Three Masters of Forgiveness

Does this sound familiar? You offer your day to God first thing in the morning. And because you did that, things go pretty well and stay relatively sane. You’re cruising along, trusting God’s will, feeling his power in everything you do, and then -- boom! The computer crashes or you run into a traffic backup when there’s no time to spare. What happened to our plans? Where did our peace go? I mean, we need to have expectations of what’s going to happen or we couldn't survive. We can’t do without planning, and planning means expectations. Which means frustration when things don’t go our way. What to do? If you carry little annoyances throughout your day, help is on the way! Join me in my free workshop, “Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose.” Register here.   It helps if a part of us is open to the unexpected – because our expectations can work against us when God has something else in mind. St. Francis de Sales said, “Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”  Maybe it means holding our expectations with less of a grip, with less of a feeling that “this is what has to happen, or else.” And to practice expecting God to redirect our plans sometimes and to trust that it’s for our own good.  Our first reaction can easily be “No, this can’t happen.” But what if our second reaction was that of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton: “Oh, my heavenly Father, I know that these contradicting events are permitted and guided by Thy wisdom, which alone is light.” Mother Seton developed a habit of recognizing God’s action when her plans and expectations were preempted – she learned to let him in when people and things contradicted her expectations, many times every day. At the time when God is redirecting us, it feels like we’re driving along in our car and the passenger suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns a corner we weren't expecting. It feels shocking and it feels like something that's ours -- my plans, my expectations are being hijacked. It feels territorial. And now our schedule to achieve something by noon is in the trash. Having our expectations contradicted never feels good. But the Cross never feels good. It didn't feel good to Jesus and it doesn't feel good to us. If, like Mother Seton and Francis de Sales, we can see our expectations as being as being expendable when God wants to replace them with something else -- and see it as a healthy part of our Christian journey, we will be learning to take up our daily cross and follow him. Mother Seton put it this way: “Can you expect to go to heaven for nothing? Did not our Savior track the whole way to it with His tears and blood? And yet you stop at every little pain.” We want to take the lead and we don't want to follow anybody! But that's not what Jesus asks of us. He asks us to take up our daily cross and follow him. He’s the only one whose expectations really matter. Because he is leading us to eternal life. We don't know the way to heaven, but he does. And he told us plainly that picking up our cross hour by hour is the way to do that. Finally, St. Katherine Drexel wisely tells us: “Peacefully do at each moment what at that moment ought to be done. If we do what each moment requires, we will eventually complete God’s plan, whatever it is. We can trust God to take care of the master plan when we take care of the details.” We can best take care of the details when we plan well and accept the unexpected with grace. If you’d like to learn skills to start living more intentionally in God’s grace every day, register here for my free workshop, “Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose.”

Today we experience what the ancients longed to see. “Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down!” (Is. 63:19). At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in tongues of fire. That fire changed the apostles from men who cowered in fear to men who boldly proclaimed the risen Christ.  The Blessed Virgin had already given consent the “overshadowing” of the Holy Spirit, her spouse, at the Annunciation. She was present to prepare and accompany the apostles to be changed forever from timidity to boldness in love. Our baptism and confirmation give us the same boldness in the Truth! But we’re so often afraid! How can we live out that boldness?   Let God Do It A friend told me today that she prays, “God lead me in your path, even if I know nothing about it.” The same thought has been on my mind lately. Because my prayer too often assumes that I am on the wrong path and I beg God to put me right. But what would happen if I assumed that God hears my prayers, knows what he’s doing, has actually sent the Holy Spirit, and I’m on the right path without knowing it? Wouldn’t that change everything?   Low Confidence in Myself I become discouraged when I rely too much on my own strength to become holy and to do the virtuous thing. I see my failures and wonder whether I can ever do it.  Did I say “I”?   Confidence in the Spirit Believing that God is guiding us—really believing it, though we may not see it—changes our attitude toward everything. It frees us from doubt and even self-doubt. Because it’s not about us, it’s about God working in us.  That kind of faith in our personal daily “pentecost,” which is about receiving rather than just doing, frees us to love without worrying about the results. It frees us to do that scary thing for God that will give someone else the courage to take holy risks.  It frees us from worry about the future because we really believe that the good God is in control.   Big Plans God has big plans for us! They include giving us everything we need to become the image of His Son, through whom and for whom we were created. And we know that’s just the beginning: he plans to keep us close to him forever in heaven, which we can start practicing for now.  I challenge you to live this week as if all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are yours, that they are already alive and active in you. I challenge you to take your eyes off your weaknesses and look instead at God’s victory in you, as you receive the tongues of fire he is sending you right this moment to his glory and yours. And if you’d like practical tips for stepping out in faith, join me at my upcoming workshop: “Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose.” Register for free here.

