Small Success Thursday: Clean Slate Edition

Confession isn’t just good for the soul, it’s necessary. If we look at the lives of the saints, this was at least a more than annual thing they sought to keep their hearts close to Christ.  We all sometimes get to the point where the easiest, surest way to do better, is to start over.   Confession is the opportunity to start over fresh, to begin again.  For me, it is a monthly requirement.

Sometimes, I wish there was the equivalent of Confession in the rest of life.  Every year on Tax Day, I throw out all the socks I can’t find a mate for. Some years it’s Mardi Gras and if it has become particularly vexing, we get fresh socks for all.  It makes sorting for a few months blissfully challenge free.  Gradually, the mixed pairs start to return.  Holed avengers get thrown out.  Obvious pairs get partially lost, and I wind up with a giant laundry basket full of chaotic footwear.

Vigilance would keep much of this trouble at bay, but alas, I am not vigilant when it comes to socks.   I know, my life with the laundry would be so much easier if I just stuck to a regimen, and sorted once a week but thus far, I haven’t summoned the will to impose discipline on myself regarding this area of life.

This past week was a source of several small successes including going to confession (natch), hosting my daughter’s Halloween birthday party, sorting 150 pairs of socks, and going back to the drawing board on a writing project.  

Starting over.  I admit it’s not nearly as satisfying to begin again on a creative project as it is to dump socks, throw a party, or go to confession, but it’s the right move writing wise.  I started to feel down about that success until I recognized summoning the will to be vigilant against sin isn’t a negative practice of virtue, but an affirmative stance against sin.  Likewise, editing isn’t negative writing but an affirmative improvement of existing material.  Editing prose requires vigilance, discipline and an awareness of what would be better.   Confession and the subsequent graces received allow us to seek to live a better life, a life more aligned with God’s will.

Each week, when we celebrate small successes, one of the purposes of counting our blessings is to become attuned to the ways in which we are in fact comporting ourselves to God’s will.  These ways, little and big, personal and professional, are always positive, as they always lead us closer to our end goal, being the Body of Christ in all of life.

Now it’s your turn!

Share your 3 (or more) small successes from this week and know we’ll all be cheering for you!

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Copyright 2013 Sherry Antonetti