Month: July 2020

The Watering Can

/ sheridursin / 1 Comment

Watering can

Since the COVID-19 outbreak first came to the United States months ago, how much time have you spent caring for others? Raise your hand if you’re doing (or have done) any of the following:

  • Working through the shutdown as an essential healthcare, transportation, grocery, or sanitation worker
  • Buying groceries for an elderly parent, relative, or neighbor
  • Running errands for someone who is under quarantine
  • Helping your children navigate online learning when schools were shut down this spring
  • Putting in long hours figuring out how to provide online learning to your students
  • Cooking meals around the clock for a house full of family stuck at home
  • Volunteering for local social services such as food banks, shelters, etc.
  • Showing up to march in protest for the equal rights of your black brothers and sisters
  • Sewing masks or collecting PPE to support your local hospitals or nursing homes
  • Providing connection and care to those who are lonely and isolated in quarantine
  • Talking to friends, children, or siblings who are scared and anxious and trying to help them work through their fears

Let me take a moment to tell you that you are wonderful! You are doing God’s work in caring for others during a time of crisis, and your work is appreciated. Today I would like you to reflect on this important question: How much of yourself are you giving away? Is this constant taking care of others taking its toll on your spirit? You can’t become so busy caring for others that your spiritual life suffers. Your relationship with God is the foundation that supports everything else. You can’t be the best YOU without it!

Think of yourself as a watering can. Every time you care for someone, you pour out a little bit of water to nurture them. What happens when the watering can is empty? What are you doing to refill it? Are you taking time to rest? Are you taking time to sit in the stillness and feel the presence of God all around you? Are you praying, meditating, taking long walks in nature, playing your favorite spiritual music, or finding other ways to connect with God?

Re-filling your watering can has to be a commitment. You can’t wait around for the time to present itself. With the state the world is in right now, it might not happen anytime soon. The work of caring for others never ends. There’s always one more thing you can do. Let it be a gift you give to yourself—making the conscious decision to stop and fill up your watering can in whatever way works best for you.

The good news is, you don’t have to do this alone. I’m sure you have someone in your life —a friend or family member—that you can always count on to lift your spirits. No matter how hard your day is, how tired or stressed you are, when you’re with that person, they make you feel good. That’s what God can and should be for you when your watering can is empty. Allow yourself to rest in God. To be refreshed by the peace and joy that can only come from God.

Then you will be ready to be poured out once again.

What We Have is Enough

/ sheridursin / 3 Comments

hydrangea

All my life I’ve been in love with hydrangeas. Huge beautiful flowers in gorgeous colors that reflect the ocean and the sky. They remind me of lazy days on vacation at Cape Cod and endless summer afternoons. I always dreamed I would one day live in a house with rows of hydrangea bushes in dazzling colors. 

Well…I’ve been in my house for 20 years and I had more failed attempts at growing hydrangeas than I could count. Admittedly, I’m not the world’s best gardener, and for whatever reason they  just wouldn’t grow in my yard. I had all but given up, when five years ago my in-laws gave me a beautiful hydrangea bush for Mother’s Day. This one did well! It grew stronger and fuller every year, with healthy green leaves and bountiful blooms. Granted, it wasn’t the overflowing garden of many hydrangeas I once dreamed about, but I decided it would be enough. 

This one hydrangea bush would be enough, and I would love it fiercely.

This summer, for some reason, my beloved hydrangea bush only produced one solitary bloom. I was so disappointed! Like so many of you, I’d been stuck at home for months during the quarantine, with nothing to look at but my front yard and my back yard. I had been looking forward to seeing the hydrangea bloom in full glory this summer.  

So I had another decision to make. I could continue to focus on the lack of blooms—on what my garden was lacking—or I could decide that my one bloom was enough. And so that’s what I did. I’m loving that bloom fiercely.

Best-selling author Melanie Beattie once wrote, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.” It is absolutely true that the COVID-19 pandemic has taken so much from us. Time with our loved ones, moments of celebration with family and classmates, liturgies in our churches, proms, graduations, hugs. It’s completely understandable to have a hard time letting go of all that we’ve lost and are still losing. However, a constant focus on what we lack can lead us to overlook what we already have. 

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
(1 John 4:16).

With God we have more love than we could ever imagine. Abundant, overflowing, excessive, bountiful, crazy amounts of love. After that, everything else is just a bonus.

There are always going to be things we don’t have enough of. Not enough sleep. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough help around the house. And yes, not enough hydrangeas. But if we look within, and bask in God’s love, we’ll realize that we have enough of what truly matters.

I challenge you today to gently turn your thoughts away from all that you are lacking, and focus on one solitary thing that you do have. Whatever it may be—a delicious meal, a phone call with a friend, a restorative nap, a tomato you grew in your garden, a cuddle with your pet—treasure that experience. And love it fiercely.