My Source of Joy

Through a difficult year, Maria Riley has learned a valuable lesson about hope and expectations.

Over the past year, my life changed drastically. It started on a random Tuesday thirteen months ago when my husband came home early, laid off from work without notice and with three months' severance. Initially, we both believed that he would find another job before the severance ran out. It was a blessing in disguise, we told ourselves.

Then the severance expired, and my husband still didn’t have a new job despite countless applications and interviews. We started our own time of wandering in the desert, earning money in creative ways and adjusting our lifestyle significantly. It would all be OK, I told myself, when my husband was employed again.

Then after nine months out of work, my husband was offered a new job—in a new state where we have no family or friends. While tremendously grateful for the employment, I fully understood that a major move with four school-aged daughters would be immensely challenging.

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My husband moved to Kansas to start the position, and the kids and I stayed until we could find a permanent place for the six of us to live. For four months I had a tiny taste of being a single parent, and to say I struggled would be an understatement. I missed my husband like crazy, and failed trying to stay on top of schoolwork, extracurricular activities, dishes, laundry, and packing a house all while trying to manage my kids’ and my own emotional stress at the impending move.

My light at the end of the tunnel was the move. I did everything I could to stay afloat until our family was reunited. Slowly but surely, our move date approached, and I knew that once we were all living together, our life would feel manageable again. I just had to hang on for the move. Being in Kansas was going to fix everything.

Our move came, and much to my surprise and disappointment, being in Kansas did not immediately fix my stress. We are together as a family, but our house is strewn with boxes, my kids are struggling in their new schools, and I don’t have a single friend to go have coffee with. I couldn’t understand why I still felt so much stress and unease.

Click to tweet:
I have been living with the worldly delusion that things outside of myself are going to bring me peace and happiness. #CatholicMom

It hit me just the other day. I have been living with the worldly delusion that things outside of myself are going to bring me peace and happiness. No, I don’t think losing ten pounds or buying a designer purse will bring me joy, but my expectation that circumstances will change me is a naive, faithless perspective.

Only when I let Christ in to share my hardships can I find the peace that He promises us in the Gospel. He never promised us an easy life or one free of pain and challenges. There will always be a job loss, or move, or cancer diagnosis, or other worldly hurt. Hanging on and expecting external circumstances to fix my spiritual malady will never bring me the peace I truly desire.

Today, though most of my belongings are still in boxes and I don't know exactly what is coming next for me and my family, I can feel joy by staying present and keeping my heart in the right place: with Jesus.

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