All The Things Pale in the Shadow of Christ's Cross

So I'm laying here, nursing a sick baby, fighting my own sickness, exhausted.  I was up most of the night feeling like my head was caught in a vice, unable to breathe well, and then Little Miss decided it was time to party at 3 AM.  Hubby and I didn't get back to sleep until after 5, then up at 7:30 when the first set of little feet came padding through the door.  In any case, it's second nap time and I'm laying here in my bed, listening to her labored breathing, the melody of a sleepless night and the remnants of that week-long cold winding down to a steady rhythm, and my mind wanders, as it's wont to do.

I am taking inventory of all the things:

How this time last year we were still battling an even worse sickness, and I was just beginning to recover from everything that had happened with this baby's birth.

How since then, it seems like one thing after another keeps tumbling down upon us.

How starting even further back, there was all this stuff...  All this stuff that began in our life that seemed to just keep piling up, overflowing.

How our life, believe it or not, has seemed- for the last year especially- much like a windowless, doorless room, filling up with sand.  There are a couple of major things that are out of our control right now, things we just need to wait on God to take care of.  He hasn't opened any doors or windows and there are literally none even to be seen.  And so we wait.  And pray.  Meanwhile, little and big things (the sand) continue to tumble down, filling this desperate place with the heaviness of a hundred crosses...

Then I look up.

I look up and I see this:

Jesus.

On His cross.

And I think to myself, Gosh... How long have we faced what we have and it hasn't been our doom? How long has He held us up with the very same strong hands that were nailed to that rough-hewn tree?  

All the things pale in the shadow of Christ's cross.

Then I realize that in thinking of all the things, I'm still at peace.  I'm at peace and have been most of this time, and I didn't even realize it until now.  I just kept a hold of my husband's hand, putting one foot in front of the other, continuing to labor forward.  I remember talking to a good friend one day about one of the major things going on.  It had come up in conversation about a related subject, and when I told her, she replied that she had no idea how I wasn't freaking out.

The only thing I could say is that it's been by God's grace alone.  

In reality, sometimes I start to hesitate, slow my pace, but I am continuously, gently called back, back to the way of the cross.

I am kinda excited to see what comes of all the things:  The inescapable room that is our life, the sand pouring in...  I don't really believe that there is no purpose to them.  I don't believe it's just bad luck, Murphy's law, or punishment for my sins. I think that once it's all said and done, there will be an amazing testament to God's perfect love, timing and plans.  Even if our circumstances never change; even if all of the things continue to rain down, there will be beauty in our path. There will be growth.  There will be light shining in the darkness.  And to Him will be the glory.

So, dear friends, if you are struggling with some things right now, take heart!  If you are currently living in a windowless, doorless room, especially one that is also filling up with sand, don't give up!  Keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.  Christ wasn't stripped bare, scourged, and nailed to a tree to die just to leave you in despair.  He rose, and so will you.

Pick up all your hundreds of crosses, even the last splinter of one, and unite yourself to Him on His.  He will surely lift you up.





PS. On a particularly "sandy" day recently, my husband was in the Catholic goods store getting our newest goddaughter a gift for her baptism, and sitting RIGHT NEXT to the item he was in there for was this:

If you don't know this already, this verse, Jeremiah 29:11, is very near and dear to my heart, and this would be the second time it was "left" for me unexpectedly at a moment in time that I needed the reminder.  And of course my hubby bought it for me.




I'm praying for you. Please pray for me!

Overcoming Trauma: To Jesus Through Mary

I hoisted my tired body over the railing of the rickety pack-n-play which shifted and groaned beneath my weight.  Dropping down to lay my number seven on the thin mattress and curling around her, I settled into the familiar - albeit uncomfortable - routine we have had for nap-time since she started crawling: nursing to sleep in the safe confines of the tiny cage.  After a little bit of gymnurstics and other shenanigans, my sweet baby finally succumbed to her sleepy rhythm, grasping at my scapular as she slipped into dreamland. And I began my rosary.

