Circling Jericho

My Morning

2013-06-28T21:30:00.001-07:00

Since early last summer, I have been waking up early. Well, with all these kids, I have been getting up early for years, but this year I made it an intentional time of bible study and prayer, as well as planning my day so I could act on it instead of falling into a pattern of reacting to whatever life threw at me. It's an idea I have tried many times in the past, but the book Maximize Your Mornings helped me find a way to make it work this time. Summer was easy. I set my alarm and even if the kids woke up, they could just play while I had my time with God and planned my day.

When school started I tried to have my time at nap time. But since real nap time is a rarity around here, that fell flat quickly. Morning was chaos, since the baby would wake up as soon as I got out of bed. Finally, desperate to find the time, I asked my husband if, when he didn't have to work super early, he could handle the kids until 6am. He was happy to help!

When I first read Maximize Your Mornings, I dismissed it as something that just wouldn't work for me. She just had no idea what my life was like. But slowly, I was able to integrate some her ideas into my day in my own way. I changed some things, because nobody else's plan is going to completely fit someone else's life. My plan probably won't fit yours. But that is not a reason not to try something. Maybe you do far more than I do, and my plan looks like preschool to you... no matter, we are all on this path, trying to grow closer to the heart of our Lord.

Here is how my morning goes (or tries to):
5:20am - My alarm goes off, I put my thermometer in my mouth and head to the bathroom. I get my coffee, say my morning offering, and sit down at the table with coffee, notebook, kindle, and bible.
5:30 - I'm all set. I start my bible study, depending on the day I am working either on the Sunday readings or a topical bible study. Read, underline, pray, make some notes... I try to fill one half sheet of paper with notes, using some worksheets I made to keep me on track: Bible Study Notes SOAP (For Sunday Readings), Topical Bible Study Notes. (Half page format for both sheets.)
5:50 or so - Planning time. I check my Weekly Overview and fill out my daily page. I put my daily page up on my clipboard on the wall, so I can read it and check things off through the day.
6am - Start getting the kids up are ready for school. I aim to get my shower in between 6 and 6:30, but it depends on how much help the kids need at this time.

One thing this plan hinges on is that I have filled out my weekly overview ahead of time, so my planning time in the morning doesn't involve really doing the planning so much as reviewing it. I fill out my weekly overview on Fridays for the upcoming week. I confess that I am addicted to that little piece of paper. There are always mornings that, as I do my planning, I know that something is going to have to change - I might need to schedule a doctor appointment and not know when we will get in for example, but when I plan, I know to leave plenty of space for possibilities.

And then it is busy, busy, busy the rest of the day. But having this time in the morning gives me a little more resilience to make it through and helps me to keep my focus on God and making my work a prayer.

I'll tell you more about what I do with my bible study worksheets in another post. I'm also working on a page to list all these resources and others I use as well.

MOVING!

2013-01-13T12:12:00.001-08:00

Sorry to shake things up around here, but I wanted to let you know that I am moving Circling Jericho. It just seemed silly not to host it myself, since I already host other blogs. All the old posts are there, and some new ones too.

Head on over and bookmark/follow Circling Jericho! That is where the new posts will be.

Thank you and God Bless!

Jars

2012-07-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before that this year has been a little overwhelming, although I am starting to think that this is just the new normal for us. With nine children, that gives us eleven people worth of possible drama and crisis in the family. So even if only a few of them are doing their share of it, that keeps us hopping.

With the idea of just dealing with this as our normal life, I realized that I needed to build myself up a little, strengthen my coping muscles, and make sure I was ready to deal with a little extra - not just running on a nearly empty tank all the time. I wasn't sure how to do that, or even how to start. Then I hit what seemed to be a theme in my bible study: Jars.

Here's my disclaimer again: I know I am no scripture scholar, and even my husband thinks I'm a little crazy to tie some of these particular scriptures together. I think his exact words were, "You know, not every bible verse is speaking directly to YOU." Hmph. But I bounced these ideas off of a couple other moms and they seemed to understand. So take it all with a grain of salt and see if it makes any sense to you.

The first instance of jars I ran into was the Story of the Widow and the Oil. 2 Kings 4:1-7

A certain woman, the widow of one of the guild prophets, cried out to Elisha: “My husband, your servant, is dead. You know that he revered the LORD, yet now his creditor has come to take my two children into servitude.” Elisha answered her, “What am I to do for you? Tell me what you have in the house.” She replied, “This servant of yours has nothing in the house but a jug of oil.” He said, “Go out, borrow vessels from all your neighbors—as many empty vessels as you can. Then come back and close the door on yourself and your children; pour the oil into all the vessels, and as each is filled, set it aside.” So she went out. She closed the door on herself and her children and, as they handed her the vessels, she would pour in oil. When all the vessels were filled, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” He answered, “There is none left.” And then the oil stopped. She went and told the man of God, who said, “Go sell the oil to pay off your creditor; with what remains, you and your children can live.”

At the time I read this I was feeling completely spent just about all the time. Just as I met an urgent need in one child, another would have an even greater need. I was bouncing from one thing to the next, with never quite enough time to plan ahead, rebuild my strength, or anticipate which direction I would be spinning off to next. I was reduced to pinball mothering. After reading this passage, this verse became my prayer, I even wrote it up above the changing table so I could read it multiple times a day:

She replied, “This servant of yours has nothing in the house but a jug of oil.”

She asked for help. Then she offered all that she had, (much like another little boy had done) the only thing of value she owned, one jug of olive oil. And then what did Elisha tell her to do? Get more jars!

God filled up as many jars as she could provide. All He asked of her was everything she had.

Now, I am not this widow, and I have plenty of olive oil. My life is not a biblical miracle. This isn't about my own importance in any way. Time and again in scripture, God asks for our all and when it is freely given, He blesses it and makes it more than we could ever dream. What spoke to me here was the way that He multiplied her resources. He required her to gather jars.

I was left with the question: what are my jars? I knew I was pretty much on empty, but I wasn't sure just what I was needing to be filled. I was willing to go and gather jars to be filled if I could just figure out what my jars were supposed to be.

The key to this was found in what that one jar was to the widow. It was all she had of value. Or, to flip that around for myself, it is all that I value. She freely offered that one jar, and I need to look at all the things I find important and offer those up as well. My children, my husband, my home, my toys (iPhone and kindle come to mind), my projects and plans, my hopes, my prayers, and most especially my time are all my jars.

One at a time, I am handing each one to Him and asking Him to fill them up. Slowly, day by day, instead of being drained by the things I value, I find that I am more likely to have a little left over. A little time, a little sanity, a little energy... never an excess, because it is still real life and God really isn't interested in making me into some kind of non-sleep-needing superhero. But there is enough. And that is what I needed.

More on Jars next week.

Distraction

2012-07-01T14:26:00.000-07:00

Writing this has been a little ironic. Phones ringing, kids running back and forth, needing a drink of water, spilling water, peeing pants, give me a ride, Mom can I..., Mom he just..., {crash), {waahh}, or the worst - silence.

I have spent the spring trying to bring myself back to some normal level of bible study. I started in February with a 21 day study of women in the bible that I found on my kindle. If all goes as planned, I will finally finish it up this coming week. 21 day study... 4 months to finish it...

Anyway, one of the days was, of course, the story of Martha and Mary. Instead of skimming like I usually do with stories I know (why do I do that, I always still get something out of the story when I slow down... must be distraction), I slowed down and read it. Let's read it now.

Luke 10:38-42 As they continued their journey he entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary [who] sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.” The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Wait, that's not what I read... in my study I was reading an NIV version and the wording was just enough different to wake me up a little. In that v 40 says, 'But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”'

Martha was distracted.

She was focused on all the preparations and lost track of who and what the preparations were for.

But for me, when the distractions pile up, how can I keep and kind of focus? I am Martha, resentful of Mary, burdened by all of the stuff to be done. Someone has to do it! When is there time for Martha to be with Jesus? It's all very well to say that her work is her prayer, is her worship. But it still feels a little bit unfair.

So I jotted in my notebook: Focus on who I am doing the work for, not on the work itself.

Which is a nice idea in theory, putting it into practice is not as easy. I'm still distracted and little bit resentful. And so my days of pushing myself through this study continued until one day just this past week when I felt like my prayers were just bouncing off the ceiling. I thought, "I'm trying, Lord. Why aren't I getting any closer to you through this?"

I took a deep breath. Prayer. Just what is prayer?

And I remembered the image of just lifting my heart to God. Maybe I am struggling too much over the words I am reading or in trying to find the right words to say here. What I need to do is just lift my heart to God.

