Grace Will Lead Me Home (Adapted From An Upcoming Work)

Today marks one year that we’ve been in our new home.

This time last year, it was Holy Week, and I felt a little odd doing something that was customarily celebratory in nature during the most solemn time of the year. But at the same time, it didn’t feel quite celebratory. It felt more like relief- the kind that envelops you when you’ve been in labor for 20 hours and your exhausted body finally surrenders your baby.

 

It was also a hesitant- yet hopeful- surrendering of the previous three years to a solution I wasn’t quite sure was right. I could only celebrate the fact that my husband was sure. That he was leading us. That he had chosen, and that I was even willing to surrender to that. I celebrated the fact that here there would be no one threatening us, that my children were safe, and that I knew exactly where they’d be laying their heads to sleep in six months.

 

In this last year I have grieved and I have ached, and I have wept, yet I have laughed. The essence of our journey has taken its toll, yes. But there is beauty even in the darkness of our journey. In the breaking. In the bleeding. In the salty tears of heartache and betrayal and fear and angst.

 

And this past year has ceded to a slow, forward movement away from the bitterness and sadness of grief, toward a healing and wellness that only God’s grace can provide.

 

It's ever so small a movement, truly, but I feel it, and I see it:

It’s in the way I catch sight of the old me sometimes- the me that wasn’t always overwhelmed, the me that relished small hands constantly needing their mother, the one that had no concern for tomorrow or where my children would lay their heads at night, or which people in our life would still be there in the morning. I see small glimmers of the hopeful mind I used to have, filled with dreams and plans happily abandoned to the will of God. The one whose creative side found its voice in writing, baking, and painting old furniture.

And sometimes I even feel the joy that had always been entangled with the craziness of our life, and I know it isn’t the pretend happiness I was forced to build on quicksand. 

True joy. Just there….Maybe a little bit further below the surface now, but definitely there.

I’ve been asked how I am still standing. How I can function. How I can move forward after everything we’ve been through. My answer is always the same: God’s grace. I have no abilities on my own. Everything I’ve been able to do these last few years, especially this past one, is because God, in His deep well of generosity, has given me what I have needed to stand, to put one foot in front of the other, and inch by inch, move. Move forward, deeper, further down the path which He set us on those long four years ago. His grace sustained us through so much loss, so much betrayal, so much hardship. Through the dark valleys. Through the storms. Through the unknowing.

God’s grace.

 

A month ago I bought this picture for our living room:

 

When I saw it in the store, something stirred quietly in the depths of my heart. Considering all that we had been through to find our home, and the fact that I was ever-aware of the light of God’s grace working even in the darkness, I knew that picture- the very last one, slightly hidden on the shelf- was meant for me.

 

Of course I know this life is not our true home. This fact has been especially profound in the course of this past year, and really in the overall journey of finding a home. But a house, a shelter, somewhere for us to live out our ordinary days, striving to love God and each other, a place from which to serve, a place to which my husband and working children may return at the end of a weary day- that is what we call home here in this life. That is where we little beings who are chasing after the Beatific Vision, who are just living and loving and growing our families, find the grace of God- tucked into the crevices of the painted walls, the messy floors, the coverlets we lay across our children at night.  

 

That picture spoke of the grace which led me through one of the darkest valleys I’ve ever traversed in this life. Through that valley, to this little home we now call ours- here on the mountain. This mountain, though lackluster at first, has spent the last year singing of God's glory with every new sunrise He paints across her peaks, and whispering of His making all things new at each change of the season. 

It's been a whole year since grace has led us home. 

God is so very good.

 

 

PS. I'd be remiss without a little shout to our realtor, Michelle Leo Hart, for being an angel in our story of finding home. She truly made the process so much brighter than it would have been, especially after the experience we had with another realtor before her. She could never know how deeply grateful we are, and how much her guidance and patience felt like balm to our weary souls. If you live in the Central PA area and are looking for a new place to call home, connect with her! You won't regret it, I promise!

A Book is Born!

I write this post not to advertise for myself, but to praise God for His infinite mercy, patience, and love.

Long ago, a seed was planted within my heart to write for the glory of God. In my vocation as a wife and mother, there was no lack of inspiration. What there was, however, was my own pride and lack of confidence. Instead of relying on the Lord to direct my path with this, to care for and grow that seed, I believed it was up to me. I believed this, yet I had no ability to discern the proper path, nor did I have the humility to get over myself enough to realize that God has given me a gift, and with it, the obligation to use it for His glory, despite any shortcomings I perceive about myself. I did keep a blog for many years (not this one), and through it, despite my lazy attitude toward its upkeep, (which wasn't quite as bad as the one I have for this blog), I managed to meet other women much like myself. I learned so much through them. And, I was often encouraged to write a book. Eventually, I started one. But it took a long time to finish, (over 10 years, actually), and not only because of my lack of time to work on it due to my focus on my children and home life. I was never confident that I understood what was being asked of me. Sometimes I felt like I was wasting my time. Thankfully, just this past year, I had some spiritual direction with a wise and trusted priest, who encouraged me to pursue that to which [I felt] God was calling me, leaving the results up to Him.

