What do you do when your children are tiring you out? When the decibels in your household are rising, when their homework is badly done, when they leave their laundry on the floor, or when some of your little darlings come to blows rather than share generously?
How do you feel at times like these? Agitated and hoping to solve the problem by putting everyone to bed? Exasperated without the slightest desire to listen to your children’s conflict over some little red car? Discouraged that no one has had the initiative to empty the dishwasher? Depressed by the duties weighing on your shoulders?
Stop for a moment, and remember Jesus’ words: "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." (Mt 11:28).
Really? Is Christ going to empty the washing machine? No. But have you considered the possibility that He will be there with you and give you His peace?
Have you considered that He will give you His strength to do your daily work? Have you considered that He gives you His joy to transform your view of your children? Have you considered that He gives you His very heart with which to love your children?
When Christ offers you to share his yoke, he’s not inviting you to be overwhelmed by trials with him -- quite the opposite. He’s offering to come and carry your humanity, to come to the rescue of your weakness.
The yoke isn’t there to imprison you alongside Him, but on the contrary, to let Him carry the burden for you! Check out the origin of the word and what a yoke was used for in the fields and countryside: the yoke that two oxen wore with was made so they could help each other, not to make one collapse under the work of the other!
Have you thought of calling on Him? Of asking Him for help in your moments of discouragement and doubt?
You don’t need to say a long prayer, just a phrase or a word you like, a word from a passage of the Scriptures or a quote from saint, to catch the hand that He is stretching out to you, to look at the One who is always looking at you and is only waiting for you to look up to Him. That is how we learn to act as a Child of God, to live in the Spirit. Like your child who seeks your kind and encouraging gaze before running off, by placing yourself in the hands of Christ, you taste His filial love for the Father.
You no longer rely on your own strength but on this divine love. You learn to let God look at you. You learn to look at your children and everyday situations with the very eyes of Christ.
