Help When It Is Needed

I am a fixer. I want to fix people so that they will be happy. I want to look at a person who is happy and say, "I did that. I fixed them."

This behavior has led to a number of broken relationships over the years. Pride and vanity are the artificial colors and flavors in every relationship.

St. Francis de Sales gave me the answer to my longing to help and my need to practice prudence in my day to day life.

"The Everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His inmost Heart. This cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms and weighted with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy Name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God."

I realized that my meddling may be getting in the way of God's plan for the people I love. Looking for moments to assist in little ways does so much more good than hijacking their cross.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” Matthew 16: 24-28