This habit of saying a rosary at nap time has only recently become my routine.  I usually say one each time I lay her down.  It has been a means of drawing closer to our lady, and through her, our Lord, obtaining so many graces as well as consolation and encouragement for my vocation.  Additionally, lately it's been my lifeline as I approach my baby's first birthday, which has seemingly been a time-trigger for remembering the trauma surrounding her birth.  For the past month or so, I realized I was struggling a bit more and became convicted of the idea that I need to be extra purposeful in my efforts to make my way through the after-effects of that trauma. Over the last year, I've tried to use the word "trauma" loosely, careful not to put too much importance on the event or myself, pushing myself to move on and be grateful that I am alive, grateful for the beautiful new little life I was blessed to add to my keep.   But I guess I should just call it what it is.  One doesn't go unexpectedly to the hospital 3 1/2 weeks ahead of a planned homebirth because one is all of the sudden very sick, face the prospect of a c-section after 24 hours of induced labor, almost die from magnesium overdose, and then spend weeks recovering from a rare life-threatening syndrome and whatever damage sustained from the overdose, while her husband spends a week in the hospital being near-death himself, and not be given permission to call a spade a spade....right?

It was traumatic.  And that's ok.

Incidentally, I recently read a quote that said, "other people don't get to decide when you move on from your pain or trauma."  This is profoundly true.  No one should be forcing anyone to just get over something that they've experienced that has impacted their life in a negative way.   People need time to process. They need space to adjust.  They need to be allowed to feel steady on their feet again, be comfortable and certain in their own skin, most especially when something or someone has betrayed them, or they've had a loss, or have faced their own mortality.  They need encouragement, support, love.  I bet there is not one person on this planet who hasn't suffered something traumatic- big or small- in their lifetime, and yet I wonder how many people were afforded the opportunity to walk their path of grief and pain unencumbered by the people in their life, let alone supported by them?  More still, how many gave themselves the permission to do so?

Trauma and grief are topics people don't like to approach, at least not without apprehension.  They are messy, uncontrollable, nonlinear, and- let's be honest- they can be downright scary.   Unaddressed feelings fizzle below the surface of our ordinary lives as we motor about from one thing to the next, surrounded by the blaring message that finding our happiness is what life is all about.  The truth is, that is just one big lie.  It's dishonest.  It glosses over the fact that as broken human beings living in a fallen world, we are subject to much more than the passing phenomenon of "happiness," and are called to much more than its pursuit.  The reality is, we aren't guaranteed happiness.  Those of us who have a propensity toward melancholy or angst are supremely aware of this fact.  No matter how many pills the medical world wants to throw at us to give us the false impression that we are happy, the fact actually is, sometimes- maybe a lot of the time- we just aren't.  Sometimes, what's in our arsenal to battle the darkness cannot be given by prescription or found in a medical journal. (Why I stay away from pharmaceuticals.)

I once wrote about the feeling of standing on the brink of insanity.  A young mother of four small children, I was always at war with myself, battling the darkness that followed me since adolescence, unable to just figure out how to manage my family life, live out my vocation, love my children and husband, without constantly feeling like the darkness was going to swallow me whole.  I had a good grasp on my knowledge of God and His love, was on a decent path to deepening my faith, but was not aware of all the many tools at my disposal.  I look back on that person and hardly recognize her.  My Catholic faith has been such a beautiful gift to me in this walk because it encompasses the fullness of God's truth which offers so many graces rich with His mercy.  I no longer stand teetering on the brink of insanity, and when I find myself possibly inching closer to it, I know without a doubt that I can pick up my rosary and immerse myself in the love afforded to me by a most gracious and generous God, through Mary His mother, by meditating on Jesus' life, death and resurrection.  The promises contained in all the beautiful prayers are such a strong source of tethering myself to the Lord, so that I'm never very far from Him.

I only wish I had thought of adding in a few extra rosaries a day at nap times years ago. Because... I fail all the time in this vocation and often get sidetracked by the trappings of this fallen world, distracted away from my path to holiness, and I need all the extra graces I can get.

One last note....In this longest labor, I have come across a lot of women- mothers- who are struggling just as much as I am with the weight of the many souls we carry through this life.  All of us are at varying stages in our journey, but one thing remains constant at every turn, and that is our ardent desire to not mess up, to do everything we possibly can to have no child left behind as we make our way through this valley of tears.  If you relate to this, I encourage you to pick up your rosary as often as you can; call on Christ to strengthen you, ask His mother, whom He so lovingly and generously offered to us, to guide you on your path to Him.  And pray for your kiddos as well!  Our lady will not fail you.  Deo Gratias!