Resolving hurts and moving on is about the toughest thing we do. Forgiveness is a skill we get better at the more we practice. The Christian concept of forgiveness is letting go of our right to take revenge. It doesn’t mean we won’t follow through with a just lawsuit or call the police. Forgiveness doesn’t mean we need to be chums after the offense. It simply means we’ve given the job of payback to God, where it belongs. That frees us up spiritually to love. Because love means wishing the best for someone. We can both testify against someone in court and also pray that they go to heaven when they die. Three “masters of forgiveness” can show us how it’s done.  Forgive your persecutors First, Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Forgiving means letting go of our victim status. Being a victim gives someone else power over our thoughts and our mood. Instead, forgiveness enables us to re-claim the freedom of the children of God to pursue virtue and let God take care of the rest.  In Gandhi’s case, forgiveness was mixed with a lot of courage as he faced repeated imprisonments from peacefully protesting unjust laws in South Africa and India. In total, he spent over six years in jail. Forgive yourself Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) wrote, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” Longfellow may have been thinking of times he hurt people because of his own desperate pain over losing the love of his life, his wife Fanny, whose dress caught fire one day and who died several days later from the burns. Longfellow had thrown himself on her to extinguish the fire, getting severely burned himself in the process. But it’s worth wondering whether he ever fully forgave himself for not being able to save her. Forgive the ungrateful St. Mother Teresa famously put it this way: “People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” It is said that “hurt people hurt people:” those that carry heavy wounds tend to wound others in turn. It can help us forgive if we remember that when someone hurts us, it’s because of their wounds, not because they marked us out for injury for no reason. Even Jesus on the Cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In the end, everything is between us and God. Virtues like forgiveness are strengths of character that make doing the right thing relatively easy and joyful. And the only way for that to happen is to keep our eyes on Jesus, immerse ourselves in his wounds, and love with the strength of his Sacred Heart – especially when it’s difficult. Love always, Rose P.S. If you missed my live zoom workshop, “Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose,” I’m doing it again in a couple of weeks! Claim your seat at rosefolsom.com/training. You’ll come away with tips for a prayer life that will make forgiving a little easier.

