Small Steps - Courage

I have not participated in this in a few weeks. We have been busy with Scouts and 4-H and to be honest, I really didn't want to participate. It has been a Lent.

Courage is the virtue for the month of April.

Courage.

I have to say, I think the verse from April that I will spending a lot of time with this month is from April 3rd:

Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him.

That is all the doing you have to worry about.

St Jane Frances de Chantal

For a few reasons this quote jumped out at me.

reason #1

St Jane is my new favorite saint. Really. (I had to add her picture to my sidebar.) I discovered her rather recently through a series of rather interesting God-cidences (my friend's word which described things that really show God's work in our lives.)

I had been cleaning the basement and came across St Francis de Sales' book God's Will for your Life. I had tried to read that book a few years ago and could not. I opened to the first page, started reading, and wondered 'where has this fantastic book been?' So I started reading this book at my weekly Adoration. I then was blessed to have a conversation with Sr Olga of the Eucharist, a truly amazing woman, and she had suggested that I visit a Monastery dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This just happened to be located in the area where I would be attending a home school conference the same weekend we celebrate the Sacred Hearts. A few weeks later at Christmas, my mom gave me a bag from someone she had met which contained a book about the Monastery. It was in this book that I found out the order at this Monastery was founded by St Francis de Sales and St Jane de Chantal. I had not known anything of St Jane and found her story fascinating. I started reading more about St Jane.

All this was great. But the really neat piece of information came when I discovered while getting ready for a Little Flowers meeting, that St Jane's original feast day (and still her feast day everywhere but the US) is my birthday. So, I decided she is my new favorite saint.

Reason #2

I have been having discussions with my good and holy friend about my struggle with faith. Faith that all will be well. That God really will take care of everything. That my children will be fine, my husband will be fine, that we will still have a home.

And it hurts inside to think that I don't have the faith in God that I am supposed to have. And that hurt causes me do have more doubts and more fears. And those doubts and fears cause me to have more struggles with faith. Can you see this ugly circle that has been my thought process for more months than I care to recall?

And this very good friend stopped by the house while I was out and left me a few small books and a note. My favorite of the books is A Way of the Cross for Mothers. Her parting line in her note was: "may you do God's will and not His work. He's got it all under control." And doesn't that sound familiar?

Isn't God so awesome that He keeps reminding me of what I need to do.

Have courage.

Have courage to stop worrying about things I cannot control.

Have courage to stay focused on God and not on the here and now.

Have courage to just accept.

Off to see what others are saying about courage over at Elizabeth's.