Ep.24 | Redefining 'success'
(Meditation song at the end - Servant Song by Donna Marie McGargill)
Peace, love, and blessings to you!
This reflection comes to you fresh, really, as I’d like my reflections to. I just feel this one is EXTRA fresh as I’ve spent the past couple of weeks crying over this, primarily with feelings that I’m just not doing enough…
So this would be a good reflection for anyone who may have trouble embracing the statement below. As my husband so clearly summarized in a talk with me yesterday…
The sum of your worth is not the sum of your works
Let me first start by saying that this truth spoken by my husband would not even be possible to express if it wasn’t for the high value we put on our communication. It started from the very beginning of our lives together, enabling us to expedite the ‘getting to know each other’ phase. We went from being strangers we saw from across the pew in daily mass, to acquaintances in Virtual Vespers, which I created and co-hosted with our common priest friend, to very close best-friends, and ultimately husband and wife all in a 10-month period. Hehe.
From the beginning, my husband challenged my communication skills, especially when it came to being vulnerable. I was the person that kept my feelings as far away from others as possible, including myself. So when it came to getting to know one another, I didn’t want to expose my heart to someone else who would inevitably break it – or so I thought.
At the same time, however, I felt drawn to disclose EVERYTHING about me, like EVERYTHING. All the deep and darkest secrets, all the mistakes and flaws, all my struggles and weaknesses…IT WAS TERRIFYING! Yet at the same time, there was such a level of relief seeing that he wasn’t running away or judging me. He just saw me for who I was, loved me, and wanted to continue to love me.
NEVER did I think a relationship like that was possible and I knew from that point on that I wanted him in my life because he was the person God sent to help me on my earthly journey!
All this to say, from the beginning, we’ve never sugar-coated anything with each other. We never let more than an hour pass to address someone’s feelings, no matter how trivial it may be. We never let the other go to try and ‘figure things out’ on their own, because we know the target Satan has on our marriage (really all marriages), and we don’t want the other to be out in the battlefield with feelings Satan sniffs out and wants to use against us.
THIS IS NOT EASY PEOPLE! Taking time out of ‘your’ day to stop, acknowledge the other’s pain, and put the other first to talk, catch tears, or hold each other isn’t an automatic response, though that’s the goal!
Which takes me back to what I wanted to speak on for this reflection. For the past couple of weeks, my husband has stopped and taken time to notice my internal conflict (which I thought I was hiding pretty well) to catch so many of my tears and listen to my anxiety-laden rants about how much I feel like I’m failing as a mother and wife, that I’m not doing enough to help make the world a better place, that there is much more I could be doing for God.
So we discovered in our talks, this has some deep roots from childhood as a daughter in an immigrant family that came to America for better opportunities. It was then reinforced by my career path and just society in general. In order to be ‘successful’, you need to have all the titles, you need to have the house and nice cars, you need to be working your way up the ladder, you need to be earning a certain amount and increasingly so.
All of this has just been completely re-written the moment I had our daughter! First, I was just not even capable of functioning ‘normally’, let alone be able to do as much as I used it. Showering was a great accomplishment for me. How in the world was I supposed to get back to my ‘track of success’ if I couldn’t even take care of myself?!
Fast forward over half a year, and praise be to God, my brain function is restored. However, my ‘path of success’ is not as clearcut as it once was. I’m STILL trying to land a job, and in the meanwhile, I’ve been struggling to accept that making baby food or going out on family walks is being successful.
I can tell you that trying to give myself expectations and goals, trying to compare myself now to how I was, has been a recipe of total unrest. I’ve become an insomniac. I complain more. I smile less…it’s just no bueno!
And my husband picked up on this and had to give me quite the talk yesterday to speak some heavy truths. God is clearly trying to get a message out to me. I’ve read so many wonderful passages from the Imitation of Christ lately that speak to this struggle of mine, but there’s nothing like having the love of your life look you straight in the eye and LOVE you by his deep concern, compassion, and care.
Stay tuned for this fun spiritual improvement project! All I know is that there’s clearly a shift happening in my perspective of success, of my worth. And in just the past day, I’ve really tried to do things throughout the day with much more love, to say…This is what is being asked of me in this moment. And thanks be to Jesus, literally anything and everything that I do is an offering to God, of penance, praise, and thanksgiving. I mean, just look at my 7-month-old – God loves her unconditionally and she is just BEING – there are zero expectations of things that she has to DO!
So with that perspective, one that is spiritual, yeah, I definitely won’t be trying to pursue what the world says I should be doing for ‘success.’ But what about the bills!? One may ask. Honestly, I have so many examples in my life of amazing people who simply put God first and everything else falls in line. So when it comes to the necessities of life, I would like to work on having my heart trust that God will provide all that we need to live a truly fulfilling life. Isn’t my life as a Christian supposed be abandoning the way of the world?
Personal Prayer: Heavenly Father, you created each of us as human beings and not human doings. Please help my heart to embrace your love for me as your child and bring peace to where there is much anxiety about the things I feel I must do. Please continue to guide me and help me through this. Thank you for how you have helped thus far, especially through my husband and our marriage. Amen.