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[caption id="attachment_171367" align="aligncenter" width="1180"]"Seeing the Real Need" by Claire McGarry (CatholicMom.com) Image: Pixabay.com (2016), CC0/PD[/caption]

We are living in a time of extremes. While some people are losing loved ones because of the pandemic, others are growing closer to theirs because of it. It seems that whenever the stakes are high, there's no room for gray, just black and white.

And a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple. (Acts 3:2)

In Acts 3:2, a crippled man is placed at the gate of the temple every day to beg for alms. His handicap is juxtaposed against a gate so stunning, it's literally called "the Beautiful Gate." Where the beggar lives in the gray, simply asking for money to get by, Peter and John see things differently.

They see things in black and white. They know money won't solve the man's deep need; healing him will. So, they do so, in Jesus' name.

As the world shifts around us, it also shifts for each one of us, and our kids. I'm sure we're all exhibiting wacky behavior because of it. That behavior, however, is just the gray of the situation. Like symptoms pointing to the larger disease, our behavior, and our kids', are just the result of the bigger needs we all have.

Like Peter and John saw the real need of the beggar, we need to look beyond the gray to identify our own true needs. There's so much we've lost that we need to mourn. There's so much uncertainly we need to come to peace with. In the midst of it all, there's an invitation to new growth we need to embrace. As the one true Healer, God is at the ready to help us through it all.

Similar to putting on our own oxygen masks first, once our own needs are identified and met, we'll be able to help our kids. They need us centered. They need us strong. How else are we to accompany and lead them to what is beautiful during this not-so-beautiful time?

[tweet "Similar to putting on our own oxygen masks first, once our own needs are identified and met, we'll be able to help our kids. By @clairemcgarry2"]


Copyright 2020 Claire McGarry