PS. If you are a non-Catholic, a new Catholic, or even a cradle Catholic struggling with the idea of the rosary, I want to clarify a couple things:

The rosary is a gift given to us as one of many ways in which we can appeal to Christ for His strength and guidance.  The words to the prayers can be found in the Bible.  Just as Christ on the cross told his disciple to take His mother as his own, so, too, do we.  Mary is not dead, so we are not talking to a dead person. She is much more alive than we are, and just like we would ask our sister or friend or own mother for prayers and guidance, we can ask Mary the same. For many, Mary is the only mother they can truly rely on. We can never love Mary more than we love Jesus, and what's more, we can never love her more than He does.  We do not place her above Him, we do not worship her and we do not 'pray' to her the same way we 'pray' to God. In her humility, Mary said herself that she is the handmaid of the Lord, so as such, she is in the position to serve Him by serving us in our daily needs.  Further info and explanations can be found here and here.  Devotion to Mary is NOT required of Catholics, but I believe from my own experience we are sorely missing out if we don't cultivate it. On a more personal note, I didn't used to have any sort of devotion to Mary and in fact felt sort of strange about the high place she held within the Church. However, as I've grown to understand the exact belief (which is widely misunderstood as people do not feel the need to look for the truth), and have developed a devotion, I have witnessed many miracles that God has allowed through her intercession, including the miracles which occurred almost one year ago, on the birthday of my youngest, which happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  To HIM be all glory.

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.

Pregnancy And Infant Loss - You Are Not Alone

I have six children. Six precious, amazing gifts who grow older each day and still continue to set my heart ablaze with their wide-eyed wonder, their sincerity, their crazy antics, and their unconditional love.  But I also have two other little souls who I never got to meet.  Lost early in pregnancy, their sweet faces never got to see this side of the womb.  I never got to hold them, or kiss them.  I never got to sing them a lullaby or watch them grow up with their siblings.  One might say that I should focus on the six here with me, and not ever think of those other two who stole my heart and then unknowingly shattered it to pieces.

But they’d be wrong.

Now, I don’t live my days wandering from room to room, wringing my hands and crying for my lost babies.  We live our life pretty normally- homeschooling, playing, reading, weekly Mass, bedtime routines, prayer. We snuggle close and push each other away.  We love and we fight. We visit friends and family, celebrate holidays.  Sibling rivalry is the theme of most days, especially as the kids get older and grow into their own identities and personalities, desperately trying to snatch one more square inch of personal space to themselves. Our household atmosphere is very much like one might expect a large family’s household to seem.  Loud. Chaotic.  But definitely full of love.

So why the mention of the other two? Where are they in this dynamic?

 

My children know there are two children missing from our family photos.  They know they have a brother and a sister praying for them in heaven.  One was the twin of my second oldest.  One would have been born after my fourth.  Sometimes my children randomly mention these lost siblings of theirs, and in their innocence, still convey a level of grief most adults these days can’t begin to understand.  Some days, it jars me.  It strikes me in moments when my older son runs through the house, his shadow not followed by another kid with his same face.  Or when he has a distant look in his eyes just after he tells me he’s been feeling lonely.  Or when a niggling feeling in the back of my mind says there is someone else not gathered with us for school in the mornings or family prayer in the evenings.  It sneaks in as I stumble over the number of children in our family when meeting someone new.  It rushes through me some days, in moments of despair, and I remember the ache, the loss, the empty spaces in the photographs of our family where those children would have been.  Don’t get me wrong, most days, that ache is a dull drumming deep within me, buried enough so that I am capable of going about my life in a relatively normal manner.  But the other days (thankfully numbering less than they used to) still come in waves, the familiar grief depositing itself within my heart.

The truth is, no matter how many babies I have, there will always be two missing from our dynamic. There will always be an ache deep in my heart for the loss experienced not just by myself, but my children and husband as well.   And there will always be tender parts of my womb where those two little souls were once being knit;  unseen and untouched, they are not so much physical as they are mental, spiritual even.  They were the site of my babies’ first moments of life, the source of attachment to me, their mother.  They were where God Himself began to knit them tenderly, knowing them far deeper than I ever would or could.

