Faith & Life · Personal Reflection
Let Go of the Shopping Cart
Two children taught me more about God's desires
than most books ever have.
✦ I Want to Love You More ✦
My youngest child is four and a half. Excuse me — four and three quarters. And she often tells me she loves me. It is the greatest gift to me as a mother to hear my child speak those words. It often comes as a ritual back-and-forth that goes something like this:
"I love you, Mommy."
"I love you more."
"No Mommy, I love you more."
"That is not possible, Haley. My heart is bigger than yours."
Then one day she looked at me and said: "But Mommy — I want to love you more."
That was a profound moment for me. Because I realized in an instant: that is all God is asking from me. Not that I love Him perfectly. Not that I have it all figured out. Just a desire. A genuine, honest desire to love Him more.
That is the greatest of all desires — to love God more. To become less ourselves and give God more of us, so that Jesus takes His proper place in us. That is actually what true humility looks like. Less of me, and more of Him.
✦ Let Go of the Shopping Cart ✦
I have another story, and this one involves a shopping cart at Sears.
When my oldest son was young, we would go to the mall on Saturdays to walk around, get out of the house, and stay in the air conditioning. He loved the fountains. If we had allowed him, he would have spent hours just watching the water, throwing pennies, splashing with his hands.
One particular day, he was riding in a shopping cart inside Sears. When it was time to leave, he absolutely refused to get out. I was mortified at the idea of wheeling the Sears cart through the mall. I knew it was time to go. And I knew — because I knew him, I had been with him every waking minute of his life for nearly four years — that just a few yards away was the fountain. The thing he actually loved more than anything.
He was choosing the shopping cart. And I knew what was waiting for him.
As I tried to convince him to trust me, to just let go of the cart and come with me, I felt something stop me. A quiet voice, somewhere deep. "Exactly, Katie."
God knows me the way I knew my son in that moment. He knows what will make me truly joy-filled. He knows what I am good at and what I still need to work on. And if I let go of my desires — the shopping carts — and trust His desires for my life, the fountains, I will never be disappointed.
Always.
Sometimes it will be difficult to walk away from the shopping carts in my life. Sometimes it will hurt, or feel like I am missing out on something everyone else seems to have. But God's gifts are always going to be better.
So I pray this prayer, at different moments, in different seasons:
God, help me to want what You want for my life.
God, help me to want what You want for my life.
God, help me to want what You want for my life.
✦ Humble Yourself Before God ✦
Humility is a big part of this. In a book I have been reading called I Believe in Love by Fr. Jean D'Elbée, he writes: "The gate which is truly narrow, accessible to all, is that of humility. The narrow way, the narrow gate, is for those who become again like little children."
Read that again. The narrow gate — the one we are all supposed to try to fit through — the way to get through it is to be humble. To become little. To make ourselves small enough.
Who does that sound like? St. Thérèse. Her Little Way. She discovered the secret door to heaven. She was the one who figured out the trick to getting through the eye of the needle.
Entering the gates of humility was not exactly on my list of dream destinations. Allowing myself to surrender completely to God and trust Him in everything goes against my human nature. My human nature is the part of me that stresses about every bill, every college application, every meeting, every item on my endless to-do list.
But then I remember: this is the God who created the human eyeball — with all its rods and cones. The God who carved the Grand Canyon over millions of years using pretty much the same thing that comes out of my kitchen faucet. Surely He can figure out how to get my life in order.
✦ Seek God's Desires First ✦
This also calls to mind the song: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and whatsoever you ask I will do."
I will be honest. There were times I thought I was seeking His kingdom, and God did not do what I wanted.
I wanted my mom not to die. I did not get that.
I have desired for years that my husband would be united with me in my Catholic faith. I have not gotten that either.
Those were good desires. I am not asking for a million dollars here. But they were still my desires. And I have had to learn — painfully, slowly, over many years — to lay even the good desires at His feet.
My mother is without question in heaven. I feel her presence all the time. I hear her voice. I feel her prayers. And this earthly life is only a split second compared to eternity. God's desire to bring her home to Him, even before I was ready, was a good desire. Even when it does not feel that way.
I still pray:
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
Here is what I have discovered: when I cast my desires away and focus entirely on God's desires, He often presents me with gifts — consolations, Fr. Jean calls them. A trip I never expected. A perfect rug at a fraction of the price. Even, once, a couch I hated that started fraying just days after I prayed about it — and the company let me return it for an entirely different one. I know how that sounds. But I truly believe God was consoling my couch woes. He knows what makes us happy. He will provide for all our needs, and quite honestly, many of our wants as well.
The Wedding at Cana is the perfect illustration. They ran out of wine. Nobody was going to die. The hosts might have been embarrassed, a few staff members might have lost their jobs. But because Mary said "Do whatever He tells you" — because they obeyed His desires — their empty wine jars were filled again.
Do what He desires, and your wine jars will be filled.
✦ Passing Praise Onward ✦
I will admit: I am a normal human being, and humbling myself before God is not always natural. I like a good thank-you note. I get a little inflated when people praise work I have done.
But here is the truth I keep coming back to:
The credit for a job well done is never mine.
It belongs to my Creator.
If I write something that resonates, did I do anything to deserve a brain that can string words together? God gifted me that. If someone is a gifted musician, a skilled seamstress, a natural leader — those gifts came from somewhere. We practice, yes. We grow and hone what we have been given. But even the ability to grow is a gift.
"Everyone who praises himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be praised." (Luke 14:11)
Fr. D'Elbée also writes that the majority of our hurts, our offended feelings, our grudges and bitterness — so much of it comes from our obsession with being recognized. If people do not acknowledge our amazingness, we get upset. But the person who honestly puts themselves last is never astonished when others do the same. The more humble you are, the less you care about the opinions of others.
That is a very freeing feeling.
✦ Peace ✦
Fr. Jean writes that peace is the crown of humility. It was God's first gift to humanity. At the moment of the Nativity, the angels sang: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to people of goodwill." And one of the last things Jesus said before His Ascension: "Peace I leave you. My peace I give unto you."
In the midst of the terrible storms in your life, the people who have surrendered completely to God, those who have truly decided it is not my will but His will that they desire, have experienced that supernatural peace. The peace that passes all understanding. (Philippians 4:6) The peace of knowing that something greater than any of us is in control.
We are released from trying to figure it all out. Released from trying to be everything. Released from the pressure to be perfect in the eyes of this world.
That is peace.
So here is the summary, taught to me by two small children:
Just as my four-year-old taught me: "God, I want to love You more."
Just as my son taught me: let go of the shopping carts.
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
God, help me to desire only what You desire for my life.
Humble yourself. Be obedient.
And you will have the peace that passes all understanding.
Pray for me. I will pray for you. 🙏
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