Pondering versus worrying
I spent one very memorable Easter with my Ukrainian Catholic friend and her family. Her father is a priest and her family, not surprisingly, are all very involved in their church.
During a tour of the church, this friend's mother attempted to explain the theological significance of icons to me. She said that an icon 'reads' us in a way, and that the gaze of an icon helps us to know about our own spiritual state. Sometimes the gaze of Christ or the saint depicted is one of warm affirmation, sometimes it is of gentle rebuke. They reflect back to us what we need to know about our interior state.
Although I am a decidedly Latin Rite Catholic, I have experienced this while staring at an icon. We have some icons in our Little Oratory in our living room, and one of my favourites is Our Lady of Tenderness, given to us as a wedding gift from Noah's godparents.
Several night ago, I was struggling with my still-not-potty-trained daughter to get her into a new diaper and jammies before bed. She was crying and screaming uncharacteristically. She had had a doozy of a few weeks: a weird flu bug followed by a weird rash, then antibiotics, the rash worsening, a hospital visit to lance the "rash" under sedation that had turned into an abscess, more antibiotics, the abscess reappearing, another hospital visit and sedation, and a third round of antibiotics. {Edited to add: and now chicken pox, too.}
No wonder she was spent, emotionally and physically.
What I wasn't completely aware of was that I was.
By being constantly preoccupied by her health, that unsettling state of hurry-up-and-wait before the next trip to the ER, I had lost a lot of sleep. My nerves were wracked by the uncertainty of her freak illnesses, not to mention the sorrowful sight of my little girl sedated but coming to and being terrified by the sight of the doctor beginning to lance her abscess (the size of a portobello mushroom).
As I struggled to get her into her pyjamas, I said a desperate prayer. "God, make her better!" And as I did, I looked up at the icon of Our Lady of Tenderness. For the first time, I saw a wearied look on her face. It was as though God was affirming me through the eyes of my Mother that I was alright to feel a bit struck down.
Truly, until then, I hadn't realized how weary I actually was.
I share this now not because I am trying to illustrate what a martyr I am, or was. It wasn't like I was toiling away at all hours of the day on her behalf. For the most part, life was like as usual: make the food, do the laundry, read the stories. Yet in the back of my mind was the constant low-level worry that the other shoe was going to drop, that perhaps it was a more serious illness than a mere oral antibiotic could handle. And then what?
So as I looked up at that icon, I saw in Our Lady's eyes a reminder that bearing these thoughts, these anxious pesky little gnats of worry that buzz around one's mind, is exhausting. It affirmed to me that carrying the mental burden of our children's well-being is an enormous task.
When the shepherds stumbled into the stable, they excitedly told Mary and Joseph all about the celestial visit they had had. There Mary knelt, just having delivered her Baby, and she listened to perfect strangers acclaim her child as God's own Son. What did she do in response? "[She] kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19
I tend to think "pondering" things in our hearts is the other side of the coin of the worry I described. Mary could well have been afraid at the task before her -- raising God Himself! -- but instead of fretting, she prayerfully considered role; she "pondered". She placed the mysterious and the unknown in God's hands.
I suppose this is what I should strive for as a mother.
And yet, I didn't sense the slightest bit of castigation coming heavenwards towards me, just a resounding understanding.
I recall Our Lady once lost Jesus for three straight days. Not only would she grieve as a mother, she would have felt like she had somehow failed. She was in charge of God and she lost Him!
She knows, she knows what it is to be stricken with fear and worry over one's child.
I needn't be afraid to admit how exhausting those fears can be.
"Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
During a tour of the church, this friend's mother attempted to explain the theological significance of icons to me. She said that an icon 'reads' us in a way, and that the gaze of an icon helps us to know about our own spiritual state. Sometimes the gaze of Christ or the saint depicted is one of warm affirmation, sometimes it is of gentle rebuke. They reflect back to us what we need to know about our interior state.
