Tag: ego

Try, Try Again

Try, Try Again

One day, during the upheaval of school from home, I was helping my niece with her homework. While smart and a quick learner, she didn’t appreciate the corrections I was offering as I critiqued the direction of her 2s or her S. I encouraged her to try again, despite the initial frustration of getting it wrong.

As she was begrudgingly doing it again, I thought about how so much of a child’s life is learning how to do things. Naturally, that involves a lot of trial and error as they learn to walk, read, write, ride a bike, hit a softball, do a cartwheel, snap their fingers, and the list goes on and on. Children have to start so often from a place of humble acceptance of their inability to do something they want to do.

I think I could learn a lot from that disposition.

In my life, it is easy to stay safe and do the things I know how to do or think I can do well. When it comes to looking like a fool, I’ve never been much of a risk-taker. I much prefer to watch and see how others do it before attempting something on my own. Yet some things can only be learned by trying, failing, and trying again.

Continue reading “Try, Try Again” →

A Transforming Perspective

A Transforming Perspective

If you think I am a perfect person, this must be the first blog post you have ever read.  That concept, that idea of perfection will be quickly shattered.  And it should be, because it isn’t true.  

Not long ago, I found myself in a situation where I would need to work at something with someone I didn’t know well.  A few minutes into the encounter, prideful me thought, “I think this person can really learn a lot from me.”  God is probably amused and a bit horrified by my internal dialogue.  I didn’t mean it in a bad way and I didn’t think I was their savior by any means.  In the moment, I simply thought this person could learn something from me.

However, an hour or so later, I came to the realization that actually that person might have a lot to teach me.  In light of that awakening, I found my initial perception incredibly smug and prideful.  It was a lesson in humility, one where I was able to see some of my flaws and shortcomings without there being a great embarrassing display.

The Lord is generous to me.  He is quite generous in showing me the areas of my life that aren’t what they should be.  He is also gracious, because He often makes these revelations in small, simple ways.  A few words, a brief encounter, or a fleeting thought garners deeper insight upon later reflection.

He crushes me slowly, in a beautiful way.  Continue reading “A Transforming Perspective” →

Why I Will Drink Coffee on Sundays

Why I Will Drink Coffee on Sundays

In my youth, giving something up for Lent meant you didn’t have it from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday.  When one of my sisters came home from college, she revealed a secret: you can have the things you gave up for Lent on Sundays.  She claimed it was a “mini-Easter.”  At the time, though, it seemed like cheating and an excuse for people who couldn’t handle giving something up for the entirety of Lent.  I didn’t need a cheat day, I reasoned, I was strong enough to last all of Lent.

Over the past few years, I have come to realize the wisdom in allowing Sunday to be a relaxed day in the midst of a penitential season.  There is a particular wisdom found when I remember my own temperament.

I like a good challenge.  Tell me I can’t do something and I will probably try to do that thing (if I care enough).  I’m stubborn and prideful to a fault.  So when I tell myself that I can go without coffee for the entirety of Lent, I start to feel a little smug.  It sounds challenging and I can already feel a sense of pride within myself.  Of course, it is a sacrifice for the Lord and yet I am quick to make it about what I can do.

However, if I acknowledge that I will go six days without coffee and then break that fast on Sunday, it is hard to get overly prideful about that.  Really?  That’s it?  Six days?  And I find myself almost convincing myself to “be strong” and go through all of Lent without it.

The purpose of Lent, though, is not to build up my ego and pat myself on the back for all of the difficult things I did.  Hopefully, Lent is a time of challenging ourselves and saying no to our own habits and desires.  Yet if I walk into Mass on Easter Sunday, bursting at the seams that I was able to forego a long list of comforts, I might miss the fact that Jesus is the one saving me. Continue reading “Why I Will Drink Coffee on Sundays” →