What Are You Looking For?

We had a visiting priest at Mass this morning and he had a wonderful homily about how we can not see things because we aren't looking for them or we expect them to be a certain way, much like Mary didn't see Jesus in today's Gospel because she still expected Him to be dead.

I had one of those moments when something jumps out at you and smacks you upside the head during his homily.  Father said something to the effect that what you are looking for is what you will find.  If you are looking for Jesus in the day, you will most certainly find Him.  If you are looking for good in the day, you will most certainly find it.  Conversely, if you are looking for all the bad things that happen in the day, those will be easy to find.  "What you are looking for, you will find."  Just a great reminder to me about how important it is to look for the good things because doing that will just make the day so much better.  It might even make the bad things not seem so monumental.

So what was I looking for today?  Motivation.  We are on Easter break this week and so I wanted to get a whole bunch of things done.  Yesterday was a running around day so I got done what needed to get done.

Today I wanted to get some cleaning done.  You'll remember before Holy Week I tackled our monster basement.  Today it was to be the back hall, that room where we all go in and out and deposit all of our socks, shoes, coats, books, papers, cups, pens, pencils, toys...well, you get the picture.  I wanted to get the winter crud out of that back hall and off the walls and out of the closet.

We got home from Mass this morning and I sat down to catch up on my checkbook, check and answer emails, make some phone calls, check in on facebook, remembered I had to put dinner in the crockpot...time was slipping away and I was losing my motivation to do the actual physical work that I had planned on.  

After lunch, however, I forced myself to start and you know what?  Starting was the hardest part.  Once I got into it I was wishing I had the time and energy to just keep moving on to other rooms.  I got the back dump hall, coat closet, small bathroom and the kitchen pantry (all those areas are connected off of the kitchen) all deep cleaned and ready for Spring.  Why don't I remember that getting started is what is hard?  Why don't I push myself more often?  Well, now that it's in "print" maybe I'll remember.  Somehow I'll have to refer to this on those days when the motivation is low so that when I'm looking for it, I will find it.

God Bless!