The school year is off to a roaring start, and every year, along with the children, I learn new things — about Our Lord, about other people, about myself, about being human.
This year is no different.
Today I observed, along with some preschoolers, that sometimes crying is simply inevitable.
The causes of the need to cry are varied.
Sometimes we miss our moms. Sometimes we are hungry. Or scared. Or tired. Or disappointed. Or sad. Or frustrated. Or lonely.
And crying helps us let go of all that is pent up inside of us.
Simply speaking, big crying can help us deal with big emotions.
But once the storm subsides — and through dried tears we look up at who is there to help us — we begin to learn to trust in someone outside ourselves.
Developing trust
Developing this trust does take some time, on the human level as well as at the spiritual level.
Once trust is established, though, you begin to lean more and more into the prayers you say at first only with your lips.
Trust is the gateway that allows Our Lord’s grace into your heart so that the words on your lips become words truly meant in your heart.
To ask something of — or share something with — someone you completely trust transforms the outward prayers into inward surrender from the deepest parts of your heart.
This deep surrender in all things — and especially in the things that cause us to cry, interiorly and exteriorly — is precisely part of what draws us closer to Our Lord.
This is why suffering is redemptive, when we join it to Our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross.But it all must begin with trust.
“It is confidence and nothing but confidence which must lead us to love,” wrote St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
Being honest
In the deepest parts of your heart and with the outlook of a small child, look up at those who are here to help you.
“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 29:11-14).
Do you trust in Our Lord Do you trust in His promises? Do you trust in His plans for you? Do you trust in Our Lady’s ability to intercede for you? Do you?
Then dry your tears and say your prayers again.
This time not just with the words on your lips, but with all that is within you and with the deepest surrender of your heart.
Trust makes all the difference.
Julianne Nornberg, mother of four children, is a teacher’s aide at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Waunakee.