Sunday, August 23, 2009

Walking Backwards

I can't remember the last time I walked backwards. Can you?

This morning, I gave my 10 year old some clothes to put in her chest of drawers. I happened to be walking past the hallway just in time to catch her walking backwards down the full length of the hallway until she reached her room.

She was smiling as she carefully held her folded clothes and tried to keep from bumping into walls.

She had taken a daily chore and turned it into an adventure. She had turned the mundane into a moment of joy.

We can take lessons from "little ones such as these". Our daily chores can wear us out. Sometimes, we need to look at the task and find some joy in it. Turn it into something else. See it as an opportunity.

And when we take our litany of chores and make it into a litany of offerings to God, something beautiful happens.

The mundane things in life have new purpose. Washing the floor becomes an opportunity for prayer. Straightening a room becomes an intercessory prayer for a rightly ordered soul. A car repair becomes a reminder of how long it has been since we went to Confession.

Life is a lesson. Chores are crosses. Everything gets recycled into something bigger and better. Something for God.

And we smile as we work, because we have found new meaning. And maybe, just maybe, someone we love will catch us in the act of "walking backwards" and it will bring a smile to them as well.

Share/Save/Bookmark

No comments:

Post a Comment