Sunday Reflections: Hope and Ice Cream for Breakfast

These last few months have been hard. Life never quite goes as we plan, am I right?! If you’re in the same boat right now, I wanted to share something that has helped me during this time of difficulty and times when it’s just plain hard to understand God’s plan for us.

Most of the time life doesn’t quite work out the way we once thought it would. Sometimes it’s better (and hopefully that is the case!), but usually we’re thrown curveballs we never expected. Life can start to feel hard and we find ourselves questioning everything we once thought we knew.

I have this quote on my wall that talks about Hope (again, another great Fr. Mike homily!). He defines hope as waiting patiently, and patience as the quality of being able to bear adversities (I can say for certain I am not good at being patient, ha!) And that as Christians, we don’t hope that things will work out the way we want them to, we TRUST that, regardless of how things work out, God will be there. In other words, Christian hope does not trust that all will be well if I get what I want, but that all will be well even when I don’t.

I heard this homily at a time when I was feeling so frustrated that life was not going “as planned”. I was in the mindset that God owed me this thing I’ve been wanting and because I was doing everything “right”, it should happen. This is a common mindset, but not the right one, because I can’t put stipulations on God… as long as I get what I want, God is good… or as long as things go according to my plan, all is well. My hope shouldn’t be in just waiting for things to go my way. No, I have to be able to say, and believe, that, even if I don’t get what I want, or it doesn’t happen on my timeline, I can know and believe that God is still good, and is still with me. My hope is in HIM.

That, my friends, is hard. It takes a lot of faith, trust and surrender.

And sometimes it feels downright impossible to do… it’s probably more of a two steps forward, one step back process for me!! It’s hard because most of the time what we are asking from God is probably a good, pure desire….something that seems like it would be an easy “yes” from God (maybe a job, a relationship, a child, healing from an illness, etc.) and when we’re not getting answers, or what we want, we are left questioning and tempted to turn away from God. Do things on our own, our way.

That’s when the words: not my will, but Your will be done are really put into practice.

When we’re in this time of questioning, it’s also easy to forget the ways God has come through for us in the past, and answered our prayers.  I know for me, I often fall into the trap of only seeing what isn’t going well, or what isn’t happening the way I thought it would.  Hello, single years…haha.  I spent so much of my single years wanting to be married and only focusing on what I didn’t have vs focusing on the blessings right in front of me!! Looking back, I wish I had done things differently…had a different perspective.  Now, as I find myself in a similar situation, I can’t help but wonder if maybe God is giving me a “re-do”, to actually do things differently this time.. to not miss the blessings that are right in front of me and to be thankful for the prayers He HAS answered.  What’s that saying: I remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.
And boy do I have a lot to be of answered prayers right in front of me! 

One final thought, and hopefully a laugh- being a parent has given me a totally new perspective on God. One morning I was feeling kind of down and asking God for answers. Meanwhile, Theo was wanting to have ice cream for breakfast and was throwing quite the 3yr old tantrum over me saying no to his ingenious idea ?????. I took him in my arms and said “Theo, I know you’re upset right now, but sometimes Mommy has to say no to things that you really want, and you may not understand that right now, so you have to trust Mommy.” I laughed to myself because that could have been (and probably was) God speaking to me. Well played, God.

Listen and see the ways God is speaking to you amidst your difficult situation. Keep trusting and surrendering it all to Him. Remember, he is working all things for good (Romans 8:28)

PS- I’ll take it as a sign that Romans 8:28 was the second reading at Mass today ?

Keeping you all in my prayers. Happy Sunday ? ?

xo, Liz