The Power of Confession

I went to confession this past weekend.  It must seem like I've been there a lot lately.  Not really... I just happen to be posting about it, again.  This past week I just kept thinking about something that I felt very sorry about.  It was driving me crazy.  So I made up my mind to go to confession and let it go, and hopefully get some insight from the priest.  The strangest thing happened to me while I was there.

I went with a friend at 4:15, right before the 5:00 mass.  Neither of us had gone at that time before, so we were a little worried that the priest might not be coming.  Then, there are several places for him to hear a confession, so where do we go?  Do we sit in the back?  In the front?  Is he in there already? 

I finally gave up trying to figure it out and asked an older woman who had just walked in and sat in the back row.  She gave me very good instructions, so I was feeling more comfortable.  However, after she went back to sit down, she got up again and came over to me and said, "I just wanted to tell you not to say much."  I laughed, "Yeah, I guess if it takes too long, mass will start late!"  She said, "No." And then she explained to me about a time when she was in Florida and she was going to confession.  Her mother told her that she should just say "Father forgive me for all of my past and present sins."  So she said just that.  And then the priest said to her, "Well, that was a nice confession."  She looks at me then, in the back of the church, and says, "It's all a bunch of _ _ _ _ !"  I was struggling to understand what point she was making.  Heck, I was struggling to get over the fact that we were sitting in church and she just said, _ _ _ _!  I was starting to think that maybe she was a little crazy, and then she explained.  She said that she never went back to confession after that because it didn't mean anything anyways.  I proceeded to tell her that I often feel better after receiving the sacrament of confession.  She said, "To each his own".

For a few days, I've been thinking about what this woman said to me.  I have observed that when Catholics go to confession, depending on where they are at in their journey of faith, they are not all expecting the same thing.  Yes, they all go to rid themselves of their sins and to get a clean start, but they are expecting different things from the priest.  But confession is not about the priest.  He sits in persona Christi; in the place of Christ.  The sacrament comes from Jesus, through the priest.   The priest is necessary, but the blessings of the sacrament come from Jesus.  I just read an article where the writer was saying that "no one - bishop, priest, deacon, layperson - is truly worthy to administer the sacraments... nevertheless, the validity of the sacraments does not depend upon the holiness of the ministers".  This means, that I still get the graces from the sacrament of confession even if the priest says something to me that I just don't like.

Moreover, I would not base my faith on whether or not I think the priest said the right thing to me.  And I certainly wouldn't allow his comments to keep me from receiving the many graces that confession brings to me.  If you go to a priest and you walk out of there feeling unhappy with the confession, go to someone else next time.  My experiences have been quite the contrary, though.  I have had many confessions where the priest has helped me to grow in my faith.

A while back a friend of mine shared with me how she had confessed a serious sin that she had been hanging on to for her whole life.  She was expecting to be at minimum, reprimanded, and was a little disappointed when the sin was just forgiven, "Just like that"!  I think she felt that her penance needed to be severe, so that it would really mean something.  I think other people would be quite the opposite... just hoping that the priest would offer compassion and understanding.

 I wonder if maybe we have these expectations because we do not understand God's love.  Human love often comes with strings attached.  God's love does not.  He loves us in our goodness, and he loves us in our failures.  In both, he loves us the same.  He doesn't love me more when I am good, or less, when I far from perfect.  I have slowly learned this lesson in the past year and a half.  I was striving for perfection.  I wanted to please God.  I was reaching for perfection, which I will never be able to attain.  So I kept falling, and then I noticed all of my failures.  And I filled my mind with garbage while I thought of my failures again and again.  God showed me that he loves me no matter what.  That I will fail, and he knows that.  So I just need to get back up again!

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son?  Sometimes we are like the good son.  We cannot believe that the father would run out to greet his sinful son with such celebration upon his return, when we have been here, doing the right thing all along. This father's love did not work like that, and neither does our Father love like that.  He would rejoice at the return of His son, no matter what he had done.

Luke 15:7 I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

So why do I go to confession?  I go for me.  To help me.  I have a need to confess.  I wish to someday go to my Father and have him say, "In you I am well pleased."

I agree with Matthew Kelly (Catholic author and speaker)  in that humans were designed with a need to confess.  I think of my son Will, who just last week told me, "Mom... I didn't eat all the marshamallows."  The funny thing is... we weren't even talking about marshmallows. 

I can think of one particular time in my life, when I was really struggling with a relationship.  And I of course, thought that I was totally right in this situation.  After being angry about it for a day or two, I made up my mind to apologize.  This was a difficult thing to do, because I didn't feel that I was in the wrong, but through my apology, I could clearly see that God was helping this person to let go. 

I think it is important that we show our children what it looks like when we say, "I'm sorry" or "Will you forgive me?"  When we make mistakes, we should allow them to see how we ask for forgiveness, and if it involves them, we should encourage them to practice saying, "I forgive you." 

When someone says, "I'm sorry", isn't it so much easier to forgive them?  We can solve a lot of problems a lot faster, if we would just say, "I'm sorry."

