Leaving God at the Altar

My youngest, Miss Sicky Sickerson 

It's Lent.  This week, my TLM parish was/is holding a 3-day mission, given by a visiting priest, Fr. Joseph Tuscan, OFM.  My husband and I had plans to go, especially yesterday, Tuesday, for my birthday.  We both have missed the first two days and tonight, the final night, will be no different.

Our household is currently battling the stomach bug.  It's been hanging out since Friday, passing through a few of us at a time.  The littler ones are continuing to exhibit some symptoms, though the majority of their suffering seems to have passed.  The hubs and I are feeling mostly better, with still-queasy stomachs and slight weakness from not eating.  

In any case, my dear friend posted on Facebook a couple notes she took from one of the talks from the mission, and I was so blessed to be able to receive the message through her, but also felt frustrated and disappointed that I could not be there in person for the entire experience:  Confession, Mass, then the talks given by Fr. Tuscan.  I had been looking forward to it, and am still feeling the sting of not being able to go because of the sickness in my household.  I feel cheated out of this extra time with the Lord, a special Lenten gift so generously offered by our priests.  

It's always so difficult to really take advantage of all that Lent has to offer in the ever-growing desire to empty out oneself and draw closer to the Lord. Lent is traditionally the liturgical season to put specific focus on this, although it's a crucial practice in your every-day, but especially within a large, busy family, sometimes Lent sneaks up on you. And sometimes your best-laid plans to really make Lent meaningful and fruitful in your spiritual journey actually end up by the wayside, or, in our current case, down the drain. This can happen for so many reasons, including laziness, or a lack of self-discipline and/or diligence.  It's one thing to be in control of it, and to then be disappointed in yourself for not following through, but it's a whole other issue to have those plans be destroyed by something you can't control, like sickness running through your household.

It's frustrating, to say the least.  But it's also humbling.

I recently came across this really insightful quote from St. Francis of Rome, and then came across it again just this morning, and since then it has been a source of great comfort (and humility) to assuage the despair in missing out on the mission, as well as a few other practices within our home we had incorporated for Lent but have been too sick to execute these past few days.  Read: 

"A married woman must often leave God at the altar to find Him in her household care."

This speaks volumes to me as I navigate the remnants of the virus and its aftermath, as well as the disappointment of missing out on my * planned * means of Lenten devotions.  This week of Lent, God has called me away from the altar, away from the "easy" means to love, worship, and draw closer to Him.  He has called me not to a beautiful church with its peace and quiet, not to an organized retreat with Mass and words of wisdom from a beloved priest, not to a respite with my husband from the nitty-gritty of daily life with many children, but to ground zero of a horrible sickness in all of its gory detail, to sleepless nights, to a clingy, fussy baby who wants to constantly nurse.  He has called me to find Him amidst the chaos of a household in distress.  

In this Lenten season, we are called to choose special devotions, sacrifices and offerings in order to empty ourselves out so to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to unite ourselves to Christ on His cross, His passion and death, to truly realize our humble humanity, as well as the magnanimity of Christ's love: His life offered up for us.  Having a particular suffering chosen for us doesn't negate the other, but it can, in its own right, provide a means of grace, as well as a kind of devotion and love to offer up to our King.  I may not have chosen this particular mode of suffering and sacrifice, but I can choose how to utilize it: as either a humble offering, uniting myself to His passion, or as a source of complaint and despair.  

I choose the former.







PS.  A few quick notes, practical and spiritual 😇  : 

Practical: In my desperate search for how to best attack the Noro virus (the most common culprit for the stomach bug), I found that you MUST get a cleaner that specifically says that it will kill Noro. It would be good to maybe keep this stuff on hand from Nov-April when this type of virus is in its prime.  Lesson learned for me.  Fortunately, we've NEVER in our 15 years of parenthood had to deal with this relentless illness, at least not to the extreme we have been, but there's always a first time for everything, right? Incidentally, I am normally a pretty crunchy/naturally-minded person for our household but I felt like this called for the big guns. 

We bought several things: 

(NOTE: these are NOT affiliate links and I didn't necessarily order these products all from Amazon) 

*Purell Multi-Surface
*Lysol Max cover; hubs chose garden after the rain scent which is not too offensive
*Clorox Healthcare w/Hydrogen Peroxide, cleaner and also wipes  
*Germstar Noro hand sanitizer 

I read that you can also use hydrogen peroxide 3% on its own.  To appease my psychological despair over all.the.germs, these killer cleaners seemed like a better suit for us.


Spiritual: (And shameless plug).  Inspired by the notes from Tuesday's talk which my friend had posted, coupled with our sickness experience, I wrote a blog post on The Final Battle blog.  If you need some inspiration about forgiveness in your marriage, I hope you will find it here.

