I Am Frustrated Tonight...

I'm frustrated tonight.  I am frustrated because I have to work 3 jobs to be able to pay my rent.  I am frustrated because I had to work over 12 hours today.  I am frustrated because I don't have a car.  I am frustrated because my legs hurt from being on them all day.  I am frustrated because so many kids I interacted with today acted entitled and prissy.  I am frustrated because the wings I began making for Timmy were too small and I have to start again.  I am frustrated about being so frustrated that every, little thing becomes even more frustrating to me. 

You may or may not have noticed, but I am feeling a bit frustrated tonight.

I considered writing a rant about how kids these days are too entitled, but then I realized it would go against my only true rule for writing: I will only write things that lift myself, and my readers, up.

In the midst of all this frustration a songs is flitting through my head.  It's a song I know well, and because it is so familiar I find myself ignoring it.  There's nothing new in this song, there's no shock in it.  It isn't even truly a song, but instead a prayer that has been set to music. 

This is the prayer I pray on my way to work in the mornings.  It is the prayer I would pray over the kids as I rubbed their backs to help them go to sleep.  It is the prayer I pray when I am nervous or scared.  It is the prayer I pray when moms cry to me and I don't know what to say.  It is the prayer that without fail comes into my head when I am overwhelmingly frustrated.  The words slowly and gently make themselves known in my head, as if to offer a gentle reminder that being frustrated is not what I really want.  The state of frustration isn't me.  This prayer helps me to make it true.

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assissi
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love

For it's in giving that we receive
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.