This week I am grateful for how much I enjoy serving in educational leadership. I am thankful for my faith and my family. I appreciate my health and the privilege I experience in being able to work from home.
In this excellent piece, Hang in There, Help is on the Way, the significance of perspective, support systems and perseverance is clearly highlighted. Although we are all tired emotionally and physically from the demands of the past nine months, now is the time throughout these holidays where even more diligence is being asked of us. Some would say our disciplined approach to the health and safety of all is required of us, from a faith standpoint.
We are fortunate to turn to the example of Jesus when considering just how to support those who are suffering right now. In reading my Jesuit Volunteers magazine the other night, I was struck by the claim that “The life and ministry of Jesus is a model of the resiliency required to put our faith to into action.” Teaching and healing in and through the lens of community worked well for Him; let us try to view our lived reality through this same viewpoint of community.
I will be counting community among my many blessings throughout the down time ahead. I miss my family who live afar, yet am relieved to be able to be with my own children, along with the neighbors on my block – our new family – with whom we will celebrate the holidays with … outdoors. I pray that each of us may lean into our own communities of support, spirit and sustenance in these weeks ahead.
I look forward to writing again in 2021. Stay safe and healthy in the meantime.
Footprints in the Sand – Mary Stevenson (1936)
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”
The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”
Keeping the Faith 