I, me, mine

A friend poured out her feelings to me one afternoon over Skype. If my computer was a sponge, I could probably wring it hard and tears would flow out. This may sound exaggerated, but my friend was so distraught and her words were punctuated with  emoticons of anger, sadness, frustration and hopelessness.

“What did I do to deserve this?” she started. And then her tirades were unstoppable.

“I wake up early. I cook food. I clean the house. I take the kids to school. I sit before my computer and work. Then I have to fetch my kids. I play with them. I check their homework. I cook again. I go back to my computer and check work again. The kids cry and I had to settle a boxing bout among them.I clean up their mess and tuck them to bed. Just when I want to plop on the bed to rest, here comes my husband who doesn’t even ask her how my day has been. He asks for dinner and I had to heat the food again. Instead of talking to me, he turns on the TV and watches it until he finishes his dinner. I ask him how work is and he just mutters “as usual.” He goes to the computer and stays there until about an hour or so. Then he moves to the bedroom. After cleaning up the table and picking up his clothes, I find him asleep.”

I look at myself in the mirror and ask again “What did I do to deserve this? ”

Lying beside her snoring husband, she harbors these thoughts : “There’s no one thanking me for all I’ve done. There’s no one singing songs to me. There’s no one to hold my hand. There is no one to make me smile. What about me?”

I, me, mine—words of self-centering, maybe of selfish focus? My friend’s Skype chat with me was all about her. We do have moments in our life when our focus is just on ourselves. We get blinded so much with our own feelings, discomfort and suffering that we fail to be objective.

“It’s all about me” is incredibly selfish and it leads to emptiness and self-pity. As much as I understood my friend, I had to advise her to stop looking at the mirror and step back to see what’s beyond her reflection.

I asked, “Why are you taking care of your family? Why do you cook food? Why do you keep the house clean?” And she said, “ Because I have to, because I’m the wife and mother.”

Exactly, I said. “You are doing your role , your purpose in life as a housewife and mother. And God is happy with that. But beyond the ‘have to,’ you love to do these things because you love your husband and kids. And that’s all that matters.”

Love does not expect something in return. True love gives more than receives. To keep on giving without receiving can hurt but that’s what’s pleasing before God’s eyes. And whatever is pleasing to God is a big point for heaven.

I shared with my friend what Rick Warren, writer of the best seller “The Purpose Driven Life” wrote—“A meaningful life begins when we realize it’s not all about us. It’s all about God.”

When we get to know who Jesus really is and realize that the way to honor Him and love Him is serving others, then our sacrifices will all be worth the sweat and the tears. Ultimately, the reward is after this life.

I told my friend to continue serving her family with love. No one may be recognizing all her efforts, but God never sleeps. She has to look forward to His blessing for all her sacrifices in due time—His perfect time.

The more important thing is that she prepares her soul for Heaven. Her husband has his own accountability before God. So let it be his. If she entertains anger towards her husband, she’s no better than her husband.

Witnessing is a great catalyst to changing people. Fire is put out with water. Black fades away with white. A happy countenance can overpower a scowl. As long as she continues to show love, my friend’s husband will have nothing to throw against her. For how can one fight against goodness and love?

It could take time, but then patience is a virtue. Romans 5:3-5 expands the fruit of perseverance in suffering when St. Paul wrote, “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

I exchanged these thoughts to my friend for almost an hour. I told her I know how she’s feeling because there was a time I was also self-centered. I expected my husband (God bless his soul!) to reciprocate all what I’m doing for the family. I wanted him to express love the way I want it to be. But later in our marriage, I became happier when I accepted that a woman is different from a man, that we should be filling in each other’s weaknesses and not competing with each other.

So to have peace in her heart and mind, she should see her husband as he is—the man she married with love.

I apologized for my “sermon,” but she said she digested every word I wrote. It’s going to be hard but she’s going to try not to complain too much. And I simply ended our chat by telling her, “Do everything with love. Love begets love.”