Me versus Temptation: I hope I can win

Whenever I think of the cross of Christ, and how to embrace it is my life, I always think of the hardships and trials of life. I think about sickness, loving others who aren't so loveable, having patience and gentleness as a mother, being diligent in my household chores, or something like that. Basically, I think of everyday roadblocks when I think of the cross.

However, this Lenten season has opened my eyes to, in my opinion, the most difficult aspect of carrying the cross: resisting temptation and avoiding sin.

I have never really struggled with disobeying God in my life. I'm not saying I don't sin because I do plenty of that. I just have never had to fight to avoid a particular sin weighing heavy on me. But there is a situation in my life right now where I have to fight the roadblocks of temptation on my path towards holiness.

This has been extremely difficult for me because when I am struggling with everyday matters, and I fail, I can just brush myself off, blame it on human imperfection, and try again. But when carrying the cross means resisting temptation, and then I fail, it is devastating to me. It isn't just imperfection or humanity in me, it is sin, hatred, anger, evil, etc. It is all the bad things in the world manifesting itself through my actions. And I find that cross extremely difficult to carry.

To me, it puts on a lot of pressure. When I fail in daily trials, I feel called to pray and recommit myself to the right path, but there isn't a sense of overwhelming guilt. There's just a desire to truly be better. But when I fail, and that failure appears in the form of sin, I feel a very heavy burden of guilt and am not satisfied until I have gone to Confession. Unfortunately, that usually means waiting until Saturday's scheduled time for Reconciliation, and so there are a few days of sadness, remorse, guilt, or other melancholy thoughts. Also, because I feel so down about failing, I usually don't muster up the strength to be better, and the sin continues the rest of the week until I feel the graces pouring into me from my Confession.

I have to admit that while this Lenten season has been difficult so far, it has also taught me so much about having compassion towards others. I have known many people who continue to struggle with the same sinful vices, and I have never been able to be understanding of them. I just want to tell them, "just stop doing it!" It was always so simple, so easy of an answer. But now I see that it isn't so simple for those desperately trying to "just stop doing it!" There's a lot of pressure and emotions involved, and a lot of guilt that may seem to be of a holy nature, but can actually be debilitating to a person so in need of incredible strength at the moment.

It is just amazing how many times I have asked God to help me to be more compassionate or understanding, to make me a better friend, to help me to love others better, and to see others as God sees them. Oh, how He has an incredible way of answering those prayers.