Taking it Personally

The more time you spend with toddlers the more you notice a common problem they have in dealing with the world: they take everything personally.  Try telling a toddler that their grandmother is YOUR mother.  Or that something happened to you before he was born. This blows their mind.  They cannot imagine the lives of others outside of the relationship they have with them.  Daddy has a job? Mama gets tired or wants to read sometimes and not cater to my every whim?  They did things before they had me to fill up their life? Not possible.  Events are likewise only important as they intersect with their world.  Parties are thrown so that they can attend.  The zoo is open when they want to see animals, which are kept solely for their amusement.  When bad things happen, they are a personal affront to a child.  RAIN?!? WHEN I WANT TO PLAY OUTSIDE? Cue tantrum.  Nap time, baths, long car rides, and doctors appointments are all torture mechanisms cleverly designed by parents.  Toddlers have begun to see a bigger world moving around them, but they cannot yet understand that it moves with little consultation of their personal desires and often without them at all.

As a parent, I've had to explain and will, doubtless, have to explain again and again that often things happen that we didn't foresee, don't want, and would rather have not happen again, but this does not mean they were calculated to ruin our life.  I've already had my share of saying, "You can't always get your own way.  You aren't the center of the universe.  Sometimes things happen, but we can make the best of it."  

Saying these things, however, does not mean that I have mastered the truth myself.  Even as an adult and a mother, I constantly find myself taking the world personally.  I assume my toddler is being naughty to spite me, loud to annoy me, or needy so I can't have a minute to myself.  When my baby doesn't sleep or needs to be walked around constantly, I find myself saying, "Why are you doing this to me?"  "To me" being the operative words.  I seem to have grown very little from that toddler mentality.  I am so easily disappointed when things don't go my way or people don't act the way I think they should.  How often have I taken traffic or bad weather or the actions of strangers as a personal affront?  I even like to blame God for not organizing my life in the exact way I have it pictured.

Like my toddler, I have a lot to learn about what is best for me and how my attitude changes how much I enjoy my life.  If I am insulted  whenever the universe doesn't bow to my plan, I am the one who is hurt, not the universe.  I can go through my life in a huff, expecting to be treated like royalty, or I can realize my place as a servant of God and rejoice in opportunities to serve.

I think there are several good ways to take life personally that will help me to strive for the better attitude.

1)Take Blessings Personally

When I'm over-tired and having a bad day, I've definitely found myself spouting ridiculous nonsense like "Why does God hate me?" The real question I should ask myself is 'Why does God love me so much?"  Because even though I take every hardship as an attack, He continues to bless me, both as an inhabitant of a beautiful world and a recipient of particular gifts designed for me.  Every bit of creation should be considered as a personal gift to every human being.  Not that we are in some way entitled to use it however we want, but that God has made it for our enjoyment and to draw us towards Himself. The world is full of so much that is good and true and beautiful and it is for US.  How amazing is that?  Outside of the general blessings of creation, human culture, and life, we are furthermore given so many personal blessings, especially other people.  Friends and family are not things to be taken for granted, but amazing and complicated human beings God has created and placed in our life.  

2)Take Personal Responsibility for Serving Others

These mysteries which we call other people are not just supporting roles to ourself as protaganist.  People do not construct their lives to thwart or help us.  Every one is a complex soul who we have the privilege to know and the intense command to serve.  Christ calls us to see others as God sees them and to love them as He loves them.  Mankind is our business, to paraphrase Dickens.  Every person that we meet demands our respect as a fellow human being and pleads our compassion.  Christ has shown us how we are to treat others.  It is an example of servanthood meant for each of us personally.  

3)Take Suffering as a Personal Opportunity for Spiritual Growth and Sacrifice

Christ likewise taught us that when we are hurt, oppressed, or persecuted by others we are not to see it as a chance for vengeance, but a chance to give the forgiveness as it has been given to us. As the only person in history, by virtue of being also God, with the right to take EVERYTHING personally, Christ offered Himself up for the salvation of all.  He gladly took the undeserved suffering of His cross to redeem the undeserving who inflicted that same suffering. We are given the startling option of uniting our suffering with His. Whether the things we suffer are caused by others or seeming accidents of fate, that evil can be changed into something good: penance for our sins, intercession for the suffering, sacrificial love for our fellow man.  Just as an athlete exults in the pain of training, knowing he is made better and stronger, more prepared for his sport, we are to rejoice even in suffering as we are made more like Christ, more ready for heaven.

We serve a personal God, so we know that life is not just a series of freak accidents.  We serve a loving Creator, so we know that all things are made for our ultimate good.  We serve a communing Trinity, so we know that we are meant to love, not lash out at, each other.  But we also serve the suffering servant, Christ, who tells us that we ought to go through this world as He did, in pain and in love.  He does not call us to an easy life, to a universe that revolves around us and fulfills our petty whims.  He calls us to so much more and so much better: a place in the heart-breaking, heart-remaking work of redemption in the world. Take it personally.

GO BASEBALL! 

Today is: The Feast of Sts. Gervase and Protase

Mama is Reading: That Distant Land by Wendell Berry

Finn is: turning 2 next month!

Gigi is: 4 months old