The Feels

These days, I get home and I just sit.  I sit and realize how much I get hung up on the little irritating things that happened throughout the day.  I didn't get invited somewhere...even if I know I wouldn't have been able to make it, I wasn't invited.  Some small, yet easily fixable, mistake happened at work...but even though it was a quick fix, it still was a mistake.  I didn't pray enough at work. I got home today, and my mom, bless her heart, tried to clean up my room since I'd been on the go all week and hadn't gotten to it...and in the process, I have a stack of papers that don't go together and clothes put into wrong drawers because order matters, people (in my defense, she reorganizes the dish washer when I try to help load it).

Why do I get so hung up on the little things? 

One time a good friend found me upset in our school chapel before I went into a mock interview.  She lovingly sat with me, let me cry out my nervousness, and laughingly told me, "I just don't have as many feels as you."

I stayed up sleepless almost the entire night after the last presidential election because I was so distraught with the results. The first time I came home from college and my mom rearranged the furniture in my room, I cried as I wrote a long email to one of the Sisters at the IHMs about how I hated being so attached to little things in life. You wouldn't believe it, but I'm almost choking back tears as I think back on that last memory.

I feel a lot of things, and I feel them deeply.  But God made my heart that way.  And God gifts me with grace when I'm open to it, to grow through these habits, out of bad habits, and onto more fulfilling habits.

I also read a lot into how other people react to me and to situations.  If my manager corrects one of my mistakes, I try to appear graceful and thankful for the correction on the outside, but my head looks more like "OH MY GOSH I'M THE WORST EMPLOYEE EVER OH MY GOSH I'M SORRY DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH ME OH MY GOSH SHE HATES ME PLEASE LET ME GO BURY MY HEAD IN THE SAND HOW DID I EVER GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE WITH MISTAKES LIKE THIS?"  Most of the misunderstandings that happen in my life are from assuming the other person is LIVID at me over some small tiff.

All of my favorite devotions and quotes from spiritual greats are those that challenge me the most in my faith life.  I love Divine Mercy because I'm so BAD at it.  So this quote pierces my heart and knocks me over again and again: "To be pleased at correction and reproofs shows that one loves the virtues which are contrary to those faults for which he is corrected and reproved. And, therefore, it is a great sign of advancement in perfection." -- St. Francis de Sales

Oh dear, how far I am from that. I really don't like being called out.  Really don't like it.  I'd rather do it first myself than somebody else.  But that's exactly where I need to be more open.  I need to let others see my mistakes, and correct me for them.  I need to be reminded of my lowliness.

On a lighter note...

This is one of my favorite images right now at work...I've had a growing devotion to St. Joseph lately, and this image...it's lovely...

I tried real hard to find the name of the artist, but am coming up short.