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With Your Rule
Don't Give in to Discouragement
"Don't give in to discouragement...If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers. Never bother about people's opinions. Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus..."
Mother Teresa in "Total Surrender", Ed. Bros Angelo Devananda, Michigan, Servant Publications, 1985, p119
posted by Holly at 9:28 AM
1 Comments:
When I was younger I thought that pride meant I thought too much of myself, and that humility meant I thought too little of myself - but that's not true! Humility is the ability to 'see yourself as you are' - to see our strengths AND weaknesses, our strong points AND our limitations.
In our mothering work there is much that we CAN do through our own effort like actually deciding to get up and do our work, or being physically and mentally present to guide our children to the Lord. But there is also much we CAN'T do too - like ensure our children's conversion or control all the possibilities of fate.
Our discouragement at our efforts - where we see our limitations - is not a sign of our failure as persons, but a revelation of our person to ourselves. It is mostly an opportunity to trust in God to bless our meager efforts. He works along side of us - we are not solely responsible for our work.
Real spiritual fruit depends upon God, the heart changer, the source of all life and light. We must give our 5 loaves and our 2 fish - it's all we have to give - and we let the Lord work, in his awesome way, with all these meager efforts.
Our part is not necessarily to 'look' successful in what we do, in our own eyes or in the eyes of others, but to BE faithful to what we know God has asked of us.
We plod on, like the tortoise in Aesop's fable - not concerning ourselves with the goal post, so much as with the fidelity of our efforts to get there. Let's do our daily duties, and follow the 'spirit' of our mother's rule to the best of our ability- and let the 'results' come as Christ designs.
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