also heard the quote recently, that everyone needs at least 20 minutes of prayer every day.  Unless you are really busy, then you need at least an hour.

This is just like the picture that hung in my parents kitchen for decades. "If you are too busy to pray, then you are too busy."

I think you get my point now, and as we are all preparing for Christmas in our homes, this busyness can grow exponentially.  

In our house, we are decorating, and baking, and watching Frosty the snowman, and all those fun Christmas things.  We are driving around looking at Christmas Lights, and shopping for an equal number of gifts for each child. 

All of this is in addition to all the other stuff we already do.  Like homework,  after school activities,  and sports. Cleaning, and picking up, laundry and laundry.  (I HATE LAUNDRY!) 

Then I am also trying to keep Jesus in Christmas by blessing the Advent Wreath, talking about what GIFTS we can GIVE to Jesus for his Birthday, and trying to find a family prayer time.  All of which usually gets left for last, or doesn't even happen.   It's terrible.

Have you ever given a gift to someone that you were SUPER excited about giving them?  Maybe a friend, that you found a really cool necklace for, that you think they will totally appreciate and love.  Maybe a child you think will think some toy is TOTALLY cool and you are looking forward to seeing there face when they open it?  Then when they finally do open these spectacular gifts, their reaction is completely, "Eh."  Like, "Thanks, but whatever." They may think it is cool, but they DO NOT GET NEARLY AS EXCITED AS YOU WERE TO GIVE IT TO THEM.  Doesn't that suck?

That's is how I think God sometimes feels about his Christmas Gift to us.

He gave us something that was VERY PRECIOUS to him.  Like Oprah's favorite things.  But it was HIS favorite thing (no s).  HIS SON.   His very son.  He gave this to us, not because He think we will love playing with this gift, or because we will look so awesome in it.  He gave it to us because HE knows without this gift we will swimming in our own stinking sin for eternity.  

And sometimes we are like, "Eh."

SO, this Advent, we should prepare our HEARTS for the MOST AMAZING CHRISTMAS GIFT.  We are all going to get it, and it is way better than any pair of boots, or diamond earrings or apple watch.   This gift is Jesus.  Let us take time away from the busyness of this world and get our homes ready to receive him.   (I know that sounds so Church-y but I am serious.)

Let's just stop being busy.  Just stop it.   Instead let's focus on what it is really important!!!

Happy Advent Yall!