A Few Thoughts and Prayers on This Unique (for Us) Independence Day

Happy Independence Day!

This year, my family's 4th of July is a bit different. Instead of being filled with parades, fireworks, and coming together with family and friends, it has been filled with celebrating - and, okay, for me, feeling a bit of mixed emotions about - our youngest child's growling independence.

For, for the first ever, we have dropped our boy off at an overnight camp.

For the next seven nights, we will not see nor hear from our boy in any way. That will be super tough for me. Yet, I am so excited for him.

I never had a chance as a child to go to a sleepaway camp.

I never had an opportunity to be surrounded by people of faith 24 hours a day for seven days, sharing Mass, Rosary, teachings and FUN.

I never knew what it was like to be away from my family, on my own, sailing, fishing, shooting, playing, praying, and getting an incredible taste of independence at a mere eleven years old as my boy will be.

Wow!

He's growing up so fast.

I am grateful to God for the privilege of being his Mom, excited for his opportunity to go to a Catholic boys camp this week, and praying that their is plenty of fun, faith, and fruit involved with his week.

I am also thinking about how full my heart is, but how the joy and excitement I feel for him is tempered with concern and a bit of sweet sadness, too.

It is so hard to let your child go - even if only for a week.

Witnessing a child grow - and giving that child freedom - is not for the feint of heart. Our Lord does this with us every single day. I, as His child, keep growing, keep exercising my freedom. He waits ready to embrace me every time I come near.

Praise be to God!

And happy Independence Day to all.

Please join me in praying for all children who are away from home for any reason this summer and for their families, too.

Dear Lord,

May safety, joy, and hearts for God be everpresent. May our children grow closer to you through their experiences and come home to sleep peacefully again within our grateful gazes after bubbling over with stories of their experiences.

May seeds be planted and faith and gratitude grow. Watch over our beloved children as they continue to grow in independence and in love for you.

Amen.

Tomorrow Will Dawn with Hope and Joy

There are days when your heart feels broken.

Not because of a calamity, but because of the quiet sorrows of everyday life. Sorrows that, for one reason or another, cannot be shared with other people and begin to feel so burdensome. 

Sorrows that sit just under the surface of every moment, undercutting the blessing of hope that God offers us.

Sorrows that threaten to steal all your joy.

Luckily, there are also moments when you remember that sorrows can sanctify.

They can be offered up. They can be turned into prayers. They can be shared with God even if not with other people.

And, when we stay rooted in faith, hope always endures. Joy wins.

As Psalms 34:18 says, "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed."

If today you have felt swallowed by sorrow, take heart. The Lord is near.

This day will end and another dawn new.

Trust in the Lord. He is a healer of hearts.

Of Birdfeeders and Bottles

Sometimes, God sends us hope and reminders through little things...

A window feeder with birds that come to feast, reminding me that the "birds in the sky...do not sow or reap... yet (my) heavenly Father feeds them." (Matthew 6:26)

My daughter helping me prep and wintersow 20+ bottles and jugs of what we hope will grow into flowers and edibles brought to mind the verse, "One who pays heed to the wind will never sow, and one who watches the clouds will never reap." (Ecclesiastes 11:4)

And, in the days that followed, as I faced some significant challenges in my call as wife and mother, I was edified by the thought that things may seem hopeless at times, conditions may appear all too imperfect, but if I just trust and do my work, God will do the rest. He provides. He controls the winds and clouds. He is always at work and always has a plan. I must stop worrying and just move forward in trust doing what I can as I can this moment.

If you, too, are facing struggles right now, I pray that everyday noticings and the Word of God can bring you some peace as they have me.

Eternal Rest Grant Unto Papa...

You rarely know when the last time you'll be able to hug someone is. 

You rarely realize how treasured an ordinary moment can become.

You often think there will be another opportunity to sit and share love all together...

Then, between one goodbye embrace...

... and another, you blink.

A year begins to turn into two, and sickness comes. Earthly goodbyes happen in person for some and at a distance for others...

The swing stands empty.

Sorrow sweeps in. 

And smiles, too.

Smiles breaking through tears.

Memories and gratitude and love.

Love with no earthly bounds.

Today, may I ask for prayers for my extended family as we mourn the loss of our beloved Papa.
A man missed - and treasured!

We are so very grateful for times together - simple times of making paper airplanes, flying kites, sitting on the swing, him waiting in the breakfast nook for us to arrive from our looooong journeys down to visit and always having food cooked up to greet us, visiting Nana at the nursing home together, going to the park, and so much more... Times of love shared from afar with phone calls and cards - oh, how the kids loved waiting and knowing a card would come from Nana and Papa.

