On a beautiful early autumn afternoon I jumped into my car, on to the next errand. I shut the door and suddently heard a sound that was similar to a bag of gravel dumping out in the back of my car. I looked into the rear view mirror and suddenly I realized there was no longer a back window on my car. Only tiny patches of glass that remained around the edge of the frame. I jumped out and ran back to see if I could understand what had happened. There were a million tiny little pieces of black (tinted) glass all over the street where I had parked, inside the vehicle and starkly laying on the white bumper.

The woman who owned the little shop where I had parked, as well as the friendly staff at the hair salon next door, were all wonderful and gave me trash bags and tape to cover the rest of the glass so I wouldn’t damage anyone else’s car as I drove home. They threw down rugs on the ground for me to back over the glass (after I left a message for the city to be aware of the glass covered street) and we put an orange cone to block the spot so no one else would drive onto the glass. As I tried to tape the garbage back to my window, a total stranger walking by stopped to tape up the car with me and joked about how these kinds of situations throw us for a curve, etc.

All Things Work Together…

The grace I felt was tremendous because of the fact that I had help. I had people who did what small thing they could do, even if it was smile or to commiserate as they passed. My husband responded calmly although I knew with all that he had been handling lately (and our other car in the shop for a very expensive repair) I was expecting him to lose it. He didn’t. He told me what to do while I whined at him about needing this car to travel to an important trip two days later. The purpose for that trip gave me the perspective that this incident was relatively small and it could be fixed. I called on God to help make it possible for me to go on my trip and within 36 hours—between God, my husband, the insurance company and the glass company—the entire situation was a memory. Blessed.

A Tiny Vulnerability

As I drove carefully home that day with the garbage bag billowing loudly and snapping in the wind, I replayed my husband’s words in my head. “It was probably just a tiny vulnerability in the glass. A pebble probably hit it and a little pressure was all it took. When you shut the door it just shattered.” Aren’t we as human beings the same in some ways?

I once heard a wonderful priest explain that sin is like when we poke our finger into a spider web. We may think it’s no big deal, but there are ripple effects. We can’t remove our finger without taking at least half of the web with it. Our mistakes leave a residual mess. We often think we can compartmentalize our motivations and decisions, but everything we do has an effect. Our bodies will pass away. It is only our souls that go on. Our actions and thoughts can affect us for better or worse. What motivates us to sin is largely based on personal motives that makes “my life easier for me.” Because of this, it’s easy for the enemy to snag our thinking and the line of reason that follows. Suddenly we are agreeing with a lie and we didn’t realize it.

We all have tiny spots of vulnerability in our thinking. As we move ahead in the weeks to come, let us treat ourselves and others like a plate of glass with a tiny chip, just a little pressure could make us crack. Let us take all things before God and ask Him what His truth is for us, lest we find ourselves standing in the million tiny pieces.

Virtue: Humility; justice and prudence

How I will act: Carve out a moment each day for at least five minutes in silence and ask God what HE thinks. Also, to speak less and pray more.

How I will pray: Offer my rosary for the reparation of sin