Relics

I was decluttering a purse (again) when I came across a ratty, folded piece of tape with two small knots of brown hair in it.  When it dawned on me what I was holding, it took my breath away for a second, but it didn’t knock me sideways as I imagine such a discovery would’ve a few months ago.  Instead of losing momentum and being overwhelmed by memories and grief, I simply set the tape aside.  Careful not to accidentally throw it away with all the old receipts and bits of trash from my purse, I continued decluttering.  I then placed that piece of tape in our Ella memory box.

When Ella went back to the hospital for her second and final time, she had a full head of wavy brown hair.  Little girl had some awesome hair, and I had looked forward to watching it grow in, curious to see what it would finally be like – straight, curly, kinky, soft, coarse?  Who knew?  I just knew that she was a beautiful baby, and her sweet head of hair added to her beauty.

But spending most of her time in bed, in a hospital bed no less, wreaked havoc on her hair.  We were never 100% sure, but we believed that the stress of hospitalization and probably the variety of medicines she took greatly contributed to her hair loss.  She started losing almost all of her lovely hair until all that was left on her head were wispy strands.  To add insult to injury, the hair she did have on the back of her head developed knots that were too far gone to comb through.  Those knots had to be cut out of her hair.  That’s how Ella came to have her first haircut, and that’s why those knots were saved in a ratty, folded piece of tape.

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While we were at the hospital with Ella, my husband and I were required to wear purple plastic wristbands, labeled in permanent marker with Ella’s patient ID number.  The bands identified us as parents of a patient.  We also had similar wristbands as residents of the Ronald McDonald House, though they were yellow.  We wore these bands for the entirety of Ella’s hospitalization.  By the time we were finally home, the wristbands were pretty worn.  Months had passed since the bands were first placed on our wrists, so the colors were faded, the edges rolled, the ID number no longer quite as clear or dark.

My husband and I had worn similar wristbands during Ella’s first hospital stay and had removed them upon bringing her home.  We were finally home with our sweet girl, and even after those “short” five weeks at the hospital, the bands were nothing to look at.  A bit on the ragged side and no longer needed, we didn’t give their removal a second thought.  We wanted to get on with the business of living at home as a family and no longer needed to be easily identified as PICU parents.

Unlike our homecoming that first time, we didn’t immediately remove the bands after Ella died, when we were finally home again but without our baby girl.  In those first days upon our return, we were still too shell-shocked and too numb in our grief to think about something as trivial as wristbands.  When we did finally think about it and talk it over together, both my husband and I had already privately decided that we weren’t ready to cut off the bands.  We weren’t ready to remove that symbol of Ella’s life at the hospital, to remove the outward signs of our roles as parents of a sick child.  We weren’t willing to let go of something, even a small, dirty, seemingly insignificant sign, which represented the place that had been her home and the time that had been her life.  We wore those bands when she was alive.  To cut them off would be to acknowledge how unnecessary those bands would forever be.

My husband and I wore those wristbands for several months following Ella’s death.  The yellow RMH band was amazingly sturdy, lasting through all manner of activities, but the purple PICU band took a beating.  It peeled, its layers separated and the formerly purple shade replaced by a paler, discolored version of itself.  We tried to use tape and glue to keep our bands together.  Toward the end, my husband’s band finally gave up the ghost; mine was held together by paper clips and sheer willpower.  Those raggedy wristbands had surprising staying power.  It was only after both of my husband’s wristbands had finally fallen off in October, well over a year after they were first placed on the wrist, that I considered removing mine.

October was a rough month from start to finish for my husband and me.  Not only was I dealing with my second cold of the season, but I was also grappling with a frustrating bout of writer’s block.  In addition, my husband and I were bracing ourselves for two anniversaries, the one-year anniversary of Ella’s adoption day and the ten-month mark since her death, anniversaries that happened to sandwich my husband’s birthday.  Last year I had jokingly told my husband that I got him a daughter for his birthday, so how could he ever top that?  This year we didn’t feel much like celebrating any of it.  To top it all off, we were mentally preparing ourselves for a return to the children’s hospital where Ella died.  It was a lot to handle mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, all in one very somber month.  It was only when we as a family decided to return to the hospital for a service of remembrance that I considered removing the wristbands.