Special times like his surprise visits here, him hearing our girl's "hummingbird" heartbeat in utero, him coming up to see "his girl" when she had a (canceled/rescheduled) surgery, him eager to give each infant grandchild sink baths, him sharing ice cream.... Oh, Papa we wish we could serve you homemade french fries...

Sit around a fire together...

Share hugs...

Hang out in the sunshine...

Sit on your lap...

And just spend time on the swing with you...

We wish such ordinary moments of last times together could be just "ordinary" again, not "last".

But you are gone now. Still, your love, your wit, you smile, your dedication, your quiet strength, your enormous impact on our lives will always be here as will our prayers that you and Nana find eternal glory in Heaven.

We are so very grateful for having known you, for having shared so many extraordinary ordinary times together, for the love you showered on us. We are blessed.

Papa, Nana, we love you.

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of Nana and Papa rest in peace. Amen.

Let's Get Real: The Story of Our Ultra-Imperfect St. Teresa of Calcutta Feast Day

Life is not always perfect.

Okay, it never is.

But, it is in its imperfections that we are often given the choice to move towards love or away from it.

We experienced a bit of this just this last year on St. Teresa of Calcutta's feast day.

Initially, I wanted to celebrate the day with friends as we had the year prior but then I remembered that my youngest son had a medical appointment in the late morning and a baseball practice in the late afternoon. So, I pivoted potential plans and decided that we would simply celebrate as a family after my son's practice.

The plan was simple: Grab some favorite frozen Indian food and enjoy a faith-focused family meal with easy Indian eats, prayer, and conversation, inspired by St. Teresa of Calcutta.

But, you know what they say: Life is what happens when you're making other plans...

After my youngest son's morning appointment - which sadly ended up going quite long - as in into the afternoon long - we popped into a store for some frozen Indian dinners to make our feast day dinner simple yet special.

Lo! The grocery store that we went to no longer sells Indian meals - only Mexican, Italian, and Thai. So, instead of quickly buying dinner at that store, we ended up doing a regular grocery run there since we were there anyway, and, then, heading to a nearby discount store for boxed Indian dishes.

Thankfully, that store had plenty of Indian meals, so I filled my youngest's cup by letting him pick out all the dishes that looked tasty to him. He was delighted! It was his first day ever of baseball practice - a much anticipated day - and we would be following his practice with a huge Indian feast that he'd picked out. In his young mind, this was perfection.

But, nothing is ever perfect, right?

Enter my oldest child.

After my children and I had put away groceries, completed some chores, and attended to a few other tasks, there was just enough time for my youngest and I to sit down for his daily 1:1 lessons. So, I directed my two older children to ready themselves to depart with me for my youngest's practice in a half hour where we'd do their 1:1's.

A simple request.

Or not.

My oldest - in all of his burgeoning teen angst - found my direction inciting. He was indignant at the thought of having to go to his little brother's practice at all, much less to do his 1:1 with me there without access to an internet-connected computer where he could edit a story he's been writing with me.

Worse, instead of expressing his feelings appropriately, my eldest usurped the half hour before departure with disrespectful and oppositional blustering. Thus, my youngest got no 1:1, my middle child got upset, and my oldest escalated in poor choices.

It was not an ideal any-day occurrence, much less an ideal feast day unfolding...

Somehow, though, I stayed relatively calm and go everyone into the minivan, attempting to redirect us toward goodness through our habit of Gratitude and Greatness and our driving prayer peg . But these efforts only went so far.

We arrived at practice field in the nick of time with my youngest bowled over by the imperfections of the past moments and no longer sure he even wanted to go to practice. 

Truly wanting things to reset, I encouraged my youngest to try to forget the overwhelming awful we'd all just been experiencing and, instead, to just focus on enjoying his first practice. I gave him a hug, let him know how excited I was that he was getting to finally start the season he was so looking forward to, and brought him over to the baseball field, where I introduced myself to some kind baseball dads and was grateful when they promptly paired my youngest up with another child to play warm-up catch with.

Whew! 

With that child bouncing back and focused on good, I, then, sat with my daughter, who was brimming with emotion, engaged her in a calming chat, and focused on her 1:1.

Her reset began happening, too.

Meanwhile, my oldest son - not in reset mode yet - came over, quietly blustering, and handed me a scrawled note that was somewhat of an apology and somewhat of a demand.

I told him that we would need to wait to discuss it until I was done with his sister's 1:1. He could wait near to us, walk around the field, or go to the minivan.

He chose a different course of action - and not the wisest one. With one son on the field and a daughter who needed me next to me, I, then, chose to trust that God would send the Guardian angels of my eldest to look after him while I awaited the end of my youngest's practice.