Okay, so what is my heart?

The picture that came to mind here was the junk drawer in my kitchen. My heart is full of junk. If I picture lifting that messy box of stuff above my head... a box full of things I don't even know what to do with anymore - broken bits of this and that, things I am not sure what their purpose is, not sure what is important to keep or what to toss, and so it's all there, in the way, unusable...

These are my distractions.

If I lift the whole thing up over my head, I can ask God to pull out the useless garbage (worldly attachments), the broken items (bad thought processes and other sins), and put the rest in order. Because when I am looking down at this mess, I can't look up to Him.

So I have to lift my heart / messy drawer to Him.

As is.

He can sort me out.

So back to Martha. "'But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made." Martha made it possible for Mary to be there, for Jesus to sit and teach. Martha got stuff done. For me, maybe the distraction isn't so much the exterior noise around me, but my interior reaction to it. By my resentment and jealousy I am creating a dust storm of distraction that can't even be calmed down when I do have a quiet moment.

I remember another mom telling me that her mothering during mass was her prayer. "Mothering in the pew". That simple idea changed mass going for me. It wasn't about hearing the homily or readings anymore while hissing violently at my children to BE QUIET. It became about gently leading my children through the mass. (Not that it always works, but in general I am a little less stressed out by it.)

I'm sorry to say that I don't have any grand advice to give about the distractions our family and the world throw at us during prayer. In my state of life there is very little I can do to calm those down, they are ever present, and if they aren't, then I need to be sleeping, it's as simple as that.

But I think we can all work towards calming down the internal distractions. The clutter and noise that we produce ourselves or allow in to our minds and hearts can be identified and cleared out. Some of it we can do, but I think it will take some help from God to find it all and clear it all out.

Dear Jesus,
Please show me what is distracting me from the inside. I give you full permission to weed out the junk I carry around with me. Heal me of the hurts and show me how to help the process of healing. Take away my attachments to broken ideas and habits and show me how to guard myself against them. Put my heart in order to I can meet you there in peace, without extra noise or distraction. Help me to find the things that keep me from focusing on you.

And help me, Lord, to make my daily work its own prayer to you. You created me and gave me my vocation. Let it mold me into who you mean for me to be.

Just Keep Swimming

2012-01-01T15:24:00.000-08:00

I'd like to jump back in here without mentioning just how long I have been away, but I just can't help myself. When I pulled up the page and it told me the last post was in August... I just couldn't believe how much time had slipped by. To give myself a little credit, I did have a baby in that time and since then my days have been busy. But I miss writing, and I miss really pulling my thoughts together to be able to post them here.

With the new year comes a new look for Circling Jericho, I hope you like it, and a goal of a post per week. We'll see how that goes. I still need to finish my series on Control and Surrender, and also get our Vasectomy Reversal Story posted. So I have plenty to start with!

But what has been on my mind lately has been about seeking God. 2011 was a hard year for our family, and certainly taught me a lot about control and surrender, but it also left me floundering a little bit and wondering why I felt kind of alone in all my struggles. I wondered - since God wants us to seek Him, why doesn't He just show up when we decide to head His direction? It would seem to make sense to reward us a little for figuring out which way we are supposed to be going, right?

The image of teaching my kids to swim came to me. I spend hours in the pool with them in the summers, showing them, guiding them, training them in new skills. There comes a time in learning to swim, however, when the child needs to transition from just swimming as far as they can hold their breath to being able to come up for air all on their own. This is the crucial step in becoming an independent swimmer.

I tell them what they need to do and we practice the movements on the steps. Then I have the child swim to me. But instead of reaching out my arms to catch him like I always do, I take a step backwards.

The child can see my feet. He knows his usual comfortable distance just got longer. He feels the rising panic as his body calls out for air. I can see him begin to get nervous and I step closer and catch him. We go back to the steps and practice again.

The next time he knows that I am going to step back and that he has to lift his head, he really has to try this time. It is so hard to watch a child at this point in learning to swim. To see him struggle to combine the skill of swimming with a new one of lifting his head or turning over onto his back.

But he can't learn it at all if I never take that step back.

That one moment of abandonment when I take a step backward and the child realizes that he has to do this is the only thing that will move him to the fun of swimming anywhere he wants to in the pool. He has to take a breath and keep swimming.

I think this year has been like that for me. I am swimming towards God. I am going in the right direction, doing (mostly) what He wants me to do. And He took that step backward, willing me to keep going, to push through and take that breath and swim the rest of the way.

I can't say for sure if I have learned the new skill that He had planned for me. But I know I haven't drowned.

I'm still swimming!

Where am I now?

2011-08-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

Writing that last post left me with a lot to think about. God is WITH me. I really felt the need to just spend some time with that idea and let it sink in a bit. What does that mean to me in my life? What does that mean to me today?

So instead of moving forward, I decided to just let that one simmer in my prayer life for a while and not force any more writing about it for the time being. It was a good place to start the summer and it led me to a deepening of my Faith, I think. But then time began to tick by and I wasn't moving much beyond that, and lost my momentum a little bit.

You see, I have struggled a little bit with this pregnancy. As much as we were open to life and even expecting to be blessed again before too long, it happened awfully fast this time, and that left me reeling a bit. As I looked forward into the rest of the year (always a dangerous thing to do), all I could see was an unending line up of exhaustion and work to be done. It just looked so daunting.

Instead of marching around Jericho, I took a little break to crawl around in the mud and feel sorry for myself. How could I ever keep up with all this? How could I do any of the things that I wanted to do like write or read or make rosaries while under this extreme work load?

Are you seeing some of the Control and Surrender issues I have been trying to write about crop up here anywhere?

Yes, the reason I haven't been able to take this blog topic any farther is that God isn't done nailing it into my skull yet. He's working on it, though, and hard!

Then I remembered one of those little Mary Engelbreit prints:

I figured that it really was as good advice as any at this point. I had to start from somewhere and usually, starting where I am is the very best place. So this is my life. Time to take stock, be thankful, and continue the journey. Slowly, one step at a time, one prayer, one messy little kiss, one dinner cooked, (and just now - one more horrendous poop mess cleaned up) and I started to lighten up and remember that *this* is blessing. Not some random future time when things run smoothly and "it all gets done". No, the good time is now. All I have to do is keep circling around Jericho and the Lord is with me and I am molded into something I never knew I could be.

I was blooming. Still pouting a bit, but mostly blooming right where God put me, right where He knew was the best place for me to become closer to Him and to let go of myself. But He wasn't done...

There was a little snag on the horizon. I spent nearly a week in the hospital, very sick and am now just trying to get back on my feet. It is going to take quite a bit of time and rest for me to feel like myself again. Thankfully the baby is fine and still growing well, and I am recovering. Family and friends have come forward to help us with meals and rides for the kids and work around the house. I am so thankful for their help!

But I have to laugh just a little as Control is completely out of my hands once again and all I can do... in fact the best thing I can do - for myself, for my family, is to utterly surrender and just let this unfold.

To answer the question I began with: Where am I now? I am starting again, trying to remember to bloom where I am planted (which is currently firmly on the couch) and feeling, at least for now, a little more comfortable with my lack of control.

I'm not giving up on my series on Control and Surrender. I will continue that as the school year gets in swing and I have more time (ha ha!!) for writing again. After all, I have had such a handy refresher course on it...

Control and Surrender, Part 2

2011-06-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday again, and if you read Part 1 of this series, then you know how I am feeling. There is so much I want to get done this week, and I am feeling the need to sit down and schedule it all out. I have great new books to read (I Believe in Love: A Personal Retreat Based on the Teaching of St. Therese of Lisieux, God's Smuggler, and The Night Is Far Spent to name a few), some adorable newborn cloth diapers that could use some new elastic, writing that I have set aside as I worked on this retreat, I would really like to get back to the Y and get moving again, and there is that housekeeping challenge that I began but never finished. Not that I have any problem with to do lists or planning out accomplishments, I just know that I have to be careful about HOW I plan them. If I had absolute control of my time, a simple list would make sense. But I am somewhat at the whim of 9 other people (at the very least!) and they are my real job. The other stuff I get done may be of benefit to them, but I have a lot of things to keep in mind.

So personally, if I have a giant to do list, it becomes my failure list at the end of the day. Things like holding a crabby toddler through her nap or taking the toddler potty 83 times a day never seem to make the list, and always push aside several other more quantifiable items. Flexibility is key for my vocation at this time and for my personal sanity.