Although I am a decidedly Latin Rite Catholic, I have experienced this while staring at an icon. We have some icons in our Little Oratory in our living room, and one of my favourites is Our Lady of Tenderness, given to us as a wedding gift from Noah's godparents.
Several night ago, I was struggling with my still-not-potty-trained daughter to get her into a new diaper and jammies before bed. She was crying and screaming uncharacteristically. She had had a doozy of a few weeks: a weird flu bug followed by a weird rash, then antibiotics, the rash worsening, a hospital visit to lance the "rash" under sedation that had turned into an abscess, more antibiotics, the abscess reappearing, another hospital visit and sedation, and a third round of antibiotics. {Edited to add: and now chicken pox, too.}
No wonder she was spent, emotionally and physically.
What I wasn't completely aware of was that I was.
By being constantly preoccupied by her health, that unsettling state of hurry-up-and-wait before the next trip to the ER, I had lost a lot of sleep. My nerves were wracked by the uncertainty of her freak illnesses, not to mention the sorrowful sight of my little girl sedated but coming to and being terrified by the sight of the doctor beginning to lance her abscess (the size of a portobello mushroom).
As I struggled to get her into her pyjamas, I said a desperate prayer. "God, make her better!" And as I did, I looked up at the icon of Our Lady of Tenderness. For the first time, I saw a wearied look on her face. It was as though God was affirming me through the eyes of my Mother that I was alright to feel a bit struck down.
Truly, until then, I hadn't realized how weary I actually was.
I share this now not because I am trying to illustrate what a martyr I am, or was. It wasn't like I was toiling away at all hours of the day on her behalf. For the most part, life was like as usual: make the food, do the laundry, read the stories. Yet in the back of my mind was the constant low-level worry that the other shoe was going to drop, that perhaps it was a more serious illness than a mere oral antibiotic could handle. And then what?
So as I looked up at that icon, I saw in Our Lady's eyes a reminder that bearing these thoughts, these anxious pesky little gnats of worry that buzz around one's mind, is exhausting. It affirmed to me that carrying the mental burden of our children's well-being is an enormous task.
When the shepherds stumbled into the stable, they excitedly told Mary and Joseph all about the celestial visit they had had. There Mary knelt, just having delivered her Baby, and she listened to perfect strangers acclaim her child as God's own Son. What did she do in response? "[She] kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19
I tend to think "pondering" things in our hearts is the other side of the coin of the worry I described. Mary could well have been afraid at the task before her -- raising God Himself! -- but instead of fretting, she prayerfully considered role; she "pondered". She placed the mysterious and the unknown in God's hands.
I suppose this is what I should strive for as a mother.
And yet, I didn't sense the slightest bit of castigation coming heavenwards towards me, just a resounding understanding.
I recall Our Lady once lost Jesus for three straight days. Not only would she grieve as a mother, she would have felt like she had somehow failed. She was in charge of God and she lost Him!
She knows, she knows what it is to be stricken with fear and worry over one's child.
I needn't be afraid to admit how exhausting those fears can be.
"Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
This is so beautiful, Jenna! I never thought of it like this before: " She was in charge of God and she lost Him!" Wow! She, obviously, really gets us as mothers. Prayers for little Anna and her Mama!
ReplyDeleteI read this a few days and forgot to comment in the busyness of the moment. This is a wonderful reflection. I remember being struck a number of years ago that Our Lady's version of worrying was pondering things in her heart. Our propensity as women to worry hints at something greater, something that's part of the feminine genius. The challenge is how to take our loving concern and turn it to pondering these things in our hearts and not to worry. And, yes, a sick child is so psychologically tiring. It's like we are stuck in flight or fight mode until we get the green light that all is well. I remember being in hospital at CHEO with Isaac and Sarah Gould came to visit and said, "you look so very, very exhausted." I wasn't insulted. I was touched because she could see the mind-weariness of terrible worry.
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