Fast forward...

With thanks to my eldest's guardian angels, I found my oldest safe at home when my youngest's practice ended. That was good.

Not as good, my just-home-from-work husband and our oldest son were in the middle of a heated discussion when my younger two and I entered the scene, and, honestly, those two needed no more drama.

So, I quickly assessed things, closed my eyes, and prayed for the right actions and reactions to get back on better ground as a family unit.

I noted that my eldest had made a few good choices - putting in laundry, trying to heat up portions dinner, etc. - atop his bad ones. Still, he just wasn't ready to let some persistent vice go.

So, a weird, and very real period of rollercoaster parenting, feast day dinner preparations, and Lord-please-give-us-grace followed.

Before too, too long, however, we had the messes of the day under figurative wraps for a moment and also covered messes on the table that were just going to be too much to remove with a cloth. Then, we set out our feast day dinner - however imperfectly - and everyone gathered at the table.

A chat about St. Teresa of Calcutta, grace, and digging in happened.

Between delicious bites...

...I encouraged each person to reflect upon the day and the idea that, as St. Teresa has said, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”"  I asked us each to recall a moment in the day when we could have demonstrated greater love.

The idea that "Peace begins with a smile," (another quote attributed to St. Teresa) seemed appropriate, too.

For, despite all the hoopla earlier in the day - and even some that followed once dinner ended- we were somehow bathed in grace and - praise God! - at times some genuine smiles broke through.

(And maybe some not so genuine ones...)

St. Teresa took care of the poorest of the poor. Sometimes, even when we want to best for our families, we experience the poorest of attitudes, actions, reactions, etc. It is easy to swept up in the drama of it all, to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, foiled, you-name-the-negative emotion... But, it is also important to just keep loving.

St. Teresa once said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." Imperfect feast days - and imperfect anydays - remind us that no matter what kind of time we are having as a family, there is always an opportunity - and a need - to love.

When one person in the family begins a downward spiral, we have a choice: get sucked in and move away from love or move back towards love.

The right choice is obvious - but not always easy.

Still, I pray we can each make that right choice. I pray that on ideal days and imperfect ones, we may find time to love those around us.

I also pray that by sharing this snippet of real life as we tried to live the liturgical year last year, you find some encouragement.

If your home and family are glaringly important, you are not alone. Mine is, too.

No judgement here. Just solidarity and prayer.

You've got this! And, if you don't, God does.

Praise God for that!

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.

When the Saints Speak to You about Your Mornings...

Do you ever sense that God is giving you a little nudge to re-examine a part of your day and to reflect on what tweaks to it might bring you closer to Him?

I recently had such a nudge. It came in four parts.

First, after slogging through some mornings and sighing with little inner joy and gratitude as I went to bed over a series of nights, I realized something needed to change in me and recalled words that I heard in a talk years ago:

"Wake up every day excited and go to be every day fulfilled."

Simple words, but good ones.

Words that, when put into practice, have carried me through earlier portions of my life and which, I sensed, might be headed better at present.

So, with these words in mind, I began to ask myself shortly after waking each day, "What am I enthused about today?" Then, with a grateful heart and something to look forward to, living the day in such a way that by its end I could reflect and answer the question, "Where did I fulfill my vocation today and at what moments did I find peace and joy?"

This was the start of God's nudge to me about tweaking my moments to bring me closer to Him.

Then, I recalled the Heroic Minute St. Josemaría Escrivá, wrote about in his book, The Way:

“Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a fixed time, without yielding a single minute to laziness. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. … The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and… up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body.”

As I recalled this concept, I realized how unheroic my mornings had become.

All too often in recent days, weeks, and months, I have been beginning my day with a groggy prayer, then, rolling over, falling back asleep, beginning again, drifting again, and so forth... Sometimes never even finishing the prayer before finally getting up and stumbling or dashing headlong into the day depending on what urgency the clock and the calendar prompted.

Not good.

Not a way to grow with God.

St. Josemaría Escrivá reminded me I can do better!

Then, St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) (whose feast day is coming up on August 9) reminded me that perhaps I need longer than a simple Heroic Minute each day.

In a homily I listened to, words attributed to St. Francis de Sales struck me:

"Everyone of us needs half an hour of prayer every day, except when we are busy—then we need an hour."

Then, I stumbled across a quote I wrote down last year when looking for resources and ideas for sharing more about St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross with my children: 

“The duties and cares of the day crowd about us when we awake each day – if they have not already dispelled our night’s rest. How can everything be accommodated in one day? When will I do this, when that? How will it all be accomplished? Thus agitated, we are tempted to run and rush. And so we must take the reins in hand and remind ourselves, “Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God. Tackle the day’s work that he charges you with, and he will give you the power to accomplish it.”