A few years ago we named our babies.  Someone asked me why.  My response was that it brought us a little more closure; some comfort, but even then I knew there was something much deeper to it.  We named our babies because they lived, however briefly.  They lived tucked inside the secret of my womb, part of me.  They had a value and a purpose.  God knew them.  I knew them, even though I didn’t even realize it until they were gone.  We named them because they were ours, even for a short time, and because they deserved to be named.  A name gave them a huge piece of their identity, surpassing that of ‘those babies I lost,’ or ‘my miscarriages.’

It’s their memory which reminds me to have hope, even though we live in a cultural climate thick with the darkness of deception.  One deception is that children are an afterthought and can be thrown away; destroyed if we don’t want them.  Just like that.  We live in a culture of death.  We live in a time when the world has turned its focus inward, instead of extending its capable hands outward to welcome even the most innocent and vulnerable creatures into.  We live in a society who scoffs at families with more than 2 or 3 children, and thinks of lost babies as a taboo subject.  Because abortion and child abuse and neglect are so looming, the uncontrolled loss of a child seems to mean almost nothing.  So when a woman is grieving her loss, there are few who will validate that loss, and support the woman.

This month is dedicated to, among other things, pregnancy and infant loss awareness.   But even with a whole month dedicated to it, it is still not often openly discussed.  I think it is important in a society which views babies as a commodity and grief, taboo, to recognize that women are often left by the wayside to struggle through the aftermath of their loss in silence, because the subject of such a loss is not important enough for others to acknowledge.  But grieving mamas need help navigating those murky waters.  We need to be told that our baby is important, that our loss is real.  We need encouragement and support and understanding.  We need shoulders to cry on, listening ears, prayers, meals.  We need our space, too, of course.  And we need time.  We don’t need people telling us to move on.  We don’t need friends and family abandoning us because they feel it’s been too long to still be grieving. We need to be able to be vulnerable in our grief while feeling protected.  We need to talk, and no matter how long after we lost our child, we need to be allowed to keep talking, to remember them, to acknowledge their place in our family.  

Statistics show that one in four women lose their baby in pregnancy or infancy. One in four! If you know someone who has lost a child- and it’s likely you do, please, reach out to them, let them know you are there for them, and mean it. Even if you don't know what it's like to lose a child. Acknowledge their baby’s life, however short it was.  And allow them to shuffle through their grief at whatever pace they need to go, with the freedom they deserve, without expectations placed on their already-burdened shoulders.  Let them lay their hearts bare, no matter how uncomfortable it is for you; let their brokenness bless and change you.  Help them carry their cross. In doing so, you diminish the stigma that often overshadows grief, and you break the cycle of indifference.  You bring love in a time of pain, and hope in a time of despair.  Think about it. You very well could change not just their life and your own, but the entire world. 

PS. If you are reading this and you have suffered a loss and would like me to pray for you, please leave a comment or find my email here. I would love to pray for you.  You are not alone!

On Not Having Enough ________to Homeschool, Jesus, And His Little Flower

“I just don’t know how you do it.”

I get the statement all the time, usually followed by, “I could never homeschool, I don’t have enough-

PATIENCE

TIME

KNOWLEDGE

MONEY

Less often I hear, “I couldn’t be around my kids that long each day and not kill them,” but that’s another subject for another time.

The truth is…

I could never homeschool either.

I can’t do it.

At least...not without the Lord.

You see, any “wins” I have in this homeschooling journey are not because I have super human powers. Any perfectly-executed days with no fighting, everyone doing their work, everyone getting along and finishing everything is not because I made it happen. 

I’m just like you.  I have lots of short-comings, lots of failings.  I’m an imperfect, sinful, tired mama just like you are.

And if I’m being honest here, most days do not look anything like the picture-perfect life that is in everyone’s mind when they think about their goals for homeschooling.

More often, there is chaos.

More often, there is crying and whining (sometimes from the kids).

More often there are unsharpened pencils and lost notebooks and taking twenty-five minutes to complete a task that really should've only taken ten.

The coffee isn’t strong enough, the hours aren’t long enough, and my patience isn’t the bottomless well I would love for it to be. 

