Thank God For Tomorrow

I have been a hot mess lately. The good news is that the last time I felt this confuse and frazzled was when I was on the cliff known as conversion. I think that maybe I\’m finally getting to the work of integrating being human with being Catholic, if that makes sense. I don’t know if it happens to everyone, but when I converted I set out to be the best Catholic that I could be. I had lived a life soaked in sin and so following the “rules” made sense to me because I knew if I didn’t that I would go back to living my old life. I compared myself to other Catholic women around me and tried my best to keep up. I have ended up making myself crazy and tired. I have also lost some friends along the way because I had no clue how to be balanced. Plus, I reacted to everything personally. I still do that to some extent, but I realized it was a problem awhile back, I just had no clue what to do about it.

The last time that I felt this close to a cliff was when I realized that Jesus was alive and the Catholic Church was His Church. That jump turned out to be pretty awesome, so I guess this one has some good possibilities.

After eating a doughnut for breakfast, I started my 3rd first day of this 30-day workout. I have been feeling like I suck because I have gained all this weight and instead of doing something about it, I just sit around whining about it. This morning during my Rosary, I realized that I don\’t actually suck. I\’m just not done dealing with 33 years of hurts and bad coping skills. Today is always a new day to work on healing those things. Tomorrow will always be another chance to do better, but I can’t even think about tomorrow, I just have to live today.

I did not really learn any life skills when I was growing up. My mom was a single mother and the one thing that she taught me is that you couldn’t depend on a man. You had to do everything for yourself because if you depended on anyone for anything they would expect something from you or let you down. The man whom she rented our house from raped and molested me for years when I was little, which only made the lesson nothing but the truth to me.

Who knew that I would need any life skills other than that lesson? I thought that sex and knowing how to make great drinks would get me through life. Making goals? What the hell is that? Studying? Who even knows how to do that? Cleaning the house? Ummm, yeah. Making chore charts? What?! It\’s like I\’m 5 years old with the responsibilities of a grown woman, because I am a grown woman.

Apparently, this is all pretty common for people who are codependent. I’m reading Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. A lot of it hits home and some of it confuses me, but for the most part I can say that this book is like the story of my life. If other people aren’t like this, then I need to get better. I’m not quite convinced that most other people aren’t like this. (That’s the whole cliff thing. I’m a stubborn soul.)

I do know that I have to learn these skills in order to be the best version of myself, and that being the best version of myself is what God wants for me. That’s the only way that I can truly love my husband and my children.

One thing that I am so guilty of is trying to control outcomes. I am terrible at this, at telling people how to do Y so X will happen, and it would just be so much easier if they would just listen to me. That is the story of my life.

I can’t really wrap my head around some of the other concepts in this book to fit in with my Catholic faith, but that one I can. I was in the shower thinking about it and kicking it around and around in my head when it hit me. John Chapter 6. Most of the time, as Catholics, we bring up the fact that Jesus is talking about how we have to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood because those are His own words, and why we believe that the Eucharist is the Source and Summit of our Faith. But that’s not all there is to the story. There were disciples who thought that what Jesus said was crazy and they walked away. And he let them.

I always wondered why He didn’t follow them, you know try to clear things up? Maybe explain to them what He was talking about or tell them that one day they would get it. He let them walk away because God respects people’s right to make their own choices. He doesn’t try to control those choices by imposing Himself on us. He also knows that somewhere down the line He will have another chance to change their minds by making the right choices for Himself, like dying on a cross. I don’t know, maybe some of those who walked away ended up coming back to the flock when they heard of His death and resurrection.

I don’t know what is going to happen. But I do know that I am staying with Jesus. I know Who He is. I know that without Him and without His Church, I am nothing. But with Him, I am exactly who I am supposed to be right now. I can begin to learn those life skills so that I can build a life for myself and those that I love. I can continue to allow Him to heal me from all the things that I have been through in my life. It’s not going to all happen today; thank God there is always tomorrow.