What matters

Last night my kids and I watched "The Nativity Story," the story of Jesus' birth to a virgin named Mary. Mary was shunned by the people in Nazareth for becoming pregnant without a husband, people who had previously loved her. Yet Mary continued to persevere in the face of this treatment because she knew she was doing what God had called her to do, and she wanted to honor Him in everything. She didn't have to say yes to what God asked of her. She could have said no. Then she wouldn't have had to deal with the persecution and the accusing looks in the eyes of everyone she knew. But she realized something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. Those things don't matter. It doesn't matter what other people think of you or of what you're doing. What matters is that you're doing what God has called you to do in a way that is honoring Him. So many things that we place value on in this world are just not important in the big scheme of things. For example, my husband and I practice Natural Family Planning as a form of birth control, which involves keeping track of my cycles and abstaining when I'm in the fertile phase of my cycle in order to avoid pregnancy. So many people seem horrified when they hear this. You mean you have to stop making love for a week out of every month?! Perish the thought! Come on, people. Are you telling me you and your spouse have never gone a week without making love? Is it really that difficult to fathom? But that's not the point. What is the point is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how often you get to make love to your spouse. That's something for this world, not the next. What matters is that you're doing what God has asked of you. We either try for or avoid pregnancy in a natural way rather than using pills or barrier methods that we believe go against God's teaching. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but we're reminded at times like that that the things God asks of us are not always easy. In fact, more often than not, they're difficult. This life is not the lasting one. It's simply a stepping stone into the next one that will last forever. That's the one that matters. That's the one that we should be focusing on when we're trying to decide if something is really important or not. The things we have in this life don't matter. Your house, your car, your clothes...those things are not what are important. Not that it's bad to have those things, even nice ones. It's how you touch other people's lives that's important. God puts people into our path for a reason. Sometimes it's so they can help us, sometimes so we can help them. It's up to us to figure out what He wants us to do for all the people in our lives, how we can help to enrich their lives in a way that is pleasing to God. Those are the things that matter.