And….

As long as I’m being honest here…

Homeschooling for us isn’t just a choice.  It’s not the “superior alternative” to brick and mortar schools I painstakingly researched and took on as a “martyr” for the good of my children’s education and future.  Far from it.

Do the grave issues which define the modern public school education play a factor in the overall decision?  Of course they do.  But they aren’t *the* factor for this choice, and this is not so much a choice as a calling.

The choice here was not 'will I homeschool as opposed to send my kids to school', but 'will I answer the call which God has so obviously- sometimes blaringly- pressed upon my heart?'

Until two years ago, I was pretty happily sailing along in our homeschooling journey.  Yes, of course, there were bad days.  Many, many, MANY bad days.   The questions of my ability or desire to even continue cropped up in even the easiest of moments.  But we had *just* finally settled into a decent routine, were happy with our chosen curriculum, and I felt like I was starting to get the hang of things, finally after five years.  I felt grounded in this decision and at peace with our path.  I was feeling proud of myself.  Almost a little too proud.

And then life got caught up in a whirlwind of so many different things, as life is wont to do, and I fell pretty hard, flat on my face.  I was exhausted. I was beaten down. I was depressed.  I couldn’t imagine going through one more year with my children at home all day long, in my personal space, depending on me to educate them, some of the littles needing far too much more than I thought I was capable of providing.  I was self-focused but in all the wrong ways.  Then the self-doubt crept in.  Am I even equipped to do this?  Won’t I be failing them if I attempt to continue down this road?  The questions eventually turned into statements and I had pretty much all but convinced myself that I was completely inept and that it would be best to send my kids away to school.  I remember telling my sister that I no longer felt called to homeschool, and as any good sister and friend would do, she dug into my statement and made me think more with logic than with my emotions and heart.  With a few short and simple questions, she unpacked all of the junk I had swirling in my brain, challenging me to discern if it really was that I was no longer being called, or if it was that I was just trying to take the helm back from the Lord and steer this ship on my own.

Thank God for wise little sisters is really all I have to say about that.

At this point, we had already looked into sending the kids to a local Catholic school.  Our parish was willing to help us with tuition and we had heard from the principal that they just needed us to come for a meeting to discuss.  However, encouraged by some very prayerful and holy women who didn’t even know what I was angsting over or praying about, I started a novena to St. Thérèse.  I knew that this was a very serious, life-changing decision to make, and I couldn’t see through my emotions, exhaustion and self-doubt to really make a rational one.

I asked St. Thérèse to intercede for me.  To join me in my pleadings to the Lord, to offer prayers on my behalf to our loving Father to give me an answer.  If this was still my calling, I asked St. Thérèse to send me a rose.  But not just any rose, a lavender rose, one of the most beautiful and expensive and fairly rare roses there are.  Hardly anyone knows that they are a real thing.  I didn’t tell anyone what I had asked for, not even my husband.  I wanted to make sure that if I got my answer, that it was authentic and unadulterated.  Only then would I know for sure it was from the Lord through St. Thérèse, the little flower of Jesus.

Suffice it to say that I got my rose, and in a most unexpected way! And I knew.  I just knew that all of the thoughts, all of my self-doubt and even all the encouragement to stop homeschooling from well-meaning people who really just don’t understand- all of that was for naught.  It was a distraction.  It was a trick.

The truth is no one has enough patience, enough time, enough knowledge, enough money.  No one is equipped to do this thing called homeschooling.  Not without the proper focus and the proper truths laid as the foundation can any of us actually make it work – and I mean any of us, not even the most seemingly put together, perfectly organized, public-speaking, book-writing, workshop-running homeschooling enthusiast there is.

And what is that proper focus?

What are those truths you are supposed to lay as a foundation for your homeschooling life?

Here are just a few:

I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)

The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I lack. (Psalm 23:1)

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and He turned to me and heard my cry. (Psalm 40:1)

Entrust your works to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. (Proverbs 16:3)

And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:4)

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to His 

purpose. (Romans 8:28)

Commit your way to the Lord; trust that God will act. (Psalm 37:5)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence, rely not. (Proverbs 3:5)

And there are so, so many more truths you can find if you only seek Him out.  And not just for your homeschooling life, but for your daily life outside of homeschooling.  None of us on our own has anything that we need to make it through, but take heart!  We can find all we need in Him.