The next part of our Control and Surrender Retreat is to explore some others who have dealt with not being in control and surrendering to God’s will and how they handled it. We will start with one of my very favorite Bible characters ever: Joseph (of the Technicolor Dream Coat).

We will be tackling Joseph's life in several parts, it is just so eventful.

As a disclaimer: I am no Bible scholar, I am taking these stories mostly at face value and looking specifically for the issues of circumstances out of their control and surrendering to God.

The first part of his life we will cover is Genesis 37:23-28, 36 and Genesis 39: 2-5

So when Joseph came up to them, they stripped him of the long tunic he had on; then they took him and threw him into the cistern, which was empty and dry. They then sat down to their meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with gum, balm and resin to be taken down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers: "What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood? Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites, instead of doing away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed. They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. Some Midianite traders passed by, and they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and took him to Egypt.

The Midianites, meanwhile, sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward.

But since the LORD was with him, Joseph got on very well and was assigned to the household of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the LORD was with him and brought him success in whatever he did, he took a liking to Joseph and made him his personal attendant; he put him in charge of his household and entrusted to him all his possessions. From the moment that he put him in charge of his household and all his possessions, the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; in fact, the LORD'S blessing was on everything he owned, both inside the house and out.

Sold into slavery by his own brothers! According to Gen 37:2, he was about 17 at the time. I can't imagine being taken from all I know in the world and carted off to a life of... who knew what? Could he even have any idea what to expect at all?

But Joseph didn't despair. He got right down to work. The Lord was with him, just as I think He is with us. God's blessing doesn't always mean success, as we will see as we get further into this, but sometimes it does.

I think that Joseph had to be leaning on the Lord and open to His whisperings, as well as just putting in the elbow grease to get the job done. That is a reminder that I need from time to time (or all the time). In the middle of my freak out over my inability to get a handle on our money perfectly or to "keep up with the house" (whatever that means...), I need to lean heavily on the Lord, listen to Him (Oh, that would mean some prayer time, right?), and get my butt in gear and get moving to the degree I am able. Even in the face of lack of control, we still have a life to live and our God to love and honor.

Somehow there has to be a way to balance crabby toddlers (and other little people) with prayer time. Often even sitting down to consider the possibilities is enough for chaos to break out. That is the part that leaves me feeling out of control. I really think I am missing the primary step - that reminder that the Lord is with us (me!) and having trust in that. So my journey towards really surrendering something that I don't have control of in the first place will continue. It's a bumpy ride with steps forward and backward as a forget lessons I learn as often as I learn a new one.

It's a good thing I have so much opportunity to practice how to deal with being out of control!

Control and Surrender, Part 1

2011-06-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

I gave a retreat this past weekend, my first, and my writing for this has been such a journey, it seemed worthy of including here. It certainly has been a part of my wandering in circles around my personal Jericho.

I try to live my life in a prayer of Mary’s Fiat – Let it be done to me according to your will. But sometimes I feel like what God actually heard was something more along the lines of, “Bring it on.”

As mothers, we have so much to manage and keep going. Children to teach, the family to feed, a husband to keep up a relationship with, school and church work, our “real” jobs. Keeping control seems like the only logical way to do that. But leaning on our ability to control things is slippery and deceptive. The control we exercise can be taken from our hands at any moment. So we need to find a way to keep a responsible grip on the management of our families and jobs while balancing that with surrender to God’s guidance and will, and trust... that in one of those moments when control is taken away entirely - we are still securely in His hands.

Sundays are always my hardest day. Between Jay’s masses, and trying to get ready for another week while keeping everyone fed and cleaned up for mass I am left with little patience and always find myself thinking that if I just planned it well enough and executed it perfectly then the day would go smoothly. I grasp at control and scribble down a list of things to finish up that day and reminders for next Sunday. I berate myself and think that I could bring peace to my family if I just had enough control over the day. But in spite of any elaborate planning I do, Sundays slide from my grasp - sometimes its a sick child, a busy Saturday that leaves me playing catch up, my own exhaustion, or even just setting aside what needs to be done for time with family. I simply cannot control all of the variables and get a hold on Sunday.

I’m not sure if control brings peace or just the illusion of peace. Sometimes I think I would settle for an illusion of peace!

There are two moms I know: One is always in control. Her home runs like clockwork, her kids never eat sugar cereal while being rushed out the door in the morning. And yet her children are always shuffled out of the way to keep things running smoothly.

Another has told me smilingly that she never feels overwhelmed. She has several children, and she enjoys them all greatly, making time for them as much as possible. She is not what I would call out of control, but her grasp on it seems to be a little looser.

So it occurred to me one day, that maybe this overwhelmed, scrambled existence is where I am supposed to be right now. Maybe this, in itself, is the medicine my soul needs to teach me to really lean on God’s control instead of my own. Because really, when it comes down to it, how much do we really have control of? Our lives can change in a moment.

What is the difference between being out of control and living a life of surrender?

Surely there is a difference. We mothers have to do our due diligence in caring for our family and not just toss in the towel and quit trying. But I have to have that continual reminder that it is not my will but His that must be done. Frustration with this does not equal lack of surrender.

Preparing for this retreat has been an exercise in surrender in itself for me. Just as I began to work on it, I found myself in the throws of morning sickness, then Jay’s hand injury ( he lost a portion of a finger in a work accident) tossed our life into an uproar, then a series of sicknesses in my kids that kept my hands busy with laundry and my lap full at all times. Truly, my time was not my own and I couldn’t work on it at all. I had to chuckle and God’s sense of humor, and wished that maybe I had been led to a different topic for the retreat - then I wouldn’t be getting this tough lesson.

But it wasn’t until last weekend that it really came to a head in our household. For months, I have been diligently following Dave Ramsey’s financial principles, trying to get a working budget and get us out of debt and living within our means. Every penny is spent on paper before the month begins. I made progress for several months, even got some bills paid off. But the business Jay works for is struggling. The paychecks have been coming, but they have been getting later and later. Finally, this past week, we went a whole week without a paycheck. Between that and the mounting medical bills (For Jay's hand injury and Molly's hospitalization) I just completely fell apart. I had one of those moments of staring over a cliff, seeing the darkness that was out there without faith, but feeling like my best efforts had failed me entirely. I wasn’t chuckling at God’s sense of humor anymore. I was angry and tired and very tempted to despair.

If I had worked so hard to control all of our money, but it really wasn’t in my control at all anyway, what was the point? Just like cleaning the kitchen only to come back in and find it wrecked entirely... it seemed like it was all futile. Still, as we will go over in part 2, I remembered that really Holy people have just kept doing their jobs in the face of loss of control. But how is it possible to do that without falling over that cliff and succumbing to despair when over and over you see your hard work crumble like a sandcastle getting hit by a wave?

After much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I realized that it really is the outcome that matters, but not the outcome I was looking at.

My work is to be a good steward of my money, to love and teach my children, to love and encourage my husband, to care for our belongings and fill our home with love.

But the outcome of those things - the real goal I am aiming for is not:

a balanced bank account
perfect children
a husband whose needs are always met
a clean home with dinner on the table, laundry in the drawers, and a place for everything.

My real goal is to love God and to bring my children and husband closer to Him as well. My real goal is Heaven and an eternity with Him. That is the outcome that matters. The rest of it is the means that will help me to get there.

This reminded me of the story of the Man and the Rock. I found a version and want to share that with you now:

Pushing Against The Rock - Author Unknown

There once was a man who was asleep one night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Saviour appeared to him.

The Lord told him He had a work for him to do, and showed him a large rock explaining that he was to push against the rock with all his might. This the man did, and for many days he toiled from sunup to sundown; his shoulder set squarely against the cold massive surface of the rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore and worn out, feeling his whole day had been spent in vain.

Seeing that the man showed signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture - placing thoughts in the man's mind, such as ``Why kill yourself over this?, you're never going to move it!'' or ``Boy, you've been at it a long time and you haven't even scratched the surface!'' etc. giving the man the impression the task was impossible and the man was an unworthy servant because he wasn't moving the massive stone.

These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man and he started to ease up in his efforts. ``Why kill myself?'' he thought. ``I'll just put in my time putting forth just the minimum of effort and that will be good enough.'' And this he did or at least planned on doing until, one day, he decided to take his troubles to the Lord.

``Lord,'' he said, ``I have labored hard and long in Your service, putting forth all my strength to do that which You have asked of me. Yet after all this time, I have not even budged that rock even half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?''