Surprisingly, my boys had more of an issue with the removal of my wristbands than I did.  They knew that I had been thinking about obtaining a more permanent reminder of my sweet Ella, so they didn’t want me to remove the bands until that reminder was in place.  It was time, though, and my decision was made.  I brought scissors in the car, and I cut the bands off during the drive to the hospital.

 

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There are so many reminders of my sweet Ella in my everyday life.  There are so many things that keep memories of her so close to the surface, whether it’s something as obvious as her picture on the fridge or something as subtle as a random line from a random song on the radio.  There are so many reminders; yet there are so few relics.  There are so few things that she touched or that touched her, so few things that were strictly Ella’s or here because of Ella.  And it is because there are so few that it was difficult to let go of one, even a ratty plastic wristband or knotted hair in a folded piece of tape.

When you can’t hold your little girl anymore, you cling that much tighter to what you can hold – the reminders that you keep around you, the items that touched her and that were a part of her short life, the relics that didn’t go into the grave with her.  You cling to them, and you try to be grateful for them because they give you something of her being that is tangible - annoying in their seeming insignificance, invaluable only to you, painful because they are not her, but tangible nonetheless.

Perhaps the wristbands were less relics and more reminders.  Perhaps…but the relics we do possess have value beyond measure.  We will be eternally grateful to the two off-duty nurses who came to the hospital on the night Ella died not only to offer their condolences and say good-bye but to take time to make molds of Ella’s little hands and feet.  Such poor substitutes for her sweet, graceful hands and her cute, kicky feet, but we are so grateful for those substitutes!  We are so thankful for the nurse who not only accompanied Ella’s sweet body to the morgue but who made sure to obtain a lock of her hair for us.  I’ll never be able to brush her hair or put big, pink bows in it, but I have a lock of hair from her beautiful head.  I am grateful for those relics, even if they stay packed away in a memory box for now.  I might not look at them often, but I know that they are there.

Yet when I look at any of Ella’s old clothing, I will probably always experience a twinge of regret.  All of her dirty laundry was cleaned shortly after we came home.  Such a simple task, doing the laundry, but when you’ll never again be able to soak up the scent of your baby, such an oversight is lamentable.  That’s why the jacket I was wearing when I held her for the last time won’t be washed or worn again, the small stains from her tears and her boogers still on the shoulders from when I held her most of her last day.  That’s why the shirt my husband was wearing when he held her for the last time still hangs unwashed and unworn in his closet.

And that’s why Ella’s beloved daddy blankie was not buried with her but instead remains in our room on my pillow, so I can hug it to myself, so I can cover my face with it to try to figure out why in the world she liked to sleep that way, and so I can kiss it goodnight as I whisper a prayer to my saint.

Thinking about all of this and writing it down - exposing all of this to you - makes me wonder if I’m not taking it all a bit too far.  Am I going overboard in my attachment to things, or is this the norm?  Is this just a part of grief – the desire to hold on to everything, to cling to these relics as though they’re life preservers, to assign value simply because of who touched them rather than because of what they are?  Is it wrong to be so materialistic when the materials you covet are the ones your daughter touched?  If it is wrong, I don’t plan on being right.  I don’t plan on letting go of these relics anytime soon.

As the first anniversary of Ella’s death approaches, I’m sure I’ll be thinking more and more of the reminders and relics we have from her too-short life.  The grief I thought I had under control is much closer to the surface now, and I have at times a tenuous grip on my emotions.  But I’m trying to be understanding and patient with myself.  I’m not necessarily embracing it, but I’m not hiding from it nor am I hiding it from family.  When the topic of Ella came up in conversation at the dinner table causing more than one of us to cry, we talked through the tears, unembarrassed to still be so sad and to cry so easily.  When I sobbed in my bathroom the other afternoon for missing Ella so desperately, I welcomed the long hug and the comfort that my 11yo offered instead of hiding the sadness or isolating myself until the ache subsided.  And when I cried during Mass on Friday, I didn’t try to stop the tears; instead, I let them flow and cried out to the only One Who can heal this pain, “Oh my Jesus, I miss her so much!”

I cling to the relics that I have from my sweet saint.  For today it is enough to know that they are there for the holding if the need arises, if the heartache lessens enough for me to see that small hand mold and to touch that sweet foot mold, if the memory of saving that silly knotted hair brings a smile rather than a tear.  Perhaps one day I’ll decide that the worn out wristbands, long removed from my arm, can finally be thrown away, having served their purpose but no longer needed.

