Some time ago, I ran into an old friend, and as we were catching up with each other’s lives, she said to me, “You’ve always been such a patient mom.” I had no idea what compelled her to make this claim, given that I had not seen her in years. Regardless, instead of boosting my ego, her words prompted me to take a brief inventory of all the times in my life in which I had failed to be patient with my children. And then I felt like a hypocrite. Where did she get the idea that I was patient?
Then I brought my anxious judgment about myself to a friend. She said, “But you are a patient mother. Just because you’re patient doesn’t mean that you’re perfectly patient.” And somehow, that resonated with me.
For many mothers and fathers, it seems that when we remember our parenting of the past, what stands out in our memory most are the times in which we failed to be patient, to be understanding, to be gentle and kind. We have perhaps three or five—or even twenty—really awful memories of our failures, but we have focused on them and replayed them so many times in our mind that it seems to us more like a thousand. Ten thousand.
The things we tend to sweep over are our times of heroic patience: the times we handled our toddler’s temper tantrums…the times in which illness ran through the whole house, and we tended to the sick while we were weak and ill ourselves…the frantic trips to the emergency room with our little one’s infections or broken bones…the bearing with our teenager’s disobedience and belligerence who, at the moment, could not care less about our feelings or “all” that we have done for them…the heartache of adult children who move away.
These episodes in our lives add up to tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of moments of sacrificial love, because heartache is something that is just always there. And yet, these sacrifices are expected of a parent, and therefore any failures to act with such heroic virtue might earn the judgment from others that the one who has failed is a “bad parent.”
It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself. (1 Cor. 4:3)
St. Paul, however, does not worry about the “bad parent” judgments he has received. He does not look back, review, or question his failures. Why not? Was Paul really so perfect that he had no failures in his ministry? Of course not. In fact, it is precisely the opposite. Paul does not feel the need to review his failures because he is already well aware of them!
Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:7-9)
So if Paul is well aware of his failures, why does he say that he is “not conscious of anything against” him? And furthermore, if he is not conscious of anything against him, why then does he say, “but I do not thereby stand acquitted”? Because Paul’s judgment comes only from the Lord, who sees what the human eye cannot:
For he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of our hearts. (1 Cor. 4:5)
God sees our interior motivations, which will be hidden from our own view if we do not take the time to search inside our hearts. Paul acknowledges that he has failed in his ministry. He accepts this assessment. He also acknowledges that he has demonstrated heroic virtue; he accepts this assessment as well. But neither of these is the ultimate judgment of his actions, because what ultimately determines his judgment is the motivation of his heart. And for this, Paul is not conscious of anything against him; as far as he knows, from the moment of his encounter with the Lord on the road to Damascus, Paul has always strived to serve Jesus with purity of intention. But he remains open to the possibility that there may have been times in which self-motivation insidiously wormed its way into his actions. For these times of which he is not consciously aware, only God can judge.
God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The LORD looks into the heart. (1 Sam. 16:7)
If we ourselves have been holding onto past failures and mistakes, thinking, “If only” or “I should have,” today is the day to let them go. The outcomes we see today are neither the result of our transgressions nor our “fault”—even if we can see a direct correlation. Why? Because the God of the universe can prevent misfortune if He so chooses, anytime He wants; therefore, if He allows a sorrowful result from our mistakes, as long as we come to Him with trusting, humble, and contrite hearts, we can be sure that He intends to draw out a greater good.
Cleaning up our messes and raising us up from the ashes is His specialty. If God could do it for someone like St. Paul, a former persecutor of the Church who “breathed murderous threats” upon the believers, then He could do it for us too.
Author’s Note: This article was adapted from a chapter in The Safe Haven: Scriptural Reflections for the Heart and Home (Ordinary Time Weeks 22-26). To purchase, visit Amazon or The Catholic Company, where all other volumes currently in print are also available.
Photo by Vadim Butenkov on Unsplash