To this the Lord responded compassionately, ``My friend, when long ago I asked you to serve Me and you accepted, I told you to push against the rock with all your strength and that you have done. But never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. At least not by yourself. Your task was to push. And now you come to Me, your strength spent, thinking that you have failed, ready to quit. But is this really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled; your back sinewed and brown. Your hands are calloused from constant pressure and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your ability now far surpasses that which you used to have. Yet still, you haven't succeeded in moving the rock; and you come to Me now with a heavy heart and your strength spent. I, my friend will move the rock. Your calling was to be obedient and push, and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom, and this you have done.''

Feet: A Belated Holy Week Post

2011-05-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

Little feet have brought me closer to God in many ways, chasing them around gives me patience and reminds me of the joy to be found even on the most stressful of days. There are a couple ways though, that snuck up on me, and I thought I would share those with you. I realize that Holy Week is long past now, but I hope they will lift you up anyway.

Holy Week always finds me stressed and overwhelmed. While I would like to participate in the many wonders and liturgies, having several very small children (and a husband in the choir) makes it nearly impossible to do without teaching my children by accident that Holy Week is more about getting yelled at than about appreciating the sacrifice of Jesus. So we choose carefully which liturgies to attend.

~~~~~

Good Friday of 2010 found me at my wits end, as usual. We had attended the live Stations of the Cross with the kids, and had intended to take them to the Good Friday liturgy as well. But I felt like the small children needed a break and so did I. It would have been a disaster in the making to try another long event in the same day. So we stayed home. At least our parish had their liturgy on television, so I was able to watch, holding my peacefully sleeping baby on the couch, while the other little ones played legos in the other room.

As the parishioners filed up, one by one, to venerate the cross and kiss the feet of Jesus, I looked down at the chubby little feet, so relaxed in my lap. And I realized... Mary must have kissed the feet of Jesus countless times. She nibbled on his cute little toes as she cared for him. And then she saw those feet lifted up before her on the cross. She knew, she saw the physical effects of His sacrifice. The body she had held so close was hurting. I am sure that no one understands the veneration of the Cross like she does.

~~~~~

This year we were able to make it to Holy Thursday Mass. I even came prepared with battery operated candles for the little ones to carry during the procession afterward. (Although I also discovered just how far those battery operated candles can roll when dropped/thrown. Next year I need to find square battery operated candles.) I have to confess that I am a horrible listener in Mass, and only partly because of my kids. I am just a distracted kind of person, so I always catch snippets here and there. The part of the gospel that echoed out to me sitting in this particular wiggly, whiny pew was:

If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet.I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. (Jn 13:14-15)

And I tell you, I sat bolt upright and realized... I do this!

On a week when I had been feeling like there was no time for prayer and my going to mass was overwhelming, I was so relieved to realize that every day I do something that Jesus specifically asked us to do. There is not a day that goes by when I don't find myself down on my knees washing little feet at some point in the day. (And I had to stop writing this post twice to wipe a little behind as well, that has to count for something.)

Jesus asked us to serve one another, and to meet each other at our grossest and help to clean each other up. That sums up my job pretty well, I think. Maybe I am learning something out of these trips around Jericho.

Relax and Dance

2011-02-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to keep still. Ex 14:14

This is one of my favorite verses. I find it so comforting. Keeping still is not my strong point. Today it brought to mind two situations to help me to bring it into focus for myself.

The first is trying to get a 1 or 2 year old child dressed. They have done this enough times that they know that they are supposed to put their hand in the hole in the shirt. But they are not experienced enough yet to realize that they need to find the hole first before they go jabbing their hand in random parts of the shirt that are not sleeves. Baby starts getting frustrated, I start getting frustrated. If she would just be still and stop trying to help so much, then I could show her where the hole is and let baby push her own hand through, but she is so sure that this is where her hand goes she just pushes all the harder when I try to move her hand to the right place.

I know there are times when God is trying to get the attention of my bulldozer self and I am so sure that this is the direction I am supposed to be going to help Him. If I could just take the time to be still, He could reorient me just a bit and I could get on the right track.

The second situation is a little different. The other day our oldest daughter, who works in a restaurant/bar, was telling us about Salsa Night at her work. She has seen some amazing Salsa Dancing on these nights. She doesn't know how to do the dances, but will occasionally dance with one of the more skilled dancers. She told us how the really good dancers can lead so well that she doesn't even have to know much about the dance herself. During one dance she told one, "You make me feel like a pro at this, like I really know what I am doing!" He told her that it was because she was so relaxed and was good at taking his cues and following.

Being a limp noodle wouldn't help her to dance like that, she had to be relaxed but responsive. She had to wait for his cues and act on them immediately and without thought. That is what makes the dance.

If I could be so close to God that I feel His slightest cues...

If I could be relaxed, yet ready to respond without hesitation...

Then maybe this relationship with Him, this life He has given me, would be more like a dance and less like me fighting Him at every turn. Trying to get Him to understand what I think His will should be is a lot more work than being tuned into His will, and a lot more like a toddler insisting that the sleeve should be right in the middle of the shirt.

Out of My Hands

2011-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

I have such a hard time leaving my life and problems in God's hands. I find myself always trying to keep control of things and trusting in my own ability to solve my problems. It helps me to picture a little scene more like this:

Mary stands before me with her hands open. Into them I place my time, my money, and my heart and ask her to carry them swiftly and give them to her Son. I have prayed the Memorare over them and am assured that she will do just as I ask.

What will He choose to do with my time, my money, and my heart? I feel like I have taken a bold step in handing these over to His best courier and sending them on their way.

Much like a package that has been handed over to the post office, these things are gone from my control.

May I have the grace and faith to leave them that way.

Why We Are Still Open to Life

2011-01-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

Around the time that Molly, our eighth child, turned one the usual questions that we get asked changed in character a bit. They went from "Are you going to have any more?" to "Surely, you are not having any more! Right?"

Having a large family means getting a lot of questions from people. There are many nosy questions that people would never think to ask someone in a smaller family. Mostly I am okay with that. I smile and answer questions as best I can without getting too personal. People don't run into large families very often any more and they are fascinated, usually in a friendly way, and just want to understand how it works to live like this. I think it is a good thing that they are seeking to understand better. There are those who are not so kind, but I don't run into them very often.

But the questions we were getting as Molly graduated to toddlerhood came from unexpected sources and carried more pressure than usual. They came from dear friends and family who have seen how hard the last year has been for us and who truly want things to be easier fur us. They would point out how we have certainly done our part in being open to life and now it was time to move on, to expand our horizons, to live a bit for ourselves.

For a while we felt like they might be right. Maybe it was time to close up the old womb and focus on the future, when things wouldn't be so hard and labor intensive (in more ways than one). I could get more involved in my ministries and writing, and not spend as much time feeling like I was going to die from either morning sickness or exhaustion from dealing with a baby who can't sleep. I looked around me at people who don't have little babies in arms all the time or toddlers to chase and thought, "I could get so much done if all my kids were just a little older!" And isn't that a noble thing to hope for: to work for the church and school and my family in an efficient way?

So we dusted off the old charts, bought a new thermometer, and buckled down for the bumpy ride through my return to fertility while breastfeeding.

What we found though was that we weren't really all that convinced we didn't want another baby. The older kids talk frequently about "when the next one comes", and as we looked over the dinner table in the evening there was that gnawing feeling that we aren't all here yet. I found myself hoping that NFP would fail or I would make a mistake in my charting and the decision would just be taken out of our hands.

My husband and I discussed all these things at length. We prayed about them and contemplated them in our minds, and our hearts. And here are the things we discovered:

God allows us to participate in creation. Let that sink in a moment. He lets us be a part of the creation of a whole new person, a soul that never existed before but will now exist for all time. How can we pass that up? Most especially when He put it in the framework of an act that brings us closer to each other and is, in a word, amazing.
We are already here, doing the daily work of parenting, and we have gotten pretty good at it if I may say so. We have adjusted to the fact that having young children around is a way of life and not just a hardship to toil our way through as quickly as possible.
There is no really good time for a baby. There is never enough money or time or sleep to prepare. One of the other children is always needing us in a way we hadn't anticipated. And yet time after time we find that...
Children are a gift. They are joy, they are work, they are renewal. As each one of our children has been unique and special and world changing, so will the next one be. We can't take that for granted because...
Children are not a guarantee from being open to life. I have been surrounded lately by friends who have lost babies to miscarriage, babies whose lives were cut short by disease, and those who yearn for children and suffer the heavy cross of infertility. I have mourned with those friends and seen what it is like when that gift is taken away. On a lighter note, I am thirty-a-lot and my body is not what it once was. We just don't know what will happen at this stage of the game.

I would like to point out that using Natural Family Planning to avoid pregnancy doesn't automatically make one closed to life. A couple can prayerfully discern that the timing isn't right for another child. By using the woman's natural fertile or infertile times, we make use of the system that God designed. When we come to a time that preventing pregnancy becomes more important, we will again use this method to work in harmony with our bodies. I am thankful that we have this to fall back on. But for us, at this time, we feel called to release control.

We have been down the road of being actually closed to life through sterilization, and it wasn't a good place to be. The story of that will be coming shortly. So for now, we have decided to throw wide the doors to life and embrace what comes.

Mexico Mission Appeal

2011-01-10T07:36:00.000-08:00

For the last several years my older kids have gone on mission trips to Mexico with their youth group and school. The trips are arranged and made under the guidance of Amor Ministries. These trips have been life changing for Paisley, James, and Posy, giving them real experience with helping people and a real understanding of the poverty that some people live in.

On one of these Mexico mission trips, the group travels to Mexico, sleeps in tents, and spends their days building one to two houses for local families. They eat and work next to the family and others in the community there, and they especially enjoy playing with the kids.

Here are some photos of Posy's trip last year:

Framing the house

Taking time with the kids - Posy likes to get the kids to teach them some Spanish.

Filling in the walls

The Family gets the keys to their new home

Stocked with supplies

This year, due to budget cuts in the church, the kids have to personally fund a larger part of their trip. For Posy, this means coming up with $350 (which covers car travel, food, and her part of the building supplies) before the time of her trip in mid-February.

We need your help. We will be holding a yard sale on the 22nd of January and could use your stuff to sell, or would love to have you stop by to shop.

Monetary donations are tax deductible and any amount will help. Checks can be sent to:
Ss Simon and Jude Catherdral
6351 N 27th Ave
Phoenix, AZ 85017

Please put Posy's name on the memo line for the credit to go towards her Mexico Mission.

Finally, in her own words, here is the appeal that she wrote and was featured in our parish bulletin:

Last year I had the two of the most moving experiences in my life so far. These experiences were my first two Missions to Mexico with the Ss. Simon and Jude Youth Group. We built two houses in November ('09)and one in February ('10), for families in need, with Amor Ministries. I was nervous for my first mission last November, and I really did not know what to expect. But when I got there, even though the work was hard, I found it easy to work with a smile on my face, because I knew that I was using my own two hands to do the work of God. Then, on the next mission in February, as we were working on the house, the family from the November mission found us and came to say hello. The thing that I will never forget about this is that they still remembered my name. I wasn’t just the young high school girl that I am every other day of my life, who is not-so-good at math and decent at writing research papers. I was a girl who helped to change the life of a family; the life of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Finally I understand what it means to live out my faith and to show my faith through my actions. This year I am asking you to help my fellow teens and I as we go to Mexico once again. We all know that budgets are tight at the moment but every cent, every prayer, every donation is one that will be very appreciated.

Please consider supporting Posy for this mission! Thank you!

Living a Nightmare

2011-01-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

Every now and then there is a story on the news that catches your attention and just breaks your heart. Last September I saw one of those. A mother was pulling out of a school parking lot and accidentally hit a baby in a stroller. The baby was killed instantly, and the mother who was walking with the child was not injured badly. The driver was not at fault, nor was the mother pushing the stroller.

I could understand though, knowing how pedestrians are sometimes hard to see, how this could happen. My heart broke not only for the mother who lost her baby, but for the driver as well. I couldn't imagine the guilt she must be feeling over the incident even if it wasn't her fault at all. I remember thinking of them often in the following days and praying for all of them, but especially for the driver.

Life soon took over and I pushed that news story to the back of my brain. We soon had a new baby to snuggle and a very busy Autumn ahead of us. I had kids in four different schools then, which left me on the move a lot. There was one in preschool, two in elementary school, and two children in different high schools. It was hard to handle all of it, but I managed reasonably well.

But I was about to have the rug pulled out from under me.

One rainy Monday in December, I dropped Max off at preschool. I stopped in to have a short chat with the preschool director, then headed out to the car, buckled Molly (5 weeks) and Lily (2 years) into their carseats and pondered my route to Target for some shopping before I headed out of the parking lot.

It was about 9:15am, and rush hour was well over. I remember that there weren't many cars on the road at all. I pulled up to the sidewalk to make a right turn out of the parking lot and onto a large street. I glanced this way and that, but ended up looking to my left for a couple of minutes to wait for a nice big gap.

Then I slid my foot off the brake and moved slowly forward to enter the roadway. As I began to turn I heard a sickening THUD to my right. I turned and saw red hair, white skin, and blue sweatshirt on my windshield before it dropped out of view. Seconds became hours right then. I put the car in park, got out and ran around the front of the van thinking, "Oh, he's going to yell at me!" But the man never yelled. He was unconscious next to my van, his bicycle a crumpled mess a few feet away.

A couple of other cars had stopped and were calling 911, but I opened my van door to get my phone and call too. I was shaking and crying so hard it took me several tries to dial the right numbers. Before the operator had time to dispatch anyone, a passing ambulance stopped and began to work on the man.

My memory gets a little fuzzy at this point. I crawled in the side of my van to sit by the babies. I cried my eyes out. I called Jay, I talked to the police. I saw them cut the man's clothes off so that they could start an IV line and get his blood pressure. They put him in the ambulance eventually and took him away.

From the car I could see my mother in law and brother in law, but the police wouldn't let them come near. Jay arrived and was allowed to come and be with me. At some point we got out of the car and the police introduced me to some crisis counselors. But when they saw that I had family and my husband there, they gave me a water bottle and left. I was in good hands already.

At some point the tears stopped and I just kind of went into shock. We moved inside of the preschool and out of the rain and over the course of the morning I was interviewed by a couple different police officers and a detective. The preschool where it happened is also a church, and one of their staff came and prayed with us. It was a prayer that I can't remember, but that said everything in my heart at that moment. Our friends at the preschool took Molly and Lily with them so that we could deal with the police interviews.

After a few hours we were released to go home. I think I just curled up on the couch and watched it rain most of the rest of the day. Some friends brought dinner.

I stayed in contact with the detective through the week, and he let me know that I had done nothing wrong. The man was riding his bicycle very fast, against traffic, when he collided with the side of my van. He had probably assumed that I had seen him. The detective called me on Thursday of that week to let me know that the man, W.R., had passed away on Tuesday from his head injuries.

How does a person handle something like this? How can you even begin to process having a part, at fault or not, in an innocent person's death? I had wondered that when I saw the news story in September and now I had to actually answer those questions, and I had no idea at all where to start.

And God, where was He for all of this? The funny thing for me was that my faith was not shaken. I knew God was still right there, wanting to comfort me, working little miracles through this event. But mostly I just kind of wanted Him to leave me alone for a while. My family, my friends, my church, they are all my ministries, and I viewed myself as a tool in the hand of God to work in this ministry of life He had given me. But now I just felt broken. I needed for God to put me back in the toolbox for a while and just let me heal.

And that is exactly what He did.

I didn't stop praying, although my prayer often had no words. I didn't stop going to mass, even when every mass felt like a funeral for the man in the accident. All I could do was to try to rest in His grace and hope that maybe someday I would feel differently.

Little miracles began to unfold. I started going to see a counselor, who helped me to weed through all this mental and emotional mess this had left me with, and I was able to work through a lot of other things as well. The father and step-mother of W.R. came to talk to the preschool director. They were very concerned for my well being and gave us some information on W.R. as well. They wanted me to know that they did not hold me responsible.

W.R. was 20 years old, living in a group home nearby because of a chromosomal abnormality that caused some delays and very large size. He was 6'8" and well over 250 pounds. His organs went to four different people: heart, corneas, and both kidneys. And his brain went for research for the chromosomal abnormality he had. There had, to that point, never been a brain for them to study. Those were some small comforts amidst the darkness.

2010 was very much defined for me by the recovery from this accident. In the beginning I counted every day and week as a wonderful bit of distance that I could put between myself and the event. Then I was able to add in months as well. And somewhere along the line I stopped counting. When I reached the one year mark, I stopped and had a quiet day to remember and to pray, but it wasn't just about having distance from that time anymore, it was about where I am now and how far I have come since then.

I share this with you not to look for pity or astonishment, but just to share where I am coming from. As this blog is largely about my spiritual journey, I think you need to see what has guided that for me. This accident will always be one of the defining moments in my life. I am sure I haven't even felt the full impact of the ways it has changed me. But I hope and pray that, no matter how horrible and tragic it was, I can continue to use those changes for good. I am out of the toolbox again, ready to get to work.

