On Stregth...

My mother. My mother is great. My mother is a great woman, she is the fullness of constancy and sturdiness. My mother is a woman, with all the ties of strength, cleverness, self-sacrifice and many times "bluntness" the word woman can take. She is a powerful thing for her small frame and stature.  She is vibrant and joyful, she is beautiful and reminds ME of what youthfulness, of what happiness is when my sometimes shy, careful, pensive and worried personality impeads this.

Sometimes, particularly back home, I would wonder who again was in her late teens.She has a huge expectation and enthusiasm for things. I am CERTAIN she enjoys a good party/dance (yes, think more like salsa) more than I. I miss her, I miss her greatly.

Her strength amazes me and puts me to shame. In moments I feel so broken and lonely, particularly since the move she is a "commander-like" figure that, in blunt words (she is a sour-sweet mixture), tells me how ungrateful I am being with God, how little I believe in myself and Him while still being humble enough to share her own pains and sadness as an example. Like I said, her strength puts me to shame. Even when I've shared with her dark and sad moments the next day her smile completely lights up the room, never hinting at the turmoil she may have just underwent.

I find a great consolation in the humility that I can learn much from her, and indeed do. I also find consolation in throwing all these worries and weaknesses unto God and Him picking me up as His beloved daughter, well aware of my lack of faith,sadness and fears. None of it matters really.

These two quotes, I believe, do a great job at expressing this sentiment:

Consider all the past as nothing, and say, like David: Now I begin to love my God.
-Saint Francis de Sales

 If we are, in fact, now occupied in good deeds, we should not attribute the strength with which we are doing them to ourselves. We must not count on ourselves, because even if we know what kind of person we are today, we do not know what we will be tomorrow.
-Saint Gregory the Great

Mom and part of the family in a 2009 Chicago Trip-see, look at that smile!

Until Soon! Peace of Christ,