The journey has been very long, and at times, painful and difficult. I am almost 100% positive that the devil did not want this book to be written because he hates children and he hates the fact that we mere humans are capable of creating them, and so I felt very spiritually attacked, especially the closer I got to actually publishing it. But, by the grace of God, publish it, I did, and I hope it will not only be a source of inspiration and encouragement to other Catholic mothers like me, but more so, a means to glorify God and direct others to Him. It is only by His grace, and with His guidance, that this book has come to be. It is only for Him that I write. His mercy on me through my stupidity and slowness, laziness and pride, His patience while I took my sweet time, and His enduring love: I praise Him for it all. 

Please, I beg of you to pray for me! I do not wish for this to become a source of pride. One of my friends, who read this book before it was published, texted me and said, "I love you! Only one page in and, man, you are writing my heart!" My response to her, and I truly meant it, was, "I do not want people to love me for what I write. I want people to love God for what I write (or in spite of it)." 

I desire to always feel this way.

In any case, if you are so inclined as to purchase a copy, you can do so, here: The Longest Labor.  Or, if money is tight, but you really want to read this book, please email me.

To Him be all the glory.

Deo Gratias!

That Time God Took Away My Ability to Write

As an introspective and emotional person, I have always found solace in writing.  Growing up as the sixth child of seven in a very busy, and sometimes frequently always loud home, when I would lose myself in the chaos, it only took putting ink to paper to find myself again.  I filled journals with my thoughts, poetry, tears. It was how I handled the difficult or major things. I never felt much of a need to write down my feelings otherwise.  This practice served me well as I grew, and I carried it into my adult life. As I contemplated marriage, had babies, moved. As my husband lost jobs, I lost babies, we lost family... I wrote.

Writing is my outlet.  Whether it’s good writing or not, gibberish or coherent, it allows me to freely and safely express myself, my deepest longings, thoughts and fears.  Through it I unpack, sort through and face it all, and I am more apt to transition to a place of healing from the painful things, or a better understanding of anything major.  Writing out what’s in my mind and heart has always been much easier than speaking it, and has served as the means by which I am able to process life as I see it.

This past December I had my seventh baby.  I was three and a half weeks from my expected due date and suddenly was facing high blood pressure, HELLP syndrome and an induction.  I had a scare an hour after my baby was born where I was unresponsive for some time, and in that time I had somewhat of an interesting experience I am still trying to understand.  The whole twenty-four hour + event left me raw, exhausted to my bones, and completely unable to process anything the way I normally would. Moreso, I was unable to write. Anything.

I was quite numb for the first two months after.  Emotion spilled out less than a handful of times, briefly, but even then I could not write.  I remember lying in bed one night, balancing my baby on my legs, staring at her and crying. She had just recently become less of a stranger to me, and I was marveling at her beauty, our growing bond, and the grace of God.  It was one of only a few times I had been able to look at her without numbness at that point.

It wasn’t until the next day or so that I realized something.  I had been striving for several weeks to somehow write an article about my labor that I didn’t remember, and I had been completely unable to. I’d start, then stop. Erase it all.  Begin again. There were too many holes, too many gray areas. There was too much I felt but couldn’t express. Too much sifting through murkiness, only to end up with hands as raw and empty as I felt inside.  I was grieving hard the fact that I could not write, that I couldn’t go through the process I normally do. I hadn’t been able to journal at all about it, and could not take from that what I needed to write the article.  What I realized was that the Lord had been whispering to me in various ways all this time to come to Him. To find my outlet in Him.

I didn’t have an ‘aha’ moment with that or even a great spiritual event afterward leading me to my state of ability to write.  Nothing like that. It was a slow progression over the next week or so, realizing that though I usually prayed and wrote (and often wrote my prayers as my means of processing), this time, with this, the Lord wanted me to pray only.  To come to rest at the foot of His cross and abide there for a time. I didn’t have anything I needed to be able to process otherwise and there was no way of obtaining it without that time with Him.

When I finally surrendered to that idea, putting aside my notebook and my laptop, something in me started to crack open.  Whenever I felt any sort of pain or became aware of the lingering numbness within me, I consistently returned to Him. Again and again, I prayed and cried, and I felt reassurance dawn over and over, tip-toeing ever so gently into my heart. Pieces of the puzzle began to take shape, their smooth edges fitting just so with others.  The ones that were still hazy with jagged edges unable to be clearly defined had to be set aside. I had to accept that I would never have the whole picture. But what I did have, I was able to take from. I was able to write about my feelings, my ordeal, and from there I was able to form the article I eventually ended up submitting to a magazine.

Now I am 14 1/2 weeks out from having had my precious baby.  I don’t necessarily feel healed completely. But I do sense a shift in direction on my path.  I suspect that in the next few weeks and months, more things will present themselves to me to sort through.  What I went through was no small thing and I am learning more and more how dangerous HELLP syndrome is and could have been for me and my baby.  Although I am more able to function and deal, some days are harder to grasp the light of than others. Some days still leave me somewhat raw.  But I know that no matter what, any ability I have...to heal, to write, to laugh, to love, comes from Him and Him alone, and I am nothing...I can do nothing, even write my feelings...without Him.