Monday morning was one of those mornings. You know the kind, the days you wish you could rewind and just start over. Literally speaking, my bed is up against a wall so it is impossible to get out on the wrong side of it, but metaphorically speaking, Monday, I got out on the wrong side. Usually before I go to Mass I don’t do much, except get up and get ready. I’m not really a morning person. I get up, I shower, I get dressed and I go to Mass. I don’t talk to people very often, I don’t check e-mail or Facebook or twitter. I want to start my day off the right way, with a good attitude and with Mass. However, this past Monday, that was not at all how my day started.
By time I actually left the house for Mass I was so stressed out and cranky that I seriously considered not going to Mass at all. I thought my time would be better spent ‘fixing’ the things that didn’t go as planned that morning. Something (my habit) of going to Mass spurned me on, and I got in my car, turned the music up and drove to Mass (and thank God its a drive on a freeway so I could speed a bit!). I got to Mass and I sat down. It was the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux, who I adore, and to whom I have a very deep devotion. Not even that got me excited to be there. I was so distracted and stressed out by the events of the morning that I even thought about leaving the church and going back home. I realize, as I type that out, how ridiculous that sounds. I just wanted to crawl back into bed and start over. And it wasn’t as if something truly horrid had happened, it was just enough little things that added up and threw off my morning. Then, thanks be to God, Mass started. I was, rather gratefully, stuck.
As I sat there, still distracted throughout the beginning of Mass, I began to realize that this was exactly where I needed to be. Ever since I got to my car that morning I had been praying that the day could just start over. “God, where is my rewind button?” He never gave me one, but He did give me Mass that morning. He did give us the gift of St. Therese and the ability to honor and celebrate her. He gave me a chance to start over. He gave me an opportunity to lay all of the little annoyances of the morning down at the foot of the altar and to receive Him instead. I could have skipped Mass. I could have arrived at the church and left. I could have held on to all the little things that got under my skin that morning. I chose, by the grace and mercy of His love, to let go of them and cling instead to Him.* Isn’t that how we should be at every Mass, and even in every moment of our days? We can choose to cling to the things that annoy us, the situations that we don’t want to be in, or we can choose instead to hold fast to Him. If you find yourself in a tizzy like I found myself on Monday morning, take a moment, rewind, and start over. Let go and let Him.
*It should be noted that a whole crop of other stressful things came up on Monday. Choosing to let go and let Him is the right thing to do, though it is something I regularly fail at doing. Do as I say, not necessarily as I do.
What I’m Listening To:
“Falling In Love” by Falling Up
“Over” by Blake Shelton
“Symmetry” by Falling Up
“Bittersweet” by Falling Up
