“I could travel over oceans, cross the deserts, climb the mountains
Just to share your story, bring you glory, and win souls for you.
I could sing like an angel, songs so humble and so thankful
Full of drama and emotion, so the world would know your truth.
I could give away my money and my clothes and my food
To restore those people who are poor, lost, and down-and-out.
Oh, I could succeed at all these things,
Find favor with peasants and kings,
But if I do not love, I am nothing.”
~from I Am Nothing by Ginny Owens (musician)
“Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning to night. But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.”
~from The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day (author)
The first quote captures the great desire I have to do great things for God. Sometimes this desire is so immense that I feel as if I would burst. It is almost painful, this longing.
The second quote describes the insignificance I often feel when carrying out my daily duties of wife and mother – homemaker and care-giver. This feeling is painful in a different way. Trapped and plodding, a weariness.
BUT...
It is love that serves as a balm to soothe the pain, the ache. It is love that tempers and purifies my aspirations for greatness. It should be God's greatness and my humilty that I should always seek. Love allows me to do this. It is love that transforms my daily, often monotonous actions into something greater. Something beautiful.
And so, I will:
“Persevere in the exact fulfilment of the obligations of the moment. That work — humble, monotonous, small — is prayer expressed in action that prepares you to receive the grace of the other work — great and wide and deep — of which you dream.”
~ from The Way by Saint Jose-Maria Escriva
With Love's help, I can and will do this and so much more.
"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
~Phillipians 4:13