Finally, during Confession today, a priest spoke to me about how St. Therese of the Child Jesus talked about a stairway... I later looked it up and found this:

"You make me think of a little child that is learning to stand but does not yet know how to walk. In his desire to reach the top of the stairs to find his mother, he lifts his little foot to climb the first step. It is all in vain, and at each renewed effort he falls. Well, be like that little child. Always keep lifting your foot to climb the ladder of holiness, and do not imagine that you can mount even the first step. All God asks of you is good will. From the top of the ladder He looks lovingly upon you, and soon, touched by your fruitless efforts, He will Himself come down, and, taking you in His Arms, will carry you to His Kingdom never again to leave Him. But should you cease to raise your foot, you will be left for long on the earth."

And so it all came together in my head...

Getting busier and busier of late? Yep!

Waking all to often with my mind caught up in the cares of each day and tempted to run and rush in an agitated state? Mm hmm.

Stumbling often and getting discouraged?  Aboslutely.

Needing to re-examine my morning routines and to keep lifting my foot - and my heart - towards Him?  Without a doubt.

Thus, as I go to bed tonight, I am grateful for the words of saints that God has used to nudge me into a plan for tomorrow...

A plan to wake heroically, then spend some extra time renewing morning habits of prayer before tackling the day's work.

How about you? How have the saints been speaking to you?

Are you starting your day heroically? 

Are you busying out prayer or rushing headlong into the cares of the day without pausing to hand the plans for it over to Our Lord?

Are you getting discouraged by your own stumbling or trusting that God has got you and asks you only to lift your foot with good will?

Wherever your are, may you be open to His nudges.

As the world seems to go crazy, Our Lady waits... with peace...

     with promise...

          with intercession...

               with strength...

                    with grace.

She asks us to join her.

To pray...

To process with humility...
   
     with hope...

          following her toward God.

May we accept her invitation.

May we move toward the Lord always.

Dear Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.

Come, Holy Spirit, come.

Never Did I Ever Think I'd Be Praying for St. Brigid's Intercession Regarding a Chicken...

Never did I ever think I would be praying for St. Brigid's intercession regarding a chicken...

... and never did I ever think I would sleep on a couch while on chicken watch duty...

Nor did I ever imagine that I would spend an early morning before Mass using a gloved finger to apply oil to a chicken vent...

I also never thought that I would spend hours researching what differing colors and textures of chicken poop mean...

... and the list goes on.

Things that never once entered my brain before have now become a part of my present reality for the love of my children... and their chickens.

Yes, we've had a sometimes emotional, definitely educational, and undeniably unexpected couple of days here nursing one of the kids' chickens back  -we hope! - to health.

In doing so, we have tapped into the kindness and wisdom of local friends, countless websites and Youtube channels, and fellow chicken owners in Facebook groups.

We've also discovered that a saint we have celebrated and prayed to before is patron to chicken farmers! Thus, although we are hardly chicken farmers, I have been praying for St. Brigid's intercession for our dear chicken Pippin.

More than once in the past 24+ hours, I have prayed simple prayers, such as:

St. Brigid, please intercede that me may be guided in taking care of our sick chicken Pippin. For, while this matter is small in the large scheme of the world, my children's love for Pippin is strong. We know our Lord loves us and desires good. We wish to do what is best for our chicken. Whatever happens, please let my daughter and youngest son be at peace. Amen.

Now, yes, yes, yes. I know. With all the dire matters facing the world today, it may seem silly to pray for St. Brigid's intercession due to a sick chicken. Yet, here I have been doing so. For, in small matters and in large, prayer is vital, right?

Adoration. Contrition. Thanksgiving. Petition. Our Lord loves when we turn to Him.

The saints are there as intercessors.

And, so, we pray.

And we share in case you have chickens, too, and - like us - did not know that St. Brigid is, among other things, Patron to Chicken Farmers.

Now you do know and, should your family face time of chicken challenges, you can call upon her intercession.

Likewise, chickens or no chickens, you might also remember just how much Our Mother loves us and desires to help us no matter what we are going through.

I could not help but to think about that as my love for my children (and their love for their chickens) prompted us to do things over the past few days that we never imagined we would.

Love can drive us to do so many things. May one of them be turning to Our Lady in prayer.

We took a break from chicken care to do just that as a group today, praying for weightier matters, and it was wonderful.

Whatever your challenges and joys are, may you keep on praying!