From a young age, I ached to serve and save. In the 1980’s shocking commercials pleading for aid for Ethiopia bombarded television screens. I longed to rescue the starving children and yearned to feed them. The drive swelled from deep within my soul. Words swirled in my brain as I deeply felt and grasped the struggles of those suffering. I relentlessly badgered my mother to send money to the aid efforts. Planting millions of words on my heart so I could talk, share, and write to help others to understand the misunderstood, God gave me a gift to share and serve from the beginning. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5
The life I am called to is days of rallying to right wrongs and nights squelching slander of the disadvantaged and mentally ill. By allowing me to experience very specific struggles in my life, God better equipped me to serve others more closely and intimately when I labor for Him in the world. God opened my ears and my heart to be able to identify with and emanate empathy for those who feel unheard and alone. The Lord endowed me with the knowledge, training, and understanding to open the eyes of the world to the depth of the struggles of the needy. Paired with my heart for the fatherless and high-risk babies, God chose a husband for me who loves me more than life itself, a husband who goes to great lengths for me to be able defend and rescue children.
Though I understand that my life calling is not yours and yours is not mine, I often find myself lamenting all the things I do not do and fall into the trap of comparison. Feeling less than others, as if I missed some tremendous opportunity, I overlook my talents, blessings, and the unique ways the Lord is working and acting through me. I negate the gifts I have been blessed with and the experiences that have formed me to become the woman I am today.
However, I am encouraged by the Second Vatican Council’s reminder for each of us to answer our unique call. In their Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, we, the Church militant, arepersonally beckoned. “Strengthened by so many and such great means of salvation, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord-each in his or her own way-to that perfect holiness by which the Father himself is perfect.”
So as much as I am not many things, I am exactly who God created me to be. I am a wife and a mother who birthed one child, allowed three others to grow in my heart, and spiritual mother to countless. I am a writer, a baker, and scrapbooker. I am a planner and organizer. I am a sister, a daughter, a volunteer, advocate, and friend to many. I am a leader who brings women together and gives them avenues and tools to strengthen their faith and relationship with our Lord. I am a warrior for the suffering, mentally ill, poverty-stricken, and lonely. Above all though, I am a beloved daughter of God.
Call to Act: Sister, we are each called to serve the Lord in a variety of ways. I encourage you to take some time this week to reflect on the many gifts the Lord has blessed you with and ask your Maker if there is any way He is calling you to grow these talents. Also, seek to see how you have impacted the world thus far, especially within your own home, your Domestic Church. Ask Him to reveal the unique beauty of you. Be inspired by 1 Peter 4:10, “As each one had received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” Various seasons of life call us to different roles and places, however, as long as we continue to keep our eyes fixed on Our Father and seek to do His will, with us He is well pleased.
St. Therese’ of the Child Jesus, pray for us that we may embrace our littleness and continue to serve the Lord through all our miniscule acts. Ask Him to allow us to lift up other women who are also seeking to work for Our Lord, investing in them, and encouraging them. Beg the Father to shower us with the graces to carry out His work in the world every day. Beseech Him to allow us to do all for the glory of God who strengthens us and is the great love in our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.
St. Therese’ of the Child Jesus, aka St. Therese of Liseux
Saint Therese’ of the Child Jesus, well known as Saint Therese’ of Liseux and “The Little Flower,” was born in France in 1873 to Zelie and Louis Martin, a very pious couple. Therese’ was one of nine children, with only five of her siblings, including herself, living past childhood. Her mother was an Alencon lacemaker and her father a watchmaker. They adored Therese’ who was their little princess. Spoiled, yet trying her best to behave, Therese’ was a trying and sensitive child, prone to fits of tears and crying. When her mother died when Therese’ was just four, Therese’s older sister quickly took on the role of mother. As her older sisters slowly left for the convent, Therese’ watched and mourned their departure from the family home. She longed to be with them and prayed fervently for a path for her life to be revealed by the Lord. At fourteen, she felt a call to religious orders. After she turned to her bishop and was denied her request to begin living a consecrated life, she was forced to take her request to the Pope. Finally, she was granted admittance into the Carmelite convent with her sisters. Striving to live a holy life, Therese’ made many little sacrifices each day, including agreeing to remain a novice, never professing her final vows. She suffered in minute ways her entire short life, inspiring many, for over a century, to lead holy lives in the little ways of the everyday. The path to heaven was short and straight, she determined, she simply needed to go to Jesus and become less and less. Just over one year before she died, she began to cough up blood, but did not tell a soul. She retained her joy, however, her fellow sisters eventually noticed. St. Therese’ died in 1897 at the young age of twenty-four. Her life is documented in a short book which is a compilation of her journals, Story of a Soul, which her sister Pauline asked her to complete before her death, as to share her holy life with others. Read more about her here: https://www.littleflower.org/st-therese/who-is-st-therese/ and here: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=105