Thursday 23 February 2012

Doing Little Things With Great Love.

Whatever our station in life, sometimes it can feel as if we're simply going through the motions. We can undervalue ourselves, and the work we do. Motherhood has certainly brought these moments for me. Moments I've been so tired, I've seemed to go through a day, or even a week on auto-pilot. Days where the rhythm of feeding, changing, washing, laundering, and cleaning, have felt like a forced march. When I worked full time outside the home, there were days I felt like an automaton. I'm sure that most of us have had days when we've felt this way.

We keep going, and the best thing to keep us going, is love.

For lent, I'm trying to focus on the Little Way of St Therese of Lisieux, on doing little things, with great love.

I may not be in a position to feed the homeless, but I can make a pot of soup for my family. With great love.

I can make a cake, and open up my far from pristine home to friends. With great love.

I can let a stranger go first in a queue with ill-grace. Or with great love.

When I pray, I may not be able to offer God much in the way of time, but I can offer my small prayer. With great love.

That's the marvellous thing about The Little Way. It's a path we can all walk. It's a great equalizer. Sometimes we feel too small, too inadequate. We feel like what we do can never make a real difference. We only see glory in the big things, the foreign missions, the food banks, the homeless shelters.

Not all of us are called to that kind of service, but we are all called to serve. And our service, however small, DOES make a difference.

Love, not greatness of deed renders value to service. Sometimes the love itself lies in doing something, even when we really don't want to do it.

Sometimes it lies in making a meal you don't particularly like, because your spouse enjoys it.

Sometimes it lies in giving a harassed mother a kleenex for her child's snotty nose.

Sometimes it lies in sharing a table in a coffee shop with a lonely, elderly person, and just having a chat.

We can all do small things. Some of us can do great things, but what a marvellous world this would be, if we all did small things, with great love.

2 comments:

  1. God asks us to be holy - in the exact place where He has put us. We needed run off to the missions or even to a homeless shelter or prison to dispense love. There are people in our lives who need our love and solicitude - spouses, children, siblings, parents, co-workers, neighbors, the people we interact with every day. There is SO MUCH loving work to do on their behalf every day that, if we fulfilled it, we would become greta saints and very humble.

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