Happy New Year! Goodbye Old Year!

2010-12-31T16:20:00.000-08:00

It has been two months to the day since I wrote here last. And a busy two months it has been.

We spent all of November finishing up my husband's Christmas CD and preparing for his concert. For him that meant finalizing all the recordings, arranging for the reproduction of the CDs and planning the concert music. For me, this included doing the CD photography and artwork, putting together the template for the CD cover, making and cutting tickets, and helping with many random things along the way. It kept us all frazzled and our house a mess for the full month of November.

Which left us with December to recover from the process and prepare for Christmas. I had many thoughts I wished to share here about Advent and preparing our hearts for Jesus, but I am afraid they will have to wait for another year.

Today I am pondering the new start that comes with a new year and what new starts are all about. I think it is our human inclination to want to always have a start and a finish to things. Our lives naturally become separated by events that forever afterward define things that happen to us as Before the Event and After the Event. It happens with wonderful things like the birth of each child or a move, and it happens with traumatic things as well, like an accident or a house fire. In between those major happenings, we have little beginnings for a fresh start like Mondays or going to confession, and bigger ones like the start of a new school year and, of course, New Year's Day.

And so here is my challenge to myself this year (and to you if you wish to take it), to embrace the fresh starts as they come via calendar or event, but to never be afraid to make one right at the moment I need it. There is no reason that a Wednesday afternoon at 1:47pm is a bad time to make a fresh start. It is a little less memorable, but just as worthy of being a day and time to become a better person.

So what are my goals for 2011?

The less specific versions are:
Study Scripture more and do more spiritual reading.
Pray more.
Keep my house at a higher level of clean.
Maintain and continue to improve our budget.
Be more present to my children, and stop living inside my own head so much.
Write more. (Which may conflict with the item above, and so will make time management very important.)
And to sum them all up, I hope to live my life more intentionally, taking note of the things I aspire to and the things I hope to weed out of myself and working towards those things.

Now if those aren't pie in the sky, I don't know what is. Because as I have written this, there have been no less than two all out brawls between my children. The first was over who is cleaning or not cleaning the family room and thus who should and should not be able to watch the movie tonight. The second was the discovery of and blame for a giant smear of poop on the wall in the bathroom. And I feel my lofty goals slipping way with the possible necessary revision into "I will not kill my children in 2011" and the extra difficult, "I will yell at least a little less."

But there has to be some way for a busy, at-the-end-of-my-rope, mom like me to draw closer to God and form myself as a better person in the new year. There is. I can depend on a constant stream of new beginnings. Those beginnings may involve a little backtracking in the way of Confession or apologies made, but a fresh start is always available to me. And maybe if I practice a good fresh start enough times, some progress can be made.

The Moment Before

2010-10-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

It is a relatively peaceful Sunday afternoon around here, as peaceful as they come anyway. The kids are spread around the house making their various messes and avoiding all chores. There are the usual stresses of not enough money or time, but that is nothing new. There is no all encompassing trauma or worry that weighs on us today.

We are living, for at least now, in a Moment Before. And for that I am very thankful.

Because there are times in our lives when everything can change in a very short moment. One minute the phone rings and brings horrible news - a death, an illness, a job loss, or so many other things, and you can never go back to the moment when you didn't know about this awful new reality that you now live in. It can happen many other ways, a car accident for example. One moment you are thinking about where you are going and what is coming next and the next moment all that has changed. The entire fabric of your life is different in color and texture and the change can't be undone.

We can't live in fear or expectation of these phone calls, accidents, or sudden changes, because then we forget to really live our lives. But every now and then, I like to take a deep breath and realize that this, for however long it lasts, is a Moment Before. It is a moment that someday I will wish to be back in. It is a moment to draw strength from God as He is found in the Ordinary. It is a moment to smell the roses and be thankful. Things can change in an instant and I want to be paying attention to what I have now.

Put and Take

2010-10-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

Sometime between 6 and 9 months old my kids learn a fun little game we like to call "Put and Take". They hand me a toy and I hold it in their reach. The child looks me in the face and then takes the toy back again. Put and take, over and over, like a first game of catch or a very early introduction to sharing. It becomes a favorite game as they bring me different things and put them in my hand and take them back again.

I play this game often with God, in a slightly less cute way.

I always picture myself handing my problems over to God as if they were written on a scrap of paper and telling him that I really do trust Him. But then after fidgeting about in front of Him for a few minutes, I reach up and grab it back. I just need to tweak something first before He can have it. And then I hand it back again. "Are you sure?" He asks me, "Can I really have it?"

"Yes, I'm sure. But let me fold it one more time just to make sure it is ready for You to handle it."
"Ok," He says. He never stops me from taking it back.

And so I carry my little problem over to the corner and fuss over it, knowing that God's hand is open and waiting. Knowing that I need to let Him have it.

Finally, I work up the strength to hand it over to Him. I walk away, casting glances over my shoulder. He doesn't seem to be doing anything with it at all and I wonder if maybe I should go ahead and handle it myself anyway. Usually at this point, my addled brain gets distracted by some new problem or excitement and I forget to take this problem back. My own forgetfulness keeps me out of a lot of trouble.

But while I am distracted, my loving Father takes this little paper problem and makes it into something I could never have imagined. As Jen @ Conversion Diary so succinctly put it the other day, "I'm not good at knowing what I want; I'm terrible at knowing what I need."

My game of Put and Take this week involved the schooling of my children. This week I received an email, on my birthday no less, that the school where my older children go for Jr High and High School is moving. Right now we have a 20 minute commute to their school each way and I hate it. It makes it very hard to deal with extra curricular activities and makes for a lot of time in the car for the little ones. This new location would bring our daily car time up to over 3 hours a day, more if someone had an extra activity or tutoring. This is just not compatible with our family life and having small children around.

I was devastated. Crushed.

While my current sophomore could probably finish her high school career there, my younger kids would not have that opportunity, and that broke my heart. I cried on and off for two days.

Then came another email exposing a potential health threat with this new location. I have only minimally researched whether or not this is valid, but what it showed me is that I cannot foresee the possibilities here. Maybe something will come to light and this move will be canceled. Maybe it will go forward as planned. I have no idea. The message I got loud and clear is that whatever the outcome, God still holds us in His hand. He sees things that I can't possibly imagine. There are two more years before this move would take place and anything could happen in that time.

So for now, I will write this problem on a piece of paper and put it back in the hand of God and say a little prayer, "Let it be done to me". He has the outcome under control, even if I don't like what it will be.

Prayer and Where God Leads

2010-10-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

My intention was to write a few posts on prayer during the month of September, but life got in the way. Getting to the computer to write is at times a battle I just can't win. But I have made prayer a focus as much as I could in my own life this past month. Maybe I should call it a blurry instead of a focus, because while I was looking that direction, I couldn't always tell what I was looking at.

But then such is my journey towards God. I try to be always moving closer to Him, but sometimes I am more stumbling that direction than running into His arms.

Often in times like these, when the complexities of life make my way towards Him slow going, He sends me a song. A song to give me the words to pray, or to remind me why I am here, where I am going, and who He is. This time He called my attention to Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (I have the version on Born to Worship.) The part that caught my attention the most right now is this:

Hitherto Thy love has blest me, thou hast brought me to this place,
And I know Thy hand will lead me, safely home by thy good grace.

It was a good reminder for me that God has put me here, to do this work set before me. He knows I am desiring His will and His closeness. Being frustrated for lack of time and focus is part of where I am now. He has asked me to walk around and around Jericho, even though walking in circles doesn't at first appear to get me any closer to Him.

A few years ago we had a house fire. It was a life changing experience and a very traumatic thing to live through. My sixth child was three weeks old at the time. My two oldest children were in a charter school and I was homeschooling the rest. To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement. One night, in my postpartum haze, I cried out to God while nursing my little baby to sleep. I begged Him for perspective. I felt like I was overreacting to small things and entirely missing the things that were really important. I just couldn't seem to balance it all out in my head. So I sat there and nursed and cried and prayed.

The next morning at around 7:30am, my house caught fire. Let me tell you, I acquired perspective very quickly!

I didn't blame God for my fire, but I did think it was pretty suspicious that I had prayed for perspective and gotten a house fire out of the deal. It took me several years to understand that the house fire was just that - a house fire. The gift I received was that right before it, God brought me to a place where I would understand and be receptive to some very important things He was trying to tell me. Like the lyrics in the song, "Hitherto Thy love has blest me, thou hast brought me to this place."