These relics are temporary, treasured only for as long as her memory is alive.  But the one relic of my sweet Ella’s life that I’ll treasure more than any is one that I may not be able to see or touch but can most certainly feel.  I will treasure the intangible relic that was her love and that is my love for her.  A love that powerful and that deep and that true does not end with death.  A love like that is.  It doesn’t become worn with age, and unlike the relics that remain in Ella’s memory box, it can be freely shared and felt by others.

The love that my sweet saint blessed me with is truly the finest treasure of all and is the only relic that I’ll be able to take with me when I see my Ella again.

 

St. Ella, pray for us!

The Weight of This Cross

This Thanksgiving my family and I went to my parents’ place for the first time in five years.  Oh, we’ve seen them in the intervening years, of course, for holidays, special occasions, the funeral, but they always traveled to us.  I am not a big fan of flying, what with the taking off, the flying tens of thousands of feet above the earth, and the landing.  But flying was worth it to see my parents on their turf, to hang out being the kid again, to have good talks and tell jokes in person, and to get the hugs you can only get from your mommy and daddy.  It was such a good visit, and I was so thankful simply for being home and for just being with them.

My parents are the reason why I was able to go to Mass this past Tuesday.  Their steadfast support of me, especially during these past eleven months, and their unwavering faith in the face of excruciating personal pain and devastating loss are examples I take to heart and the type of example I hope to be for others one day.  On Tuesday, almost eleven months to the day of Ella’s death, we attended the funeral Mass of a sweet baby girl named Lucy, who, at almost seven months old, died of health complications she had battled since birth.  Her parents are friends of my parents and are their fellow parishioners.

Up until the moment we got into the car, I waffled internally about whether I would even go to the funeral.  My own grief is still so fresh, so raw.  In the grand scheme of things, eleven months is not so much time, but when that is the time you’ve counted since your own baby girl died, then it really is no more than a flash, a momentary blink of the eye, even as it seems an eternity.

I waffled, but I then decided that I must go.  I had to be there to unite my prayers with the community that would mourn Lucy’s death with her parents, the same community that prayed with my parents for my sweet Ella.  I wanted to express how very sorry I was for their loss and to say that even though I don’t know exactly what they’re feeling, I sort of do. I had to be there to cry once again for my own sweet saint, for my own loss that I still feel so keenly, for my Ella whom I mourn and miss every day. And I wanted to hug this newest, heartbroken mother of a saint.

There is an undeniable truth that all moms know.  Whether their children grew under their hearts or in them, upon being placed in their mother’s arms for the first time, they forever take a piece of their mom’s hearts with them.  That is why we moms feel everything so deeply when it comes to our kids - why we feel their joys so intensely, their pains so sharply, their disappointments so profoundly.  When our children took a piece of our hearts, we moms lost the right to feel selfishly.  We lost the right to withhold our own hearts from another person.  They took a piece of our hearts, while at the same time, we gladly handed our hearts to them.  There is nothing on this earth quite like a mother’s love, but that also means that there is nothing on this earth quite like a mother’s loss.

Too often I think that our society views pain - or the prospect of pain – as something to be avoided at all cost.  We view suffering as meritless, as though there can be nothing redemptive about it.  We don’t give ourselves enough credit for the capacity with which we can give and receive love or the compassion we can freely and wholeheartedly offer to those who suffer or to those with whom we share suffering.

When push comes to shove and we are forced by circumstances beyond our control – storms, floods, etc. – to accept suffering, to deal with it head on, we do so with gusto and a level of commitment that staggers the mind.  Just look at the can-do attitudes of those devastated by recent epic storms.  An act of God wreaked havoc on their lives, but “by God!” they are going to carry on.  They are going to get up, move forward, and do what has to be done.

Why not then for these greatest acts of God among us?  Why not for our unborn children?  Our unborn kids already have targets on their backs and are offered all too frequently on the altars of convenience and “it’s just too hard.”  Those targets only get bigger when those children come with difficult prenatal diagnoses of physical or mental imperfections.

Why can we not extend that same compassion and can-do spirit to their lives, however short those lives may be?  Do they not deserve the best we have to offer, and shouldn’t our best include all the love we can give and any sacrifice we may be required to make?  Don’t these kids deserve every ounce of compassion we have and then some?  Why do so many rush to solve inconvenient “problems” by ending lives instead of saying, “Yes, I will fight.  I will try.  Even in the face of terrible, incredible odds, I will give you my all because you are a person.  You are a worthwhile and precious act of God.”