My sister recently spoke at a retreat I was attending, "The Life in the Spirit Seminar", and she gave a beautiful talk about confession. If you are interested in reading more of her personal testimony on confession, go to the following link.

http://laughsandlove.com/starting-a-new-life/

 

 

Thanks Jacks, for allowing me to share it!

 

The ABC's

Will has been practicing his ABC's

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO poo.... pee QRSTUVWXY and Z, now I know my numbers!

And he says this with all seriousness.  I guess I should probably work on that with him, huh?

The Tooth Fairy

I was just wondering.  Who invented the whole Tooth Fairy thing?  I'm certain that it wasn't someone with children.  You see, I have six children, and each of those six children have many teeth.  Santa comes once a year...the Easter Bunny comes once a year, but the Tooth Fairy...oh my goodness! 

I came home from school on Wednesday, and Chloe is waiting at the door, pointing to the new hole in her mouth.  How exciting.... now I have to remember the darn dollar!  I woke up on Thursday morning at 6:00 a.m. and what was the first thing that popped into my brain, "Oh my gosh!  I forgot!"  So now I have a dilemma.  It's almost time for them to wake up.  Do I go up there and try to sneak it under the pillow, or do I just tell her that the Tooth Fairy forgot.... again.  Well, I definitely don't want her to think the Tooth Fairy is unreliable, so I sneak up the stairs.  I trip over something lying on the floor, well actually, I trip over multiple things lying on the floor, but only one made a very loud clanging sound.  I'm almost there... I reach under the pillow and...2 heads pop up!  Quick, take the tooth, throw the dollar, get out of there as fast as you can.  It was dark.  I can only hope I won't get any puzzled looks in about an hour when it's time for them to wake up. 

Sure enough, I'm getting ready for work, and Chloe comes in.  "Mom... I felt a hand when the Tooth Fairy came, and I never felt a hand before."  I'm thinking up a good lie, but first I'm going to wait to see how suspicious she really is...."Well, Chloe, what do you mean?"  "I felt a hand".  "Did you get any money?"  "Yes."  "Was the tooth gone?"  "Yes."  As you can see I'm not getting much, so it's obvious I'm going to have to tell a lie.... "Well, Chloe, I know what you are talking about...I realized that you never showed me your lost tooth, and I really wanted to see it, so I went upstairs to take a peek, but the Tooth Fairy already came, so I never got to see it!"  She laughs and walks away.  "Pheww!"

I Honor You

These are the words that a priest shared with me in confession this weekend.  Sometimes, when I tell the priest of my sins, I find myself sharing my struggles.  Without going into much detail, I will tell you that I told him that I have been struggling with the duties of my daily life... having six children and a full time job.  And it often makes me feel like I am failing in all of these.  I don't have the time to fully devote to being the "best" teacher, and I don't want my own children to lose out, so I try to force myself to let things go at home (I have a messy car, a messy house, a messy garage, and I'm backlogged on laundry).  Does this drive me crazy?  Yes... but I try to let it go, because my children need me.  And then I am so impatient and critical with those that I love the most because I'm tired and overwhelmed.

What the priest did next, really surprised me.  I wasn't expecting it at all.  He said, "First of all, I honor you, for bringing life into this world.  You are the mother of six children.  I honor you."

No one has ever honored me for being a mother.  I began to cry.  I couldn't stop.  My grandmother once told me that being a mother is the most important job I will ever have in this world.  And I don't want to fail at it.  I can't tell you the number of times I have been laughed at for having so many children, or have been told by complete strangers that I "must not have figured out how that happens".  But to be honored...  I was deeply moved. 

Ninjas in the Living Room

Today was an interesting day.  I fell on the ice this morning, while carrying Libby (1 yr.) to the car.  I tried to cushion her fall, but she ended up bumping her head and scratching her nose and upper lip on the pavement.  ARGH!!! 

After work, I had to take Libs to a well-baby appointment in Fort Recovery.  All went well there, but on the way home, the SUV stalled out on me.  I couldn't get it started, so I called Doug.  When he came to pick me up, he parked behind me.  I hopped into his van and watched him try to get the SUV started.  As I watched him, I was feeling cold, so I turned the heater on in the van.  Smoke started coming from the van's hood.  I decided to turn off the heater and pretend that I didn't just see that happen.  After trying to get it started for a while, Doug gave up and hopped in with me.  As we're driving off, leaving the SUV in the dust, he says "You know, you're parked in a NO Parking zone, we'll probably get a ticket."

When we got back home, I hopped in the shower to de-stress and Doug left with my dad to go back and tow the SUV to the service station.  While this was happening, Rachel and Chloe were in the bathroom cleaning marbles. (I know, something kids do every day, right?)  As soon as I got out of the shower, they informed me that they were cleaning their marbles in the sink and the drain came out.  I informed them that this wasn't the smartest thing to do.  But then I later apologized and reminded them that I also have done a lot of "stupid" things.  So, for the next half hour, I thought up every tool I could think of to get the marbles out of the drain BEFORE Doug got home.  I got all of them out, except for 1.  I don't think it'll cause a huge problem to leave it like that for a little bit, so I'll wait till tomorrow to tell Doug about that one.  Poor guy!

