Learning to have faith

My mother helping me move into my first condo. Can you see the fear in my eyes? 

The other night while preparing Sunday dinner, my mother casually announced that her and I were going to reinstall a bedroom door that had fallen off the hinge.

Now, I have never installed a door and was pretty sure she hadn’t either. “It’s easy,” she insisted. “I just need you to hold it up for me while I screw it back on.”

My mother and I have been through a lot trying manual labour over the years, from building Ikea furniture, to flagging down help when we got a flat tire on the 407, to that time we nearly froze in the dark after I accidentally blew out the electricity while visiting her elderly aunt, a nun, at a convent in Italy.

However, we tend to approach these situations differently. When she moved me into my condo a few years ago, she seemed to instantly know what to do. I, on other hand, broke down into tears at Home Depot trying to pick out a light fixture.

I was certain this was beyond our capacity, even though she learned from the best. My dad was a carpenter and the handiest guy we knew. Before he passed away, he entrusted my uncle, his brother-in-law, to look after all my mom’s repairs. I assumed this covered broken door hinges, too. “Did you call Zio Mario?” I suggested.

She had already brought up the toolbox from the basement and was sorting through screwdrivers. There was no lifeline to save us now.

My mother handed me the door and it immediately plunged to the ground. “I’m not built for this,” I declared, as if she wasn’t already lamenting her D-squad assistant.

“Hmm,” she assessed. “We should prop it up.”

I couldn’t understand why my mother was so insistent on fixing this herself. She does so many things well; I would not think less of her if she admitted defeat on this one. Sadly, I was pretty much willing it at this point. My brother, bless his heart, even offered to pay someone to do it. It’s technically a spare bedroom so there was no real urgency for it to be done tonight anyway. And yet, there I was, holding up a heavy door and wishing to be literally anywhere else.

“I’m getting a ladder,” my mother said, and off she went.

I prayed for patience and the grace to not say something I would quickly regret.

That’s when I saw the painting of Jesus hung above the bed. It was a rendering of Him as a young carpenter carving into a block of wood – a gift to my father from an old friend. I couldn’t believe the scene before me: on one side of the door, there was my mother furiously alternating between screws and screwdrivers and on the other side was Jesus smiling as He worked.

“Can you help us?” I asked Him silently. It was a silly question.

As my mother reached for more screws, I could feel the weight on my arms getting lighter. “Are you actually fixing it?” I gasped. She was too focused to respond.

She tightened the last screw and for the first time all night I was completely speechless. “Oh you, of little faith,” she teased, stepping down from the ladder and wiping her bangs from her face.

I thought of the disciples in the boat with Jesus who was asleep when a storm broke out. Terrified, they woke Him up and He quickly rebuked the wind and calmed the sea. I realized I had it all backwards. Do you trust me? Jesus was asking then, just as He is now, while watching over us.

Though I am nowhere near the physical and spiritual strength of my mother, I can only ask Him for the grace to remove my doubt – and maybe one day, take after her.