One of the cheesiest movies I’ve seen in the last decade is “A Walk to Remember.”  That it stars a pop star from the early 2000s should tell you that it weighs heavy on the cheese scale.  That said, it contains one of my favorite lines: “Without suffering, there would be no compassion.”  Think about that for a minute.  Whose suffering?  Mine?  I’m a miserable hag when it comes to suffering!  I might offer it up, but I’ll likely do it a bit grudgingly, and even then, you’ll hear about it!  No, my suffering doesn’t elicit my compassion.  The suffering that draws compassion is that of others.  Please don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t wish another to suffer simply so I could put on a great display of compassion!  But we live in a fallen world corrupted by original sin.  We exist this side of Heaven; therefore, we exist in a world full of suffering.  We are surrounded by it.  How frequently do we turn a blind eye toward suffering when it is neither in our face nor on our TVs but is instead in the womb?

When we adopted Ella, we had no idea that she had multiple congenital heart defects (CHD).  All we knew was that we loved her before we knew her.  We loved the idea of her, and when she was placed in our arms, we loved her forever and unconditionally.  That we did that much in light of her seriously complicated medical condition and that we eagerly finalized her adoption astounded some people.  I distinctly remember one man’s reaction upon learning Ella’s story.

We were at the Ronald McDonald House (RMH) for a dinner that had been provided by a local church’s adult Sunday school group.  As was common practice, various church members spoke to the RMH residents to hear our stories about our children and then to ask if they could pray for us.  As hard as it could be to talk about how sick Ella was, I was always glad to have more people praying for her.  I explained that my daughter was waiting for a heart transplant, and as usual, I then explained that we hadn’t known about her CHD before her birth, we had adopted her, etc.  During this conversation, a young man and his wife sitting at my table were listening.  The wife was a believer, but the husband wasn’t and also seemed to be skeptically disdainful toward believers.

Later, the young man asked about Ella.  He just couldn’t seem to wrap his brain around the fact that my husband and I proceeded with Ella’s adoption even after we found out how sick she was, that we chose to love her because of who she was and not because of what she had or didn’t have, that she was our child – our blessed act of God – in spite of her sick heart and including her sick heart, that we could not remember our lives before her or imagine our lives without her.  It amazed me that a man whose own child was ill at the hospital would not be able to see past the circumstances of our daughter’s arrival to our family.  Just as abortion would never have been a consideration had Ella been conceived in my womb, abandoning her to her CHD was never a consideration either.  She was our daughter.  She is our daughter.

Given the option, I never would have purposely chosen this hellish pain or endless suffering, but would I choose to live without it if so choosing meant that I would never have known Ella?  If it meant that, while I would remain untouched by the pain of infant death, I’d also remain untouched by the love of the most awesome baby that ever lived?  If so choosing would eliminate the impact that her sweet life has had on my life and on the lives of my family and friends?  Of course not!  I wouldn’t trade a second of my short time with Ella for anything, not even blissful, pain-free ignorance.  I don’t think any of the mothers of saints that I know would trade this daily pain of loss for the time with which they were blessed with their children.

A while back, my mom heard a priest quote his mother, saying, “The Lord didn’t tell us to drag our cross and follow Him.  He said to carry it.”  When we choose to love our children unconditionally, as parents are called to do, we choose to bear the weight of a cross.  Love isn’t just some feel good, mushy, fluffy emotion that we shrug off when it becomes hard.  Love is choice.  Love is sacrifice.  Love is not focused on self but on other.  And we don’t get to choose how much the cross of love – of parental love - weighs.  Sometimes carrying that cross feels like more than we can bear, especially if we are also bearing the weight of our sick child’s cross.  It is so heavy, so painful, so overwhelming.  But who among us would walk away from that cross?  Who would look her child in the eyes and say, “You’re on your own, kiddo.  I am too tired and too weak.  You’re just not worth it”?

Since Ella’s death, I have tried and failed and tried again to unite my suffering with that of Christ on the cross and to offer up this pain for my family, for my friends, for myself, for Him to do with as He wills.  I try, but so many days I feel as though it’s enough that I’ve peeled myself up off the floor.  I grew up hearing my mom say, “Offer it up!” so often when I was faced with pain and disappointment, but I never before felt that I had to “offer it up” so many times a day, so many days a week.  But I continue to try, and every time I try and fail, I offer it all up again – the pain, the frustration, the anger, the loss.  I offer it at the foot of His cross because how much more did He bear for me?  He fell.  He got back up.  Can I do no less?

