Day by Day, Stone by Stone

No trip lasts forever, but how do we convince a child that it is time to let go? I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a while, and out of all the jobs available, I found myself pedicabbing. That's right, I was tasked with bicycling people around the city. Of course, I was in the best shape of my life. I carried numerous people, covering upwards of 100 miles on a weekly basis. I gave rides to celebrities, political figures, conference goers, and the nightlife thrill-seekers. My most memorable fare was an unexpected family just leaving a restaurant. As chance would dictate, I was in the exact vicinity searching for my next customer, and I yelled: "Hey, y'all need a ride?" These two parents were doting on their seven or eight-year-old child. He was celebrating his birthday, and when he saw me, the kid immediately started tugging on his father's arm and pleaded: "Pappa, Momma! Can I please take a ride? Please? Please? Pleeeeeeease?" They both looked at him endearingly and said: "Of course. It's your special day!" Without asking the price, the father asked if I could give them a nice long tour of Uptown Charlotte. Hence, I was tasked with showing them all the spots I could think of that would interest the youngster. We weaved in and out of traffic; I showed them parks, beautifully lit buildings, waterfalls, monuments, and statues…We even stopped to listen to troubadours and watch street artists and magicians. No doubt, this child was having the time of his life. The gentle summer breeze rushed through our hair, and I, too, felt a certain joy knowing I was making this kid's birthday extra special. Hopefully, it would last a lifetime—it certainly has for me. A Life Lesson The trip came to an end, and when it was time to disembark, the kid immediately started to whine and plead: "No! Pappa! I'm having so much fun. I don't want it to end. Please, let's continue!" I definitely hear the hint of a tantrum as I start to see tears well up in this kid's eyes. I simultaneously see the father beginning to worry. After such a wonderful evening and giving his son all he asked for, would he also be forced to play the ‘bad guy?’ I am now convinced the Holy Spirit inspired me to intervene, not because I was trying to give grand advice or bestow memorable life lessons. In fact, my motivation was that I saw an opportunity to be well-tipped for all my efforts. I now see that what was said paved the way for me to learn a much more important lesson—a lesson God is trying to teach us all. Turning around in my seat and smiling, I said to the kid: "Thank you so much for sharing your special day with me! I was privileged to make this day so special for you. I can honestly say I had just as much fun giving the ride as you probably had taking it. But what makes this experience so special is that it can't last forever. If all great things never ended, this experience would no longer be extraordinary; there would be nothing to compare to this exciting activity. But now that it's over, I hope you take this experience and treasure it forever." The father smiled at me and said: "Thank you." He was undoubtedly relieved that his son no longer showed signs of throwing a tantrum. In fact, the kid did something I thought was even more shocking. He grabbed his father's hand, looked up at him, and said: "You're right, Pappa! It's time to go home. Thank you." Twelve years later, I realized that what I said to the kid was nothing compared to the lesson I was to learn from the response he gave his father. The world provides an array of thrills, experiences, and distractions. Some bring joy, while others just give the illusion of such. I had a great life as defined by the masses: I ended up going on to have a promising career, and I traveled the world and continued to enjoy worldly (often sinful) things. In short, I refused to get off the perpetual exciting ride. But even when I was most estranged from the faith, the Holy Spirit was still working, paving the way for when finally God said: "It's time to disembark." I now realize that, like this kid, my response needs to be to grab God's hand and say: " You're right Pappa! It's time to go home."

