Unfriending Ingratitude and Resentment

Amanda Woodiel shares how, through God’s grace, she found a way to break out of a toxic cycle of negativity. 

I was a homeschooling mom, and I loved it. I loved the closeness in our family, the time spent together, the flexibility of our schedule, and the ability to live and breathe our faith.  

When our oldest child, an upperclassman in high school, said he wanted to go to “regular school,” that made sense to us. He would thrive academically there, and he hadn’t ever found his group of friends locally.  

Then the next one, just entering high school, said he wanted to go too. That made less sense to us, but it was no added inconvenience — if we took one, we could take two.  

Then the third one said he wanted to go, and before I knew it, we decided to enroll all of the kids. Because of the increased cost of tuition, I had to get a job. Because of the difficulty of getting the kind of job I desired that paid what we needed, I decided to apply to get a master’s degree from Notre Dame.  

In the space of a year, I went from being a fully homeschooling mom who worked part-time at the parish to being a homeschooling mom to the two younger girls (who were not able to get a space at the school this year, although they will next year), working part-time, being a school mom to kids who go to school 45 minutes away from our home, being forced to discern what to do vocationally for myself, and stepping out in faith to go back to school in my late 40s in preparation to become a full-time working mom.  

I Did Not Handle It Well.  

In fact, I kicked and complained to God. I told Him that it was hard, it upended my life (which it did), and that I was tired of making the long drive to school. Over and over, the cry of my heart was: This was not what I wanted! This was not what I signed up for!  

Bitterness, resentment, anger, frustration, weariness, ingratitude, pride, fear: they took turns being my companions for the past year. I blamed the situation: the difficulty of it. I didn’t blame my own attitude.  

But our Lord is gracious, and He took me away for a retreat. I admit, the reason I first wanted to go on a retreat had little to do with time away with the Lord. I was sick of getting up early and pushing kids out the door, of homework that materialized at 9:30 PM even though I had asked after dinner if there was any, of staying up late to push the kids to bed, of homeschooling the girls in the day, fitting in my part-time job, tidying the house of school uniforms and empty lunch containers, of running to the grocery store, making dinner, doing dishes, mowing the lawn, paying bills (which is a never-ending logic puzzle of how to make it work), and all of the other tasks of a mother. I wanted a break, and I wanted my family to miss me.  

I kept pushing the actual planning of a retreat off, however. I knew that the reason I wanted to go wasn’t a noble one. Through nudges and promptings, both internal and external, I did go away for three days, although, because I hadn’t planned well, it ended up being not what I had envisioned. Instead of going to a convent or retreat house where I could walk beautiful grounds and visit the chapel easily, I ended up in a guest apartment belonging to a friend’s sister. I had to drive between 10 and 25 minutes to reach the two local Catholic churches, and at one point, I found myself in a local grocery store cafe trying to find a place to journal. But I was able to cobble together Confession, 4 Masses, 4 hours of adoration, a book read, time to journal, and time to sleep.  

The True Problem Is Not the Circumstance 

And what that showed me is that the problem is not my new life after all, but my resistance to the new life. The problem is that I chose unbelief over trust in God. If this new life really comes from God as the best for our family, what sacrifice wouldn’t I make? I was choosing my will over His. I wanted to cling selfishly to a life that was more comfortable instead of following Him to Whom I had entrusted our family.  

I’ve come back full of peace and ready for this new chapter. I choose to believe that God directs our paths. I pray to my guardian angel to remind me of these truths when I’m tempted to fall in with those old companions of anger and resentment.  

I tell you this story because maybe there is some circumstance in your life that causes you to befriend the same bitter companions. And maybe it’s not the circumstance that needs to change but your docility to the will of God, which really amounts to this: choosing to trust that He is near and that He arranges things for our best good. 

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Copyright 2025 Amanda Woodiel
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