This Thanksgiving holiday, I went to a funeral.  I went because I have to believe that there’s a reason bigger than I can see or understand for the cross that I’ve got to bear.  I’ve got to believe that Lucy’s life, like Ella’s, wasn’t in vain, and that my suffering and the suffering Lucy’s parents must endure isn’t in vain.  We chose our children’s lives, and in choosing, we chose to accept and to live with the inconvenience of their imperfections.  We chose to love them, our sweet acts of God.  We chose to see them as the whole of their parts, not just to dismiss the parts that were imperfect.  I went to a funeral because this world is corrupt and quite obviously not Heaven, but being in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist is as close to Heaven as I can get while on earth.  I went to a funeral because we mothers of saints have to support each other.  We have to be willing to offer the same compassion to each other that we offered to our children.  We have to show this imperfect world that sometimes inconveniences are the greatest blessings one can ever experience.

I went to a funeral this Thanksgiving because I am thankful for the life of my daughter and for the life of Lucy and for the lives of all those wee saints who have gone before me.  By the grace of God, I made it through, and for the glory of God, I would do it all again.

St. Ella, pray for us!

Lessons from a Ham Scrooge

I will be forever grateful for the hospitality I experienced at the Ronald McDonald House both of the times Ella was hospitalized.  I’m not sure how my family and I would have survived all those long weeks and months out of town if we hadn’t had the luxury and comfort of a room there.  Hotels aren’t cheap, that’s for sure, and eating fast food day in and day out takes a toll on both the waistline and the wallet.  So I was and still am so thankful for the blessing and convenience of the RMH.  Not only did I have a roof over my head that was less than 0.5mi from the hospital, but I also had the almost regular assurance of a meal at the end of so many physically and emotionally draining days with my sick baby.

If you’ve never had to stay at the RMH, then perhaps you aren’t familiar with where the dinners come from or how that part of the RMH operation works.  It takes a lot of coordination and effort by the RMH staff and a great deal of dedication and commitment from countless local volunteers – sororities and fraternities, school groups and teams, Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops, church groups, families, etc. – to put meals on the table almost every day of the year.  The quality and variety of meals varied from group to group, but one thing was constant: the meals were provided by countless people who genuinely cared about the folks staying at the RMH and who did their best to ease the burdens felt by the families who were so far from their homes.  I had never had that many tacos, bowls of pasta, or shredded chicken and rice meals before in my life, but those meals were delicious, satisfying both body and soul, in no small part because of the compassion and heart of the chefs who labored to make them.

Just as the Ronald McDonald House is an organization that provides a much needed charitable service to families in need, so, too, are the groups who serve the meals.  Though many dinners run together in my memory, there are a few that stand out, for reasons both good and so-so.  The Latin meal that was so ridiculously delectable that I chose a second helping over dessert; the Thanksgiving Day meal with ALL the traditional, mouth-watering fixings; the pizza – oh, the glorious, tasty, divinely inspired pizza – that was made each month by a man who was overwhelmed with gratitude to God for being spared from cancer; the chicken nugget, peas, and tater tot meal that could only have been made by a group of college students on a budget; and the pre-Christmas meal that was made by a local church group.  I wish that last meal could stand out in my memory for a more pleasant reason, but the real reason I remember it so well is for how small I felt while eating it and for how unworthy and low I felt when I walked away from it.

My friend K, a fellow heart mom, and I walked to the RMH most evenings to eat dinner together.  We never really lingered over dinner.  Our mission each evening was to eat our food fairly quickly and get back to our kiddos, though we always stayed long enough to say thanks to whoever provided the meal.  The evening in question was no different.  Because it was already December, we walked to the House in the dark and chill.  When we arrived, we were greeted by the unmistakable aroma of a ham dinner with all the sides you could want with it.  Such yummy smells!  It appeared to be a feast truly fit for a king…if that king could get past the ham scrooge.

