The readings for this week, the week before Pentecost, speaks of change, new beginnings, and that struck such a chord with me!

For months, oh let me be honest: years, I have tried to understand how to balance my faith life with my motherhood and found that both suffered greatly. Either I had no time for faith because our children were small, or I found a woman’s group that helped me spiritually but did nothing for me in terms of understanding how I was seen by God as a mother!

So I sit there at the cathedral during our daughters’ Baccalaureate Mass begging God to forgive me for not being more as a mother and first teacher, and what is so sad I know I am not the only one. So what does this mean for me, and all the other mothers! Do I stay wallowing in self pity or isn’t time that I realize that like Paul, who swore he would never betray Christ, Jesus thinks that I am worthy of his FAITH in me even if I don’t have any in myself!

We know the we are flawed human beings, we know that we have done and said things we can never take back. We know that God loves us no matter what we have done, but do we truly know, or are we just faking it? Do we believe in the promise of Reconciliation? Do we believe the God can and does make us new creatures, or is just the stories we tell our children?

Looking back on all my mothering years I see so much I did that was wrong, but what does living in the past get me, a better future or does thinking like that just keep me stuck in the mud of the past? Have I, like so many other moms, been worn down by life? Haven’t we all felt as if we are carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders so that now all we see is only the ground, the weight so heavy we can’t look up. If we don’t look up we can’t see the mountain, the dwelling place of God, our dwelling place: Isaiah 56:7, 57:13. We are called to lift our heads! Psalm 3:3  But You, O LORD, are a shield about me, My glory, and the One who lifts my head.

God lifts us up.