Eating lunch yesterday, I looked out my picture window to see the neighbor boy, Avery, shooting hoops in his driveway, wearing a backpack. I wondered why he was wearing a backpack. Then, his mother came out and called him to the car. He got in and they drove off. Avery knows what some of us have forgotten: that there is true freedom of spirit in grabbing 10 minutes between duties to do something restorative. It could be spending a few minutes in prayer, it could be going outside for air, playing with the dog, or enjoying a piece of dark chocolate. Anything to break our routine and to remind us that we are children of God, born for freedom. For Avery, it was perfecting his 3-point shot. Management expert David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, advises us to make a list of things we can do in 10 minutes. Then, when we’re in between duties, or waiting for the next meeting to start, we can go to our list and make good use of that time. What’s in it for me?Two good things result. 1First, a short nap or a walk outside will charge our battery for whatever’s next. 2Second, even if the thing we do is a “duty,” like finally putting the new sticker on our license plate before it expires, we feel freer because that 10-min thing-to-do isn’t weighing us down anymore. The vice of sloth (which includes procrastination) plagues many of us. Surprisingly, the virtue that cures sloth is love. That is, if we love God more, we’ll be more eager to do what he asks of us. Instead of seeing our to-do list as a burden, we’re more likely to see it as our way of serving God today. (And God loves a cheerful giver!) On the other hand, if we find ourselves wasting time with nothing to show for it, we feel the opposite of free. The emotional rut just gets deeper, and happiness slips farther and farther away. But filling our “in-between times” with something on our list of quick things we want to do can keep us from being mentally crushed by what we have to do. We can build up our love of God by including one-on-one time with God on our “10-minute” list.Not sure how?Well, join me in my free 75-minute workhsop this Thursday, May 29: "Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose." You'll get inspiration and practical tips on how to connect with God with a closeness you may never have experienced before! Register here! Stress comes when we start believing we're in charge of making things happen and in charge of the results. That’s a frame of mind that can make it extra hard to reach for the 10-minute list. What? Give up control? Do something fun? Thanks, but I think I’ll just stew instead! Whoa, girl. That’s when I know the 10-minute list is my lifeline to the sip of peace and freedom God is offering me. And it took a 14-year-old boy in his driveway to remind me of that. As the psalmist sang: We escaped with our lives like a birdfrom the fowler’s snare;the snare was broken,and we escaped.Our help is in the name of the Lord,the maker of heaven and earth.Ps. 124:7-8 Here are a few things on my new 10-minute list: 1. Do something about the mystery stain on the stairs. 2. Dance barefoot to Dancin’ in the Street.3. Go outside and actually enjoy the flowers I planted. Scroll down to the comments and share one thing you can put on your list!(And don't forget to register here so you don't miss the "Banish Anxiety" workshop.) Love always,Rose

So many things in building a business depend on us: determining our core product and core client, networking, scheduling, content creation, supply chain issues, marketing. And did I mention prayer, excercise, and sleep to support the focus and energy we need to do all that? It’s easy to forget that we’re in business because God as called us to this and he will support us if we remember that our core mission is to serve him and his people. And that he’s doing the heavy lifting. The weaknesses of biblical CEOs like Moses (remember the Egyptian in the desert?), Aaron (of the golden calf incident), Paul (who called his followers “stupid” in his frustration), David (adulterer and murderer) and Peter (well….. Peter…..) didn’t get in the way of God’s building up the Kingdom through them. And if we keep our eyes on Jesus, our weaknesses won’t get in the way of God working through our business, either. You’ve heard of work/life balance. Let’s pray today for a God/me balance — and not try to take on the job of God Almighty who alone can bring abundant fruit from our efforts — in his way and in his time.

