Wednesday, May 16, 2007

"poor child"

I'm learning about God as I experience being a parent. The other day Moses was in his naughty chair throwing a fit and I just couldn't help laughing at him - he takes himself so seriously. Really he's just such a silly guy, getting upset and screaming at the top of his lungs, turning beet-red in the face to express how much he disapproves of my reaction to his misbehavior. So this quote from Josemaria Escriva really hit home today. Maybe our failings are not so important - maybe I take myself too seriously and focus too much on my faults and struggles and not enough on God's mercy and love. I throw fits at God about this or that in life and He's probably chuckling up there at me...my mistake is thinking that he takes me and my faults as seriously as I do.

"How often we have misbehaved and then cleared the frowns from our parents' brows, telling them: I won't do it any more! – That same day, perhaps, we fall again... – And our father, with feigned harshness in his voice and serious face, reprimands us, while in his heart he is moved, realizing our weakness and thinking: poor child, how hard he tries to behave well!
We've got to be filled, to be imbued with the idea that our Father, and very much our Father, is God who is both near us and in heaven. "
– St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, #267

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