Right now that place He has brought me to is filled with the pitter patter of little feet and little time for quiet prayer. For now I have to work and fight for every moment I can get. But that is not so bad. It certainly keeps me on my toes.

While this doesn't have my favorite verse, this is a good video version of the song. Full lyrics here, I have been listening to the third one down.

Lazy?

2010-09-23T14:13:00.000-07:00

I participate in the RCIA at my parish, and there are a few lovely ladies who are in charge of hospitality. It is their job to make sure there is a snack available at the classes and retreats, and they even go so far as to pretty the place up a bit with candles and flowers. I am always at a loss for how to help them and wind up standing around watching them buzz like bees over a beautiful spread of food. I feel so lazy and useless.

Being the overwhelmed, time crunched mother that I am, I tend not to fuss as much over hospitality kind of things. I keep things extraordinarily simple. In my view, I'd rather be spending time with people than with setting things up in such a way that makes things extravagant. And that is how I handle social situations in my home. But in the RCIA, I have felt a little left out when it comes to understanding the fuss over the hospitality stuff.

I was conveying this frustration to a trusted friend one day and told her, "I guess I am just too lazy to deal with those kind of details."

She pointed out to me that I am not lazy. She said that no mom who does what I do in any given day could call herself lazy. I was just being selective about where my energy went.

Let that sink in for a moment: being selective about where you direct your energy.

For those who might think I discount the value of Hospitality, (particularly in the RCIA classes) I don't at all. It certainly makes it a welcoming place and makes the classes more fun to attend. That is very important. But in my little world of limited resources of physical and mental energy often hospitality on that scale just doesn't make the cut. Thank God for these women with this talent and who can put their focus on it!

I find myself on a daily basis with enough work to do and things to keep track of that could keep about four people busy. So I have - without even realizing it - learned how to prioritize where my mental and physical energy will be spent and what my time will be spent on. On some days, that means that the most important thing I can do is sit on the floor and let the baby climb all over me. Other days it might mean that I really, really need to get the vacuuming or bills done. What someone else gets done in a day doesn't mean that *I* am lazy if I am prioritizing differently.

So what is "Lazy" then?

It is defined in the dictionary as "averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent."

To me, lazy is deciding not to try to do your necessary work when you have the ability to try to do it.

Which brings me to another form of "Lazy" that I accuse myself of:

Do you ever have one of those days when you just can't seem to move off the couch? Where forward motion just becomes so hard you start to wonder if you are living in jello? You know that there is much work to be done but starting or continuing just seems to slip through your fingers. And so you just sit there, watching TV or perusing the internet, watching minutes tick away and wondering why you're so darn lazy today.

When this is the case I have lost the ability to do my necessary work except on the most minimal level. This is where I have to go back and ask myself, "What is going on here?", "What situations have led up to my feeling stuck?" Then I can backtrack and usually locate at what point my current unravelling began. Often it is too much stress or not allowing myself any breaks from my work of caring for my family for too long. My brain just kind of shuts down and decides to take the break for me.

By working at a slower pace and allowing myself breaks (which are not laziness either!) I find I can prevent or at least minimize these kind of shut downs.

Major crisis will also lead to this kind of shut down, almost a paralysis, and those are on an entirely different level. Depression, death, a major accident, illness, or shock need to be given far more time and care to deal with and often benefit from some outside help.

So I have stopped calling myself lazy. Because, in general, I'm not. I have no problem with getting work done, but there is too much work to not be careful about how I approach it. There may be go-getters out there who could accomplish a lot more with the time and resources I have. But they aren't here. I am. And I am doing my best to care for my family. And in spite of occasional appearances, that is not lazy.

The Thankless Grunt Work

2010-09-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

The mom's bible study I participate in is doing the book of John this year, so that gives me ample opportunity to contemplate it. You'll probably notice quite a few posts about it over the next few months.

I find it helpful to imagine where I would be in the story if I were there or to just put myself in the place of different characters in the story. It helps me to get a better idea of what was going on and to pull out lessons for my own life - even if those seem to be a little off the wall.

I found myself reading John 2 this week and identifying with a part of it I had never bothered to notice. Sure, I have read the story of the Wedding at Cana a million times, but a different part jumped out at me.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." (And) Jesus said to her, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servers, "Do whatever he tells you." Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, "Fill the jars with water." So they filled them to the brim.

I hate it when I want to get a drink of water and have to be the one to heft one of those giant 5 gallon bottles of water onto a cooler. They are heavy and bulky and it is just no easy task. Each of the SIX jars at this wedding had to be filled with at least 4 times one of those bottles with a total of 120 to 150 gallons. And just to make things more complicated, they didn't go and grab the garden hose and twist the nozzle to fill these babies up. They either had to move the whole jar or make many trips with heavy jugs of water to fill them up. And they had to draw the water as well. Essentially, what Jesus told them to do was a lot of work.

Day after day I can find myself feeling the crushing weight of the work that needs to be done around here. The amount of work that needs to be done before 7AM is enough to make me not want to get out of bed in the morning. But they are a part of the grunt work behind the miracle of my family.

Jesus asks us to do incredible things as mothers. A lot of it is just background grunt work to keep things running smoothly. We build the set and set the stage for our children and husbands to go out into the world and make a difference. Sometimes we get a chance to step forward and be the one making a visible difference, but more often we are carrying water. Like the servants, it is the task Jesus has set before us. When we do that work, we make possible His miracles.

How Do We Wear Our Adversity

2010-08-26T12:36:00.000-07:00

A post I wrote some time and a few kids ago - it was a reminder I needed recently.

9/15/02

I ran into an old friend at the store today. We were both in a rush, so we couldn’t talk long, but we quickly reviewed how life was for each of us. She told me about how hard things were, with just one income in their family and five kids. And she related to me how crowded their house was and how they wished for a bigger place, but were afraid to move. Five children in a three bedroom house can indeed feel like a crowd.

I told her that I knew exactly how she felt; we were in the same situation. For a moment she looked a little surprised as she remembered that yes, we too have five children in a small three bedroom home and live on just one income. We wished each other well and went about our shopping. But it left me with a lot to think about.

It was very strange to have my own situation mirrored back to me like that, and it made me ask myself how I live my life for others to see. Do I appear to others to be lugging a great weight, or do I appear to take joy in the little gifts to be found through living my vocation? This friend seemed so wearied and disappointed by the way her life was going. Do I sound like that too?

I am sure there are many days that I do. There are days when it seems like the weight of the world has been set upon my shoulders, and anyone who comes near me might get an earful. We all need to vent sometimes and we all must ask for and express our need for support, but I think there may be a time and place to do that.

As Catholic Christians we embrace a life that is unpopular at best and despised and persecuted at worst. To the rest of the world, we need to show that while we have our difficulties and adversities, we are able to wiggle through by the Grace of God. We can use these things as opportunities for growth and often find great moments of joy in the midst of our suffering.

As I go through my daily life, is it apparent that I find joy in the drudgery? Growth in the sorrow? True, life changing happiness in the ordinary? Or do I appear disappointed that my life does not have the glamour and ease that I expected it to?

Our very presence can be a ministry to those whose lives we are near. We can touch their hearts simply by our thankfulness for all the blessings that our Father in Heaven showers on us. Sure, some blessings are heavy and hard to carry. Some are blessings in disguise and we can only see the blessing in them after they are long gone. But an attitude of thankfulness can make all the difference as to whether our smile is weary or joyful to the next soul we meet.

Finding the Time to Pray

2010-08-20T23:13:00.000-07:00

This summer, when the baseball bat of God started to beat into my head the importance of daily prayer, I was able to get a nice routine going with morning prayer. Even if I didn't get to any other focused prayer during the day, it was a great way to get my day going in the right direction and get myself focused on God and what was really important in my life.

And then school started.

My mornings begin now at 5:30am and we all have to hit the ground running to be out the door by 7:00. There are breakfasts and lunches to make, hair to comb, backpacks to round up, diapers to change...

So I figured I would just get up an extra 10 minutes before the chaos begins. Right. Molly has vetoed that pretty well. As soon as I roll out of bed she is searching for her human pacifier, and once she is up that early, she just needs to be held and bounced and is just not all that prayerful.

My morning prayer has not been happening now until around 2pm, which is totally not what I had in mind.

I wondered what a priest might do when the demands of life come at him so quickly. I'd imagine that they have their crazy days just like me. Ok, maybe not just like me. I am pretty sure they never have their prayer time interrupted by an explosively poopy diaper - the kind of thing you just can NOT put off dealing with. But then they may encounter similarly urgent calls away.