Untold graces and miracles are available to those who practice surrender. I frequently tell my friends about ‘surrender,’ but I receive this question in return: "What does surrendering look like in reality? Am I supposed to ignore the dirty diaper?" The short answer is no! Clean the baby and toss the diaper. Each moment in our lives is a gift from God. Every second is pregnant with possibilities. I can surrender my exhaustion, frustration, joy, or confusion by giving God access. In doing so, I am letting Him determine solutions. I use my freedom to yield to the One with a better plan. How do I know it is better? Because He is the Alpha and the Omega. Although we each have various challenges, the same principles apply. The answer lies in our perspective. Essential to surrender is how we look at any given situation. For instance, I can either go: "Why does the baby always wait until I am ready to leave the house to dirty her diapers?” or instead, be more positive: "That was a close call. I'm happy it happened at home." The latter isn't always my first thought, but I'm making progress. Assuming that various people and situations are specifically intended to frustrate me makes me a target. Pay attention to your perspective. How do you react when something or someone upsets you? Do you feel personally attacked? A positive way to combat that is to flip it around. God has a different plan for me today. Shifting from a target mentality to a recipient of God's grace is all in one’s perspective. Crosses of Our Own Making Being a recipient allows me to receive invitations from God throughout the day. I can freely agree or refuse to be His instrument in any situation. It's letting God's Will be accomplished through my yes. In this, I imitate the Master and grow in virtue. Can you begin to see how surrender works? How much of the anxiety and fear that we experience is self-imposed? I once read that many of the crosses we carry are of our own making. Talk about self-defeating. Thinking that we are obliged to handle everything independently is one way we have unnecessary crosses. Do I see it as another dreary diaper change? Or do I see it as an honor to be able to help my daughter, who cannot help herself? We can practice surrender in small and inconsequential ways, thus growing in holiness. The other segment of surrendering comes from allowing yourself to become a gift from God. Our yes to the Lord through our surrender will enable Him to position us as His instruments in each circumstance. I cannot begin to share how often this happens to me. In giving my yes, I know without a doubt that God will provide. And boy, does He! I am continually surprised by the words coming from my mouth (or written on the page). Repeatedly, it is spot-on. God knows. I do not. The One Who Knows Surrendering frees me from having to solve every problem or carry its weight. I am free to be used by the Almighty in His redemptive work. It allows God to be Father, Savior, Healer, and Sanctifier in and through me. In this way, I become a gift to someone else. It's a win-win! In this little way, I get to participate in his salvific work while He does all the heavy lifting. Those people and that situation are precisely where I am supposed to be because, where I am, there is the Trinity for whom nothing is impossible. "No action, however insignificant, if accepted and performed as coming from God's hand, and in conformity with His will, is anything other than redemptive and a sharing in the great work of salvation begun by Christ's Passion." (He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek) Who is the perfect example of surrender? Our Blessed Mother. She showed us how to surrender in her fiat: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) At the Cross, she was not angry, spiteful, cursing, or asking why, nor was she a passive doormat. Instead, Mary simply stood there, giving her fiat in quiet surrender to God. It is a process of letting go, not into thin air, but into the hands of our Father. When I look back on my own experiences, in those moments of helplessness when life threw me on the asphalt, crushed me on the ice, or shattered the silence as each son shared yet another loss of their little one…Knowing why didn't make it any better. These are the times of surrender and fiats. It is not quitting, rolling over, or giving up. It is handling our problems in confidence and surrendering them to the One who knows the next perfect step. Let it be, Lord, I trust in you. Lord, I give You every moment of my day and access to everything in my life. I welcome Your solutions. I am precisely where You want me to be right now. Pray the Surrender Novena: shalomtidings.org/prayer_categories/novenas-to-our-lord

How can your peace be restored when facing the challenges in life? Sewing is one of my favorite hobbies. I especially enjoy putting together pieces of fabric to create quilt tops. One particular design of mine is called a ‘Crazy Quilt.’ It consists of sewing random scraps, of otherwise useless pieces of fabric, together in such a way that it resembles a mosaic pattern. One day, when working on Crazy Quilt blocks, it occurred to me that each block resembled broken pieces of pottery that, when put together, recreated its own beautiful pattern. It also reminded me that sometimes life can feel like it’s broken into pieces, yet in the Potter’s hands, God can reconstruct those pieces into a new life. God is the source of all peace, but concupiscence caused by original sin can result in God’s peace within us being severed by challenges, temptations, or sin that draw us away from Him. Severed peace makes life feel broken and without purpose. But there is hope, for there’s always hope in God. The Book of Genesis, when read through God’s lens, is clearly the most wonderful love story—our love story with Him. Throughout the creation passages in Scripture, God remarked that everything He created was good. However, on the sixth day, when God created mankind, He said: “It was very good!” Why ‘very good?’ Simply because God created us in His image of goodness so He could love us and be loved in return. A Gentle Reminder All mankind was meant to love completely and live in peace under His protection. However, humanity, through Adam and Eve, chose to challenge God’s goodness, disobeying Him and thereby stepping out of His protection and peace when they chose to believe Satan (the Prince of Lies) over God. Their unfortunate choice, called ‘original sin,’ resulted in the shattering of their peace through the challenges, temptation, and sins that entered outside of God’s protection. His peace had been broken. God is good and He loves us, so He didn’t leave us this way. The Bible’s entire Old Testament details centuries of His efforts to re-establish the relationship He had with us in the Garden of Eden. However, as He was trying to get our attention, the Prince of Lies began to confuse mankind through temptations that led to more sin, pulling humanity further from God. Not to worry though, for Saint Paul reminded us that ‘God is for us’ and that nothing “in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39) How? Because God came for us Himself. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.”(John 3:16) It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have a say when the choice was made to commit original sin, but we can reverse the outcome of that sin by choosing to accept and follow Jesus, the Son of God, who is the Prince of Peace(Isaiah 9:6). He wants to lead us back to the Father in Heaven, but often, getting to Him is difficult when we have to step over all the painful broken pieces in our lives. Remember, Scripture is His love story to us. He knows our struggles and assures us that He is our refuge and our strength. Back to the Crazy Quilt It’s amazing when the numerous fabrics, patterns, and colors of a Crazy Quilt that are stitched together somehow blend to create a beautiful quilt top. Scripture reveals that God’s pretty crafty too. Not only is He a potter (Isaiah 64:8), but also He knits (Psalm 139:13), and I like to think He even sews. I wonder if He might see mankind as His own ‘Crazy Quilt’ creation. Although not His original design, we’re a collection of broken pieces all put back together again; He has recreated us, for “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”(2 Corinthians 5:17) So, when challenges, temptations, or sin are severing the peace within us, let this inherent thought bring you comfort: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”(Romans 8:28) What’s that purpose again? God created us in His image of goodness so He could love us and be loved in return. Is there anything better than a warm quilt and a wonderful love story with a happy ending?

Is it a miracle or a coincidence? I had been working on an article for several days, arduously trying to get my facts right so that the end product I presented was as authentic as possible. Then, all of a sudden, I hit the wrong button, and almost all of what I had written over the past few days disappeared from my entire computer. Nothing worked, no matter how much I tried and how many IT experts I consulted. I had two choices either to try again fruitlessly to retrieve my lost work or to rely on the power of prayer to somehow miraculously retrieve it. Desperate Times, Desperate Measures In the meantime, I felt that I had made a copy of the unfinished work somewhere in the process. So I searched everywhere, in every nook and cranny, in every plastic bag I now use as my case or valise, desperate for a copy of this lost venture, but without success. Trying to replicate all those hours of thought and written words was such a dirge, but I tried to console myself. I desperately prayed to all the Saints of God, particularly one of my favorites, Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron Saint of lost things. My eagerness to finish the article caused me so much anxiety that I even lost sleep over it. I couldn’t content myself until I found the missing half of my article. This continued until the weekend, when I finally decided to dive into a new version of my original idea, forfeiting any hope of finding any semblance of my original thoughts. I sat by my computer, hit my story on the desktop, and thought about where I was to begin revising my original story. Suddenly, I glanced towards my printer, where I spotted a sliver of four pieces of paper protruding from my printer. I ignored it because it must be a remnant of what I was working on earlier. However, before hitting the print button on my latest endeavor, I extracted the A-4 pages. Surprisingly, the article's title matched exactly what I had been desperately searching for over the last week. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could this be so? An article that I, and every close and known acquaintance of mine, had been unsuccessfully searching for over the past week or so surprisingly appeared on my printer out of the blue. This spiritual experience left an indelible mark on my psyche. I know we leave so many existential happenings to ‘coincidence’. I realized how gracious our God is in allowing His Holy Angels and Saints to come to our aid with the slightest requests.