The Smaller Cross

Puddleglum. via

Lately I have been suffering because of a Lesser Hurt. You know the kind, the hurt which knots your throat in a ball, but also makes you feel ashamed, because it feels like you are overreacting. The kind that makes you suffer, but that you will not ask prayers for, because it is not a PROPER hurt. The kind that ruins a beautiful day, even though your marriage, children and health are fine.

A friendship strained, making bad memories resurface.

A slight from your siblings making you feel left out.

That kind of hurt.

They also have a knack of appearing when PROPER hurts are happening around you. When you should really feel thankful, when really, it is for others that you should pray.

The Lesser Hurt often comes with frustration: Why am I being so childish? Why can't I just go past this? Why can't I just concentrate on all the good in my life instead of constantly channelling my inner Puddleglum?

Eventually this afternoon, I did what I should have done from the start, I took it to Adoration. 

And I thought about Saint Thérèse's Little Way. Which is strange, because she is a saint I do not feel much affinity with (it probably isn't helped by the fact that the narrator in the audiobook of the Story of a Soul I own has the most cloying, sing-song, sappy voice in the universe). But it made me realise that what I was suffering under was indeed a little cross, but it was one, and it was worthy.

And as it turns out, when you bring your hurt to God, He does not tell you to "man up!", He does not #firstworldproblems you. He does not think you silly, say you are overreacting, ask you to look on the bright side. Nor does He magically erase the feelings or the issue. 

You see, even if right now, yours may seem a very small cross, He will still help you carry it.

I thought some of you might need to hear this too.

*

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity."