Over the past week, the gospel repeated these words over and over. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” And yet, even as I read them over and over, I realized that my insides were saying to me – “That’s wonderful. But, my heart IS troubled.”
Not troubled in a massive, overwhelming fashion. But, small waves of troubled. It’s always that way when I see my children (adult though they are) having a rough go of it. Not earth-shaking rough, just rocky, uneven ground that challenges them, and me, to be a bit more trusting. The kind of bumps in the road that let us know that we do walk by faith and not by sight.
If I, as a mother, have these troubled feelings when the road is not smooth for my offspring, I can only imagine how Mary must have felt as she watched her son follow his path that led to the cross. It makes me want to shout to God – “make it smooth for them! Let me take these trials for them!” And yet I know that each of us must walk the walk ourselves.
Over the past few days, as my daughter and I have talked through some of the things that are causing her stress, and discussed things that I still would probably hesitate to talk with my own mother about, it does strike me that we are drawing closer to each other. We are sharing. We are becoming a bit more of a community. In many ways, that is how I learn to listen to those words “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and begin to accept them in my heart.
I circle back to that prayer that seems to ground me always:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can
And the Wisdom to know the difference