You might be wondering why I called this post "Ninjas in the Living Room".  As the evening was winding down and I was finally getting the house in order, Holly put on Doug's ski mask, and the other kids tied scarves around their faces and put on black gloves.  It was a Ninja Showdown in the living room.  I was thinking to myself, "A good mom would probably not let her children do this.  Someone is going to get hurt."  But then again, "What the hey!"  A few power kicks, karate chops, and "He-yah! He-yah's!" was just what I needed to get out of the funk I was in. 

Wilbur

Lately, Doug has been calling him Sparky, but he doesn't like that.  Sometimes I call him Wilbur, thanks to my aunt, Peg. 

This evening, Doug said, "Lori, come here, I need to show you something."  By his tone, I was thinking... I don't think I want to come.  I followed him into the bathroom.  He pointed to the floor of the shower.  He said, "What do you think that is?"  Um, little round dried spots of yellowish orange.  "Looks like pee to me!"  "Exactly".  So I glance over at the toilet.  Just 2 feet away from the shower.  Seems simple enough to me.  I looked at Doug and said sarcastically, "Who do you think did that?"  Even though we both knew already.  "Will, come here!"  "What Dad?"  "Did you do that?"  "No."  "Now, you know you need to tell the truth.  You're going to be in a lot more trouble if you don't tell the truth."  "I did it."

To Teach

I know not everyone will understand this post, but if you are a teacher, I'm sure that you get it.  The field of education is ever-changing.  We are always finding new and better ways of doing things.  There are many expectations (as I'm sure there are in other occupations as well), which create much stress.  Lately I have been feeling this pressure.  I want my children, by my children, I mean my students, to do well in school.  I wish to see them all succeed in school and in life.

Next year, there are many changes which will come about in education.  We are becoming much more data driven, and we are focused on holding people accountable.  I feel like there's more of a focus on explaining why we do the things we do, rather than just doing them.  Sometimes these are good things, I'm sure, but they can be very frustrating, especially when certain things are out of our control.  Without complaining and going into further details, I will simply say that I am anxious.  I am feeling like I cannot possibly be good enough. 

Our school, like others have meetings where we meet to discuss student data, and we talk about what we need to do better.  We talk about where we are lacking and what we need to do about it.  This is very good for our students, but it has been very overwhelming to me lately.  At a recent meeting, a co-worker said to a group of us, "You are doing a great job.  You need to pat yourselves on the back, because you really are."  I thought to myself, "I don't have the strength, will someone please reach out and pat my back for me?"  Why have I been feeling this way lately?   I guess maybe because we all have a need to be encouraged.  And I have been feeling a little discouraged.

To teach is a gift.  It matters.  It's not just the curriculum that matters, it's so much more...  The time we take to care about our students, to create a relationship with them, to let them know we believe in them.  I was thinking, "I know how much I need to be encouraged."  Certainly, if I need it, so do others, so what is holding me back?  Couldn't I encourage someone else?  So here goes... 

Mrs. H - I think you are amazing.  You are one of the most compassionate people I know.  You have no children of your own, yet you are so understanding, patient and kind, and you're a very good Christian.  I think it was around my first year of teaching, when I watched you with an unbelievably difficult child.  In the past, she was unable to control her temper in the classroom.  I remember watching you as you leaned over to eye-level and spoke to her.  You spoke in such a calm, assuring manner. You would expect nothing but the best from her, and that is what she gave you, and I truly admire how all your students work hard to live up to your expectations.

Mrs. L - You are quite a leader.  I am more of a follower, so I truly admire your gift to lead.  You are always looking for new and better ways of doing things, and you're brave enough to share your ideas.

Mrs. B. - I think you are absolutely brilliant.  When I need advice, you're top on my list, as I really respect your opinion.  Maybe if I sit close to you during our lunch break, some of your smarts will rub off on me!

Mrs. S - I love to walk by your room.  You are so creative.  You always have student creations on the wall or hanging from the ceiling.  When I walk into your room, it feels so warm and inviting.

Mrs. S - I know that you are not the typical teacher.  You have had to overcome much adversity in your own life, but I think this gives you such an understanding for students who have to do the same.  You feel for them, and truly understand when they are going through difficult struggles.  Your encouragement and understanding is so beautiful.

Mrs. G - You are such a hard worker.  I cannot believe the amount of time you spend on your students.  You go above and beyond to help them succeed in the classroom.  You have made me better in a million ways.  When I have a tendency to rush through things, you are patient, thinking of things from every angle.  I have learned so much from you.  You're "A++" in my book.

I can say so much more.  But I'll stop right there.  Who can you encourage today?  Your spouse, your child, your co-worker, your friend?