Most of us have suffered from imposter syndrome—the fear that we’re not up to the job and if people find out they will laugh at us, and fire us, and then we’ll die. (Like the first day on the job when I had to ask my staff how to turn the copy machine on.…) Well, there’s a virtue for that! Here are three ways humility helps ease imposter syndrome: No. 3: Own Your Deficits Fearlessly looking at our strengths and weaknesses gives us the clarity to be open about what we’re not so great at doing. For example, I’m a word person, not a number person, and one of my first jobs was as an assistant in a photo studio. This job included adding up the daily checks and cash and making sure that number jibed with the receipt book. I felt bad that the two hardly ever matched. With more humility, I could have told my managers that because I had never successfully balanced a checkbook, they may want to give that task to someone else. No. 2: Ask for Help Years later, as director of a government office, I had an employee in her 30s who was like a petulant teenager. I had run out of ideas and went to my supervisor for guidance. Familiar enough with the benefits of humility by then, I knew that asking my boss for help would come across as a strength, not a weakness, because I was putting the good of the office first and my ego last. It’s liberating to be straight about our deficits and trust other team members to have our back. There’s no hiding, no fear of being found out. We can then bring more confidence to doing what we’re good at, which encourages the rest of the team to do the same. No. 1: Work From Your Strengths If we help build a culture in which it’s OK to admit our weaknesses and to receive training for it or assign it to another team member, the benefits are huge. There’s less shame, more productivity, and more worker engagement—because people can be successful—which leads to greater employee retention. Humility to the RescueTom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s Pizza, once said, “I believe the most important trait of a good leader is humility.” A man who reported to Monaghan for 10 years explained how this virtue showed up in his boss’s leadership: “For all his accomplishments, Tom is unmistakably humble. In demeanor he is soft spoken and polite. In leading meetings he’s Socratic, asking more questions than giving direction.” There is power in a billionaire founder walking into a meeting with the attitude that he’ll find his best solutions from people in the room! Monaghan’s employee went on to say, “He is humble in self-disclosure, often quite spontaneously. I was initially surprised at this. He had a habit of citing a personal shortcoming or failure, sometimes very nonchalantly.” Tom Monaghan was an incredibly successful entrepreneur. If he didn’t have imposter syndrome, it’s likely at least in part because he was open about his mistakes and deficits, and he relied on his team to come up with great solutions—which allowed him to work from his strengths. By doing so, he set the kind of example that makes for a flourishing office culture. After all, our humility is rooted in the great glory we enjoy as baptized children of God and in our destiny in heaven. In relation to that glory, everything else is small stuff. …Want to keep reading Rose’s articles? We’re switching them to her membership group, Virtue Circle, where you can continue to get Rose’s weekly insights into practicing virtues like patience and humility that make us better people — and great leaders. AND you’ll have access to her private zoom group every month for coaching, celebrating our successes, and fellowship as we build the foundation of strong leadership: VIRTUE. Click here to learn more!

My uncle John called his late mother-in-law “Rosebud” (her name was Rose). Entering the room with a big smile, he’d call out, “How ya doin’ Rosebud?” The 85-year-old woman would beam at the tenderness of that name and the appreciation that came with it. He made her feel beautiful because he saw her with eyes of love. We are all rosebudsI took this photo of rosebuds because they made me think of the difference between how we see ourselves and how God sees us. A rosebud is beautiful because it will be a big red rose someday. ...It's just not there yet. When we look at ourselves, we sometimes see only what we think is wrong: our lack of patience in traffic, our failure to forgive, the times we snap at our children. All the habits that we hope will bloom into virtue someday.....but we’re not there yet. And worse, we compare ourselves to women who seem to have it all together – when we have no idea how they feel on the inside. Rosebud momentsWe want to be Christ-like. But we still do thoughtless things like giving the slowpoke grocery cashier a glare of disapproval. Or correcting our husband when he loads the dishwasher wrong. Sorry, God.... A new way of  seeingA student in my coaching group said something that stuck with me: "We all have free will. We can choose to accept what other people do with their free will."  She meant that what other people do or don't do doesn't have that much to do with us. And if we avoid taking personally what others do and focus on the beautiful things God's doing for us instead, we'll have more peace. And we'll realize how much we've bloomed without even knowing it. God sees the roseGod sees the rose. God is outside of time and sees us as we will be in heaven – when we are finally and forever in full bloom – in his glory. He sees us like Uncle John saw his mother-in-law – beautiful, complete, and worthy of love. Rosebuds are beautiful, tooNo one would pick a bouquet of rosebuds. But we like to mix them in with the flowers because anticipating the future blossoms adds to the beauty of a bouquet. Our own “rosebuds” don’t need to discourage us. They're beautiful in their way because they remind us how much we need God. If we’re keeping close to the source of all flourishing – Jesus – in prayer, Confession, and in the Mass, we can afford to see our flaws as so many buds that are poised to burst into bloom – in God’s time.A gift for youIf your faults or the faults of those around you sometimes steal your peace, you won't want to miss this! Join me in my upcoming 75-min workshop, "Banish Anxiety: 5 Simple Steps to Lasting Peace and Purpose." It's free. Register here. Love always,Rose

In today's video, I share with you a surprising question a priest asked me. It caught me by surprise because it's so simple and so deep. Enjoy the flowers, too, as we navigate the depths of winter! ♥️ Rose