When food is set out for dinner, it isn’t necessarily served to you.  Of course there would be a serving utensil available for your use, but an actual person may not be serving it onto your plate.  This evening, the members of the church group had chosen to actually serve the food to the RMH diners.  Since K and I arrived at the house a little before serving time, we were first in line for dinner.  I hadn’t realized I would be served, so I reached for the serving fork.  An older woman came over to take it from me to begin service.  With plate in hand, I stood there as she dished out the ham slice.  Yes, slice.  Not plural.  The large ham was cut in half lengthwise and was then sliced into pieces.  She gave me one slice of ham, which really amounted to half of one slice of ham, the end piece at that.  I was a bit dumbfounded and asked if I could have another slice.  She grudgingly gave me the other half of my end piece and then told me I could come back for seconds after everyone else had eaten.

By that time, most of the other RMH residents were lined up, so I moved on to choose my side dishes and then sit down to eat.  But to say that I was annoyed and perturbed would be an understatement.  I did not go to dinner that evening looking to gorge myself on food.  I did not go there looking to get in line first so I’d be better able to cheat everyone else out of a full meal.  I just wanted to eat something filling so that I could get back to my baby girl.

I finished my meal, chewing and swallowing as best I could though my throat felt tight from the angry tears I was holding in.  Petty as it may seem in hindsight, I chose NOT to go back for seconds.  The ham scrooge may have had control over the serving utensil that day, but I was not going to give her the satisfaction of serving me another half slice of ham.  I was not going to beg for my dinner, no matter how hungry I was.  I was not going to humiliate myself by letting her have the upper hand or the upper serving fork.  Instead, while my friend finished her meal, I chose to wait in the RMH lobby.

So why spend seven paragraphs building up to what seems like a small, insignificant anecdote wherein Bridget cries about a slice of ham that wasn’t even owed her but was in fact given to her free of charge?  Why write about one bum dinner out of many, many tasty and enjoyable dinners?  Why?

 

Because of 1 Corinthians 13.

And because of the honesty of this piece.

And because of the truth of these lyrics.

If you feed the hungry but do so without love, without compassion, without generosity, then it is not charity.  If you give drink to the thirsty but do so grudgingly and without love and understanding, then you serve no one but yourself.  If you claim to be doing the work of God but do so without love, then where is God in that?  Corporal works of mercy are nothing if they are done without love.  Charitable works are nothing more than self-congratulatory back patting if they are done without love, if they are done to make you feel good about how charitable you’re being, if they are done solely so you can check them off your to-do list.

I had read Simcha Fisher’s blog post last August while at the hospital with Ella, and while I sat in the RMH lobby waiting for my friend after dinner that December night, I thought about how very small charity can make a person feel and how charity given poorly can rob a person of her dignity and self-worth.  Ms. Fisher and I were in different situations – she receiving groceries for her hungry family and I receiving a meal while away from home with my critically ill baby – but we were both made more uncomfortable by and that much more aware of our unfortunate situations by people who meant well but who had a helluva way of showing it.

It was an eye opening experience for me to be on the receiving end of charity, and it opened my eyes to my own attitude toward charitable giving.  It opened my eyes to my own past actions and inactions, and it opened my heart.  It forced me to examine if my charity had truly been charitable, if it had truly been worthy to be included among the works of God here on earth.  It forced me to ask myself some uncomfortable questions.  Had I ever withheld my love while holding out a helping hand?  Had I ever half-*ssed my way through a work of mercy just to check it off a to-do list?  Had I ever given second-best just to be able to say that I’d given?  Had I ever been the ham scrooge to someone else’s dinner plate?

Even this many months later, I still ask myself those questions because I understand that I’m not only responsible for my actions and choices but also for the example I set for my kids.  Charity, or the lack thereof, is learned at home.  If all they ever see me do is write a check but they never see me lend a hand, how am I showing them what it means to be the hands of God here on earth?  If all they see me do is give away my well-used, well-worn hand-me-downs but they never see me serve the downtrodden, then how am I showing them what it means to be the feet of God?  And if all they ever hear is talk and all they see is indifference, if the only thing I expose them to is the very little I’m willing to do and the very little I’m willing to love, then how am I showing them what it means to be the heart of God?

The bigger person would be grateful to God for the ham scrooges of the world.  She would be grateful for the ways God can use even the smallest and most miserable experiences to teach her about His love and mercy.  The bigger person would resolve to do all things with love so that no one ever feels small, low and unworthy because of her.  I am not the bigger person…yet.  I’ve got miles to go before I’ll feel worthy to be His hands and feet for others, but by God’s good grace and His patience with me - the slowest learner ever born - I will get there.  By God, I’ll get there.

St. Ella, pray for us!