Things that help, even when they're for someone else

Had a prayer/healing service after Mass today for a good friend whose child is going through some really life-changing and life-threatening stuff. Bad enough that part of the prayer was for the serenity to let go.

Letting go and letting God is a good prayer for parents a lot of the time. It hurts so much to see a life that you care about being destroyed, or destroying itself. But sometimes all you can do is step back and hope that you've made it clear that you love enough to pick up the pieces.

God knows I've prayed for wisdom often enough to believe that if there was anything different for me to see, that He'd have shown me. So my lesson here, hard as it is to accept, is not wisdom or acceptance, but simply understanding that all I can do is let whatever is going to happen, happen.

Not nearly as bad as the Blessed Mother experienced, but I think I can catch a glimpse of what it must have been like for her. Except she had the solace of knowing that God's will was being done, and I don't believe that's the case for me...


But for all that, this helped, if for no other reason than knowing that all parents suffer at some point, and knowing that there are worse things that could be happening but aren't.