Offer It Up

When I was a kid I used to kringe when my mother would say 3 little words to me..."Offer it up". Whenever i was sick or hurt i would hear those 3 words come out of her mouth and every being in my body would tense. She had every good intention when she would say it but for some reason I skipped passed her good intention and heard "suck it up". Of course, as I got older i understood what "offer it up" really means and came to apprieciate those words. As a Christian, we can all share in the words because "offer it up" means to use our pain and suffering and offer that pain and suffering to share in Christ's awesome Paschal Mystery. It was through Christ's suffering on the cross, that OUR sins were forgiven. So when we are sick or in pain, we can offer that up with His pain and suffering and help someone else.

So this morning when Noah and I were driving to school, he was telling me is lip hurts because they are cracking from the dry air. After we put some chap stick on, I told him to offer it up and then explained to him that he can offer it up for other people and God will hear his prayers and help those people. I was so impressed when Noah immediatly turned and looked at the car next to him at this older man and said "Mom, I want to offer it up for him". I was so excited and told Noah what a good thing that was so we said a little praying asking God to help that man today and allow a little less suffering in his day because Noah was offering up his hurt lip for him.

Noah paused for a few minutes and pointed to the lady waiting at a bus stop and said he wanted to offer it up for her too. So again, we said a little prayer and kept driving. I then explained to Noah that he can offer all kinds of things up throughout his day giving him examples of things like: if he didn't get to be first in the line at school, If it starts to rain but he wanted to play outside...you know, things he could relate to. Then I told him he can offer things up for all kinds of different people, his godparents, his family, his friends....and he threw up his hands and yelled "No MOM! I don't want to offer anything to my friends because then they will be sick and hurt and can't play with me".

The whole time he thought I was saying he could just offer his pain to someone else and God would give it to them. He couldn't understand why his pain didn't go away each time we prayed so he tried passing it off to the next person. I had to chuckle to myself because of course the words "offer it up" are hard to understand. I didn't fully understand them until i was 16 and going through cancer treatment so I have to laugh at myself that I thought Noah fully understood it at 3! Oh well...we will just keep working at it and I will try to take it lightly if Noah kringes at me when i say to him those 3 little words!!