I’d love to say that our year after answering this call one more time went splendidly. It in fact did not. I was battling depression and anxiety, I was still recovering from some emotional trauma I had experienced the previous year, I was still feeling very much exhausted and depleted.  But we spent our days reading, having fun with a different approach to learning with yet another new curriculum, being gentle with each other, and praying.  The kids did very well, their portfolios were found to be impressive by their evaluator, and we not only survived another year, we thrived.  But there were still LOTS of days where everyone was fighting, kids whined about not wanting to join in lessons, pencils weren’t sharpened on time, notebooks were most definitely misplaced, and the antics of the two littlest who are not school-aged made for some very disruptive entertainment. I was self-focused in many moments. The coffee was still not strong enough; the hours still not long enough, and much of my plans and ideas for our year were thrown out the window on day three.  This year has again started much in the same.

But if I remember those truths I mentioned earlier, the very foundation of our homeschooling journey is that God is with us, God will bless us, God will uphold us and all we have to do is put our trust in Him.  On our own, we have nothing.  But with God, we have everything, and when we get out of the way to let Him steer our ship, we are guaranteed safe passage, even through these ever-murky waters of our homeschooling journey.

Jesus, I trust in YOU.

St. Thérèse, pray for us!         

Uncharted Territory

I've crossed into uncharted territory.  Never in my vocation of motherhood have I ever been here.  It's strange, new, exciting.  And...sort of terrifying.  I'm almost unsure what to do with myself.

Where am I?

I've found myself in the part of this longest labor of motherhood where I am not nursing.  I am not pregnant.  I do not have a newborn.

For a little over twelve years, those three things have been my life.  But now... Now my baby is almost two.  In the blink of an eye, her cooing and grunting have turned into actual words, her wriggling has turned into running, and her small hand lets go of mine a lot more than it used to.

And my arms are empty more often than they have ever been.

It's strange here in this place.  And I'm quite unsure how I feel.

There have been moments over the last twelve years when I've longed to have my body back to myself. To sleep more than a few broken hours during the night.  When I've felt so completely "touched out" and run down that 'heaven' to me was five minutes completely alone hidden in my closet eating a donut that I didn't have to share, while simultaneously resting my eyes.  But never in those moments did I actually understand or even dream of the reality of this one.

How long will I tarry here in this place?  Will there ever be another baby for me?  Or..is this just the beginning of a new stage in my life?

If you don't know this by now, my husband and I are open to life.  While the last year has seen me in some devastating places emotionally and physically which led us to opt to abstain at times, it was not a permanent decision and was always governed by open communication and prayer. There very well could be another baby.  But there hasn't been so far, and this is where I am right now, floating on these unfamiliar waves, wondering if they're taking me back to the shoreline that I've been so used to, or further out into unknown depths.

My sister just had a baby a few days ago.  I got to see him when he was twelve hours old. I held him and focused on his sweet face serene in slumber.  He was swaddled up in his little cocoon, abiding there in his perfection, completely unaware of me. I never saw his eyes flutter, much less open. In the last year or so, holding other people's newborns has not lent that well-known "twinge" of longing I usually feel when my own babies have gotten just a little too big.  I have not felt that I necessarily wanted another baby, but was content to love on someone else's and hand them right back.  To be honest, at that moment, I still did not feel that twinge.  Don't get me wrong, I was instantly in love with this little boy, his smallness, his soft skin, the sweet smell of new baby, and the promises he embodied for my sister and her family.  Holding him gave me such joy.  But this joy was only partially mine, and most of it I had to give back.  So I laid it down along with him, in the little bassinet in the hospital room. And then I left.

I went home to my own brood, to my sweet little two year old who came running to me, screaming "Mommmmm" and covering me with kisses as I walked in the door.  I kissed her soft hair, smoothing a wispy curl between my fingers, and drank in her scent as deeply as I could.  This is my life now, and every moment will continue to change, moving me along gently- and sometimes not so gently- into the next.  Whether it carries me back out to deep waters where I will be holding and nursing another sweet new babe of my own, or keeps me along the shoreline, resting content holding someone else's, it matters not.  Right now, my journey looks quite different than it has these last twelve years, but I trust in its purpose, and in mine.

