Offer It Up
Offer It Up
We all have bad days. Sometimes we do not get what we want and that can make us sad or even upset. When we go through a hard time we usually call that a suffering. When we suffer it is hard to know what to do. We can even wonder why we have to suffer in the first place. Questions on what to do and why bad things happen to good people can sometimes make us confused and angry. And when our emotions are hurt we need to do the best thing to make us feel better. This is one of many reasons why we pray to God for help. But how should we pray especially when we are hurt?
I want you to think about going to the dentist because your teeth hurt. It is no secret that the dentist is not the most fun place but if you want your teeth to be healthy, you have to go. Now, imagine that you have to get braces on your teeth because they are not as straight as they are supposed to be. Well, I will not lie to you, the braces are going to hurt your mouth a little bit for a little while. You may want to take them off because they hurt but if you do then your teeth won't get better and that can make you sick! So, what you have to do to get better is to do something that doesn't feel comfortable and sometimes you have to do what is uncomfortable for a long time. So after a little while of having those painful braces on, and once your teeth are straight and healthy, you can take them off and be free of any mouth pains! And so you see, sometimes we have to do something hard to get to a better place in our life.
So when we pray, should we ask God to take away the hurting? That might make us feel better for the moment but is that the best thing to do? What about the braces story? Remember, why the dentist put those braces on? He did that to make the teeth healthy even though it hurt. So this is why we do not ask God to take away the pain but instead we ask God to be with us while we are in pain. But what are we supposed to do with the pain? There is a little phrase we Catholics use, it's called “Offer It Up”. That means we pray to God and we give him the pain so he can use it to make us holy. Let me explain, before Jesus was nailed to the cross, he was very sad and scared in the Garden of Olives. He cried and even asked His Father that if it were possible, that God would not let him suffer but God, like the dentist, knew that the only way to make us all feel better was to be the true sacrifice for the world. So God took the pain of the cross and used it so that we may have a chance to go to heaven. Jesus offered up himself to God for all of us. So, in the same way, when we hurt and we wish to use our pain for blessings, we tell God that we are lifting up our pain for His will to use it any way He wishes. We give God our good and bad times because we are not able to use our happiness and pain in ways that will help but God can. This means we can use ANYTHING to offer up to God to help us become holy people! Especially things we do not like to do. Don't like cleaning your room? Offer it up to God. Don't like eating spinach? Offer it up to God. Don't like homework? Offer it up to God! Or on the other hand, you can also offer up things you like. Like ice cream? Offer it up to God. Like to play games? Offer it up to God? This should be our prayer everyday. That we should offer up everything we can as a sacrifice for not only ourselves but all people that they may be holy too. We need to do this because our main goal is to be in heaven with God with as many people as possible. Amen.