Friday, July 6, 2012

Heroic Generosity

This story has been circling my mind for a few weeks now. A young pregnant mother chooses the life of her child over her own. By many secular standards, her generous action was heroic at best and ludicrous at worst. After all, her personal sacrifice abandoned her husband and infant son orphaned. Still, my gut tells me she did the right thing, even the expected thing. Putting her child quite literally first is the essence of motherhood, is it not?

 The phrase, "God doesn't give you what you cannot handle," seems to haunt my interior world because I recognize that God really hasn't give me a lot to "handle," persay. While Chiara Corbella literally gives up her life for her unborn child, I often feel that a whiny child or sleepless night is a cross I cannot bear. While other mothers raise children alone by choice or by circumstance, I've been known to complain when my hard working husband gets home after 6pm! While other mothers care for handicapped, or ill children on a meager budget, I admit to envying bigger, more lavish houses even while indulging my own conveniences. While other mothers struggle alone, desperate for reprieve or support, I stare down the days on my calendar, waiting for the next chance I'll have to drop our children with family. Though I'm tempted to stamp a successful day in mothering as a "job well done," isn't the  the fact that God gives me so very little to handle evidence of my weakness, not my strength?

Chiara Corbella, Pray for Me!

The lesson here for me, of course, is gratitude. Gratitude for the life God has given me, gratitude for my hard working virtuous husband, gratitude for our health and for the lifestyle we've been given. Trusting in God's fatherly love for me and for our family, I am strengthened by grace in each moment. Reflecting on this grace, I fall deeper in love with Christ and deeper in love with my vocation. And with this love, I am more equipped to "handle" whatever struggle I face.