Trust

A thousand times I've felt the weight of my laboring through this season of my life, felt its jagged edges scrape against me, the burden of carrying six souls through this world, hoping that they make it relatively unscathed. Hoping that they are not marred too much by its ugliness, and in particular, not by the failings of their haggard, desperate mother.

A thousand miles I've tread the path in stark silence, memories aching to be expelled, worries drowning out my inability to just do the next thing. Just staring into blank space.  With joyful feet around me, kid-noise echoing, and I, too unwell to even crack a smile through my pain.

I wrote once that I used to think God made a huge mistake in giving mothers just two arms to care for their babies.  I wrote this at a time in my life where that weight and the shifting grief within me over a life I had to let go of, was heavy on my mind.  When the few children I had then already felt like too much for me, and I wasn't sure if I was capable of living the life I was called to. 

Motherhood.

Of course I could live it.  Of course.  But could I live it well?

I look behind me and see the tiny toes in the sand which follow their mother's path out to sea, to the raging waters of this life where the world is vast and often dark, the depth of knowledge and understanding and love not quite known..  Those little toes stepping lightly into the weathered boat made in the crooks of arms encircling, trusting and seeking and ready.  And I, unable to shove off, to let go.  To take their small hands in mine and set sail.

I cry out:

What if I lose sight of the beacon?  What if even in the calm, angry gray clouds threaten on the horizon, and I become lost? What happens to these babies of mine?

The Lord's answer:
 

Ah! But I do not make mistakes, and it only takes two arms to clasp your hands in prayer.  Stop wringing them in worry, stop faltering upon the shoreline and focusing on the horizon, imagining things that have not yet even come.  My lighthouse looms, always in the peripheral, the light of My Love a clear direction even against the raging waters.  The silence is for rest, rejuvenation. It is not for staring into the darkness, seeking out the jagged edges felt sweeping past raw feet in the surf.  Never mind those.  Never mind the hastiness and urgency welling up inside. Let go and realize that the I, the One who made those babies and called them out to sea, also made you, their mama, strong enough to bring them safely back to Me.

A Mother's Love

Dear Mama,

The other day when I visited you, I climbed into the recliner, smooshing myself in next to you, and laid my head against your chest. Instantly transported back to my childhood, I sighed deeply as the familiar comfort of your scent washed over me.  I listened to your breathing, to your heartbeat and there was something so tangible about the love emanating from your body as you let me squeeze your sides like I used to, and you rested your cheek on the crown of my head.

I listened to your voice as you talked to my sister, reverberating through your body, into my ear, like music.  You were all around me then, just like when I was small.  As you patted my back, I remembered the rhythm from another time, perhaps the long hours you carried me as a baby, walking the hall in the wee hours of the morning, shoosh-shooshing me back to sleep.  I felt that if I could just stay there, all would be right with the world.

Mama, I almost cried then, as I realized how much I miss you.  How much I wish that I could climb not just into the chair beside you, but into your lap, into your arms as often as I wanted, as much as I needed. I realized how old I am and how, at 33 years old, I don't think I've ever felt more helpless than I do right now, and yet I know that you can't walk the halls cradling me, comforting me in the same way you used to do.  I realized, as I looked up into your face, my eyes tracing familiar lines as you talked, that you have grown older and yet you are still the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. 

I cradle my babies now, my own number six almost always in my arms, and I wonder if they'll still want to sit with me when they're grown, and if it will comfort them the way it does now as babes, the way it did me just the other day as I folded myself into your embrace and listened to your heartbeat and voice.  I hope that if they do, I can comfort them at a rough time in their own life, the way you did me the other day, when you let me climb into the recliner next to you and fill my empty places with the rhythm of your love.

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.

Shoes By the Door

The kids wanted to go to Bass Pro Shops on Father's Day.  After the eternity of digging out all our shoes from the pile by the door or tracking a stray match elsewhere in the house, we ventured out into the merciless heat to make the 20 minute trip up there.  As usual, once arrived and before we got out of the minivan, I voiced our regular "what we expect" spiel, which usually goes something like this:

"Remember, kids, we expect you to be quiet and calm.  You need to respect other people's space and their right to not have craziness and noise around them.  We are representing big families and Jesus.  Show the public how awesome both are!"