The Treasure of Nurslings

It's these moments that paralyze me.  But not in a bad way.  I want to stay in this moment forever.  Not move.  Not even dare breathe.  Drink it all in.

I'm nursing my baby and I want to freeze time.

She is my number six and she just turned a year old.  I can't decide how I feel about it.  Do I need to feel anything at all?

Her big brown eyes keep closing, opening.  Closing once more.  She grabs gently with her tiny fingers against my skin.  The other kids want my attention, I can tell, even if they aren't daring to open my bedroom door again.  But I'm hiding out in this room, the hum of the AC in the window, the entire measure of the moment with a single thought: Stay right here.

I tried earlier to get her to sleep.  Noise in the house and a barrage of constant interruptions kept her from making that last slip into peaceful slumber.  She had been on the cusp but wouldn't unlatch or she'd fitfully wake and reach out for me with her pursed lips and desperate cry. It continued on and on like this and there was no getting past it. I had no choice at one point but to let her stay up, let her play, hope she got tired again soon.

After lunch, she had had it.  She was in my arms and nursing in the living room. I moved back to the bedroom once more to see if she'd finally let sleep steal her away.  As I listened to her breathing change, her small chest rising and falling ever more slowly, I realized that yes, this would be that moment.  I stroked her forehead and watched her face change.

In this season of life, I don't think there is anything sweeter than the slow fluttering of the eyes of a nursling as she tries to steal one last look at her mama, the soft cooing and that sweet gentle smile as she drifts off to sleep at my breast.

And I can't help but wonder if she will be my last.  Will she be the last baby I nurse to sleep?  Will these be my last moments with her in this part of our relationship?  How soon will it change?  This one feels different somehow, our moments together more weighty; the urgency to slow down and treasure them, fierce.  It wasn't quite the same with my other babies.  With them, there was more of an urgency to break away, to be impatient. To get the job done, tuck them in, roll away and dash.  Much to do, other kids to take care of.

She has changed me.  Time has changed me.

As I review the last year, gone far more lickety-split than the first years of my other babes, I am convicted.  I'm convicted to slow down. To focus. To watch. To treasure.  This season of my life is fleeting.  Fast.  Some day too soon, she will have nurslings of her own.  And I will have but memories, dusty in my mind.

A Big Family. Is It Worth It?

I divide my children into two categories: my first litter and my second.  My first litter is the older four and there is no more than a year and a half between each of them. Then, there are three years between the youngest of that litter and the oldest in my next, separated by a miscarriage and many months of serious mental health issues.

So I look at these two in their vastly different places and stations in my life.  The older four, while still young, are pretty independent.  The youngest of them will be 6 in a few short months.  The second litter is comprised of a 2 1/2 year old who is ON from sunup to sundown, and a very needy 10 month old who still is almost exclusively breastfed and doesn't know how to sleep through the night yet.  I wonder if  am convinced she and her older brother are in cahoots.

So is it hard? 

Definitely.

Is it worth it?

Eh...

Am I a terrible mother for not even knowing where to begin in answering that question? It's weighty and depending on what kind of mood I'm in, if I've had my coffee or- God forbid- a shower, the answer could vary moment to moment, day to day.

I look at those cherry-sweet faces and I ask myself all the time, what if I hadn't continued to be open to life after my miscarriage?  What if I let my fears overrun me, crowding out my deepest desire to please the Lord and serve Him in whatever way He asked? I can only think of another question: does it even matter?

They are here.  And I love them.

It's a long labor of love, this parenting gig.  Whether you have 2 or 4 or 6.  When you let God design your family, when you shirk all worldly thoughts and maybe even some acknowledgement of your own feelings and capabilities as you measure them, when you just BE for a moment without all the control and pretense, you can't ask yourself questions like this.  You just can't.

Because it really doesn't matter.

You have to just do the next thing. Change the next diaper.  Nurse that baby.  Push those chubby toes out of your face at night.  And just be.  Keep going.  Labor away.

Time goes by, regardless.  Sometimes it passes at a yawning, groaning, aching pace, and sometimes it flits by in a flash, chasing after a future always out of grasp.  Sometimes it is comprised of lost babies, empty arms, foggy mind, and sometimes it's full of little hands to hold, nurslings, round bellies, full breasts.

Time teaches you, heals you, grows you, regardless of its contents.  It isn't really a measure of contents anyway, so much as allowance.

Allowance for things you may not plan.  Allowance for life to crack you wide open, and for the mighty hand of God to piece you back together in the manner He sees fit.

And really, if I think about it, if I sit down in the quiet (which, incidentally, is a rare find around here), I can tell you that yes, definitely.  It is indeed worth it.