It struck me that a lot of a priest's job is prayer - the mass, the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and more...

Now I am no priest. That much is obvious. But I do my part in bridging the gap between Christ and others. And maybe sometimes that is my prayer.

This is no excuse not to have some focused time in prayer. I have already posted twice that one cannot pray without ceasing without spending some time in prayer, consciously willing it. But I am a mother, and God is the one who put me in this job (with the help of my husband) so He must know that there is some way this can bring me closer to Him. Part of that is making it my prayer.

7 Quick Takes - Mass Behavior

2010-08-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

ConversionDiary.com

This week I am going to focus on surviving mass with our little people. Specifically those 5 and under. Theoretically, those over 5 should only need gentle reminders to be good if you have been working with them through their lives to sit still and quiet during mass. But some kids might take a bit longer...

People often tell me that I just got lucky and miraculously gave birth to quiet children. This could not be further from the truth at all. My children are natural musical and LOUD. When people call my house they often ask me if there is a party going on. No, it's just normal life - and it tries to occur in mass as well.

So I work my butt off to teach my children how to behave in mass. This means that any attention that I am able to pay in mass is an unexpected treat and that I normally use up any and all graces I would receive from attending mass before I ever leave it.

These tips and tricks will mostly fall into two categories: Closing the Crying Hole and Distraction.

1. Closing the Crying Hole Part 1: Drink
I breastfeed in mass. Yes, I do. I am discreet about it and you will probably see less of my breast than many of the women in the church on any given summer Sunday. I figure it is far less distracting to anyone else than what my child would do if they were not currently nursing. This offers the extra bonus of said child possibly falling asleep. The other bonus is that, unlike sippy cups, it can't be thrown on the floor (no matter how hard the child might try) and make a loud bang. Some time after the age of 1 however, I try to transition to a sippy of water during mass. And sometime between ages 2 and 3 I try to phase that out as well.

2. Closing the Crying Hole Part 2: Food
Another hotly debated topic - I decide this one on a case by case, kid by kid basis. My current 2 year old couldn't be trusted on any level to not throw things on the floor, so she doesn't get anything. In the past though, we have done small things like cheerios. The trick is, mom hold the container and hands the child ONE AT A TIME. We remove any trace of food from the church when we leave.

3. Distraction Part 1: Massage
With the child sitting in your lap or close beside you, hold their hand and trace around their fingers and the creases on their palms with feathery strokes. My kids love this!

4. Distraction Part 2: Whispered Prayers
Whispering prayers into their ears or talking about parts of the mass or the church building are very helpful and even work to distract young babies... at least for a minute or two. Although it can result in an exchange like this one:
Tessa (8) was doing her part to whisper to Lily and keep her quiet during the consecration. Tessa turned to Lily (2) and said, "That is Jesus's blood." Lily said, "JESUS'S BUTT? That's not Jesus's butt! It's Jesus's BLOOD!"

So whisper clearly.

5. Distraction Part 3: Drawing
Magna-doodle. Enough said.

6. Distraction Part 4: Quiet Toys
Throw any toy that you might bring to mass with you on the floor. Throw it on the table. If it is any louder than a light tap, it stays home or in the car. Although the above mentioned Magna-doodle breaks this rule, it is usually only used with kids who are old enough to know that throwing a toy is a Capital Offense.

7. Jumping Ship:
Sometimes you have tried everything and tried more as well and Kid is just not going to settle down. If you have to make an exit, try not to make it rewarding to the child. Leaving mass and letting Kid run around in the back of the church only teaches them how to get back there more often. No, if kid has to be taken out, they get to sit in your lap, heavily restrained. It's no fun for anyone, most especially the parent. But it is effective.

I'm not one to disregard kid noises, but a peep or a whisper or even a short lived cry are not reasons to leave. There is going to be a low level of ruckuss in any pew with a family with small children. For our family, it is only repeated misbehavior or a child who has bumped their head on the pew or something that gets us to make a run for it. (Hurt children do not get restrained, by the way. I have to add this because one of my children manages to hurt themselves on a pew more often than one might expect.)

My kids aren't perfect, but we seldom have to leave mass, and I have plenty of little old ladies who love to sit by my kids too.

All of this is only going to work if you are talking to your child early and often about what is expected from them, what mass is about. And a little prayer to their guardian angel doesn't hurt either.

Theme of the Month - Prayer

2010-08-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

I hope to address a theme every month or so. Since I am starting this one late I will take it through September and hopefully start the next theme in October. This one deserves more of a focus anyway.

Do you ever have times in your life when it seems like God is really trying to teach you a very specific lesson? Little messages seem to come at you from all directions and they all seem to say the same thing. A friend of mine calls this God's Baseball Bat. He will just keep hitting us in the head with it until we get the idea through our thick skulls.

Lately, it seems like my lesson is prayer. I tend to shoot up plenty of little arrow prayers through the day, "Help me, God," "Ooh, thank you for that one Jesus!" "Please send a police car after that horrible driver," and other things like that.

But recently, in reading "Grace Cafe" I hit a quote from the catechism that stated "We cannot pray at all times if we do not pray at specific times, consciously willing it." (And yes, it meant so much to me that this is the second time I have mentioned it during the short life of this blog.)

Then in last week's homily, our priest added something that hit home as well, "What do you call a priest without a prayer life? A bitter, underpaid social worker who can't get married." And it struck me that as a mother, I have an awful lot in common with a priest. My work is demanding, rewarding, and definitely never-ending. And yet I often find myself attempting to accomplish it without much of a real prayer life. I may be married, but sometimes bitter and underpaid hit the nail right on the head. And who wants to be either one of those?

My husband and I were talking the other day and realized that we would be absolute fools to try to get through our lives with this many kids without leaning on God and being in communication with Him always. Yet we try to do it anyway. Would we attempt to live without ever eating if we had a nutritionist cooking us the freshest organic food anytime we hungered? Of course not! But we deny ourselves the fuel to live our lives all the time.

Spend it or Save it?

2010-08-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt 6:21)

Sometimes it seems my treasure is not something that others would really consider a treasure in any form of the word. Sure, I treasure my children, my husband, my church, and yes - I really admit I treasure my belongings too. But I have noticed lately that I have been treasuring some unorthodox things.

As a mother, my memory has gone utterly down the tubes. I can't trust myself to remember anything these days. My poor children have witnessed me forgetting things literally moments after they told me. Recently though I have caught myself in working hard to remember things that would best be forgotten.

Some bad event, usually minor in nature, will befall me - something like a diaper blow out that got all over my shirt, a nasty comment that someone maked about my family size, or some other perceived injury, and I will start to just put it away and move on. I probably would have the incident forgotten in a few minutes. But I stop myself, go back and rummage through the trash of my memories and dig it out. I carefully polish the memory, marveling over how much it inconvenienced me/wrecked my day/hurt my feelings and tuck it safely away, purposefully saving it in my memory.

Then in conversations later on, I can trot it out to show it off - how much I have suffered, how mean people are, or how many excuses I have for not giving more of myself. They can be entertaining stories! We (especially women for the most part) love to one up each other in the game "My Day Sucks Worse Than Yours". We commiserate and have a good laugh over these things, and it does help to know that we are not alone.

But it can become a bad habit. Especially when we find ourselves, as I realized I was doing, relishing these stories and events and saving them up. I wondered last night, what would happen if I didn't save up those memories? What if I didn't nurture them and tuck them away for the next time I needed to feel sorry for myself? What if I let go of that negativity? What if I stopped treasuring these things? If my heart is where my treasure is, and I treasure these negative things, then no wonder I feel so dragged down!

Oooh. There's a thought! Would it just leave me with no war stories to swap? Not at all. There are some memories that will stick with us no matter what and stories that will come to mind. Instead, as the situations come up - and they will - I can offer them up as a little prayer and then... dare I say it?

Let it go.

I might forget the event, or I might not. It doesn't matter either way, really. What matters is that I am not focusing on and nourishing these hurts. This is a time when spending truly is better than saving. I can spend the turmoil by offering it up as opposed to saving it for a rainy day, letting it stink and fester in my heart.

I'd just like to point out that I am not discussing major events or hurts. Those may need to have some time and discussion devoted to them to help us move on. It is the little, minor daily hurts that act like little pebbles stuffed into our shoes. We might be able to ignore one or two and shift around to make sure it isn't causing us pain, but after a while, the shoe gets cramped and the pebbles poke too much.

So I think I am going to try letting things go a little more freely, and stop shoving pebbles in my shoes.