Or something along those lines..

Honestly, this actually works about 98% of the time.  There's something to be said for offering an outline of your expectations JUST before you want them carried out.  If I had said anything when we got into the vehicle to leave, by the time we got to our destination, all would have been forgotten, lost in the excitement of getting out of the house and all the shiny things to be found.
In any case, this trip proved to be, for some of the kids, in that other 2%.

By the time we got to the checkout where the nine year old was buying himself a froggy doodad (not official fishing lingo), I was D-O-N-E.

The kids had asked if they could spend their dollars on something. "Something" led to picking out nine different things and not being able to decide which ONE they wanted.

And then...there it was...

"Are they all yours?"

GAH!

I sighed really loud and rolled my eyes away from stranger, pretending to focus on helping the kids pick their one item, but really just cursing low underbreath.

I was livid, really.  For so many reasons.  I took the two babies in the stroller and left.  I didn't abandon hubby, I did ask if I could take them to the car while he had the big 4 at the checkout and he said yes. They had finally picked out their loot and were somewhat quiet again.

Mind you, they weren't even loud or crazy as they chattered and chose their items.  I have serious issues when we go out. Everything they do, the decibels of their noise, it all seems to me to be so much MORE when out in public. As if I'm constantly aware of the scrutiny we get as a big family.  As if we actually are constantly under said scrutiny.  It agitates me.  I sometimes freak.

And there is the problem.

It's not really them, it's me.

I think about this fact, that I probably wouldn't be so agitated if I didn't care so much what other people think.

And then I started thinking about how it's not just the general public with their unfiltered thoughts and their self-imposed "right" to say whatever they want to anyone at all.  It's even within my own social circle.    I recently had a discussion with a friend about how she feels she is judged by big families for NOT having one.  We are both Catholic and it's interesting to me that in the same arena she feels judged for not having a big family, I feel judged for having one.  I can't even tell you how many Catholics asked me after having my fifth if I was "done."  Like the fact that they graciously brought me a meal while I was recovering lent them license to ungraciously ask me such a thing.  But not only did they ask, they then went on to talk about why they could never have more than the two or three they have.  Like having to dig out 8 pairs of shoes instead of 4 to go out somehow equals mission impossible.    That projects onto me.....how?


In any case, I was sitting here thinking about it for a minute and in case there is some lost soul who wandered here to read, I just wanted to encourage you (and this is as much to myself as to you):

DO NOT BE AFRAID.
DO NOT WORRY WHAT OTHERS THINK.

You may wonder, which is right, a small family or large one?
My answer is this: When we are steadfast in prayer and desiring to do what God wants with our family life, NOTHING else matters.  Not that nosy stranger at the checkout, not the generous meal-making mama who comes over after you've had baby #2...or baby #8.  Not Catholics with bigger families or ones with smaller ones.  When you are following the designs of God's will for your life and as a Catholic, the Spirit-inspired teachings of the Church, you are doing exactly what you need to be doing.  Everything else is just white noise.  Our lives are meant to be lived for eternity, not here on earth. Meaning while we spend our days growing, raising and loving our babies- however many we have- if it's all for the Lord, if it's all for God's glory, that's all that matters.

When we stand before God to answer for our lives, being able to say we followed Him instead of the world will be HUGE.  What following the Lord looks like in your life may be different than what it looks like in mine.  Your pile of shoes by the door might be larger or smaller.  Neatly ordered and matched, or strays lost somewhere within the belly of your home.  And that's ok. How boring would the world be if we were all called to have the same exact family size and dynamic?  God is a god of order, but He isn't a bore.  We aren't measuring our worth by the number of shoes by the door.
All of our families vary in so many ways.  As long as we are chasing His plan for our lives, the number of children matters not.

There is no point in having one or two kids and then stopping just to appease the world.  What does this teach your children about following God's will instead of the ways of the world?  There is also no point in having a dozen or more just because you can/feel you should, without also grounding their souls in the Lord.  Quality trumps quantity every single time.

Live life for the Lord, not the world, and you are always right.