For when you can’t and still do…

This is a shout out to all those times you felt sick and still went anyway because you promised someone you would. This is for all the times you swallowed that mean remark and helped someone anyway. This is for the times when you were busy but you reached out your hand. This is for the love you gave when you didn’t feel like they deserved it. This is for letting go and wishing well.

Maybe you didn’t get to see a reward come of these moments. Maybe people passed by with just a thoughtless thank you, or maybe nothing at all. Maybe they were sarcastic and unappreciative. Maybe they still left. Maybe they just went on with their lives.

But the next time you are faced with such a situation, you have stre-e-etched your soul so you are able to do a bit more, to stand a little more. And maybe this time you will see payoff. But, if someone else’s life is made better, you don’t even need to see the payoff. You just need the ability to do well towards others, because whether you see it or not, it makes a difference. In a world that needs it, it makes a good difference.

So, I raise a glass to you and me: I went into work today and felt hella sick but am still putting on a good face. There is a party today and I said I would bring lemonade and ice tea (you know I am making an Arnold Palmer, don’t even mess with me). And I hope to at least bring a smile to someone’s face.

But at least I was here.

My stand-off with Saint Anthony

Saint Anthony and I have a tenuous relationship. All my Catholic friends invoke his help whenever they loose something. I, on the other hand, invoke my mother who then invokes Saint Anthony. You see, I can rarely find anything when I alone cry out to the heavens, late for a meeting, missing my earbuds. I then go about my day, not able to listen to music, grumbling and saying some not so nice things about Saint Anthony under my breath. And then I listen to other people praise him to high heaven. Hmph

My family has a years-long relationship with him. Five out of the eight of us wear contacts. And when you have that many people, and some of those people are maybe a little too young to be wearing contact responsibly, you loose contacts. But even the more mature of us are guilty of loosing them from time to time. Contacts go down the drain, in the hair, and worst of all, on the ground. One time my little bother lost his contact on wood chips in a parking lot. WOOD CHIPS. It is an almost impossible feat to find a contact that was dropped some feet behind you on wood chips, with all its textures and crevices. Wearing contacts is not for the faint of heart, and you desperately need help when you loose them, since you are now reduced to one good eye,. And Saint Anthony, without fail, will be invoked as my entire family gets on their hands and knees and looks for the precious contact. And almost without fail, after an hour of begging and searching, with achy knees and strained eyes, we will find it.
Or, we find it three years later. Hmph

And this is why I am convinced St Anthony doesn’t help me very often. I do not have the patience to wait for something to be found. I want it now. I want Saint Anthony to work like the charm he is supposed to be. You pray to him and its instantaneous, right? That’s what I need. Its a do or die situation when I loose something, and he has left me high and dry on more than one occasion.

Or maybe I am leaving myself high and dry. Usually when I loose something it is merely an inconvenience. As I search and even go about my day without whatever it is, I get the chance to learn patience and acceptance, in preparation for the bigger things I might have to loose later. I can learn how to persevere (this one is a particularly hard one for me, I usually can’t even finish a tv show) and to not take blessings, or help, for granted.

So, Saint Anthony, I lift up this honest prayer to you: help me find my patience. And those tweezers I lost.

Amen