There in that bathroom, the thought hit me for the first time: For better or for worse, indeed.

Back in May, this year was already shaping up to be a(nother) year of Trust–new job, new baby, (still) new business. Then in June, God permitted an extraordinary thing to happen to our family.

An close friend of ours who is a pilot invited Michael to join him on a short trip to North Carolina by small engine plane. It was a guys’ trip–the excuse being to celebrate Michael’s upcoming 40th birthday–as well as a visit to the summer camp where both of our families had sent our 12-year-old sons. The camp had given permission for the guys to fly over the camps as a treat for the campers, and Michael would take some aerial photographs for the camp while they were up there.

On June 16th, I was leaving my brother and sister-in-law’s house, where the kids and I had gone for dinner, when I got a call from one of the camp’s owners. There had been a plane crash that evening on camp property. Michael, our pilot-friend Sean, and one of the camp directors, Jeff, had been in the plane. All three men were still alive and had “been alert” at the crash site, which was (incredibly) the small outdoor chapel used by the summer camp. The plane went through a tiny break in the forest canopy at the chapel, and landed just a few feet from the Cross at the front of the chapel. All three men were on the way to hospitals. No counselors or campers had seen or heard the crash. Jeff–who had jumped in the plane for the trip last minute–had miraculously been able to climb out of the wreck and find his way back to the camp to get help, despite extensive injuries.

The next twelve hours after that call are a blur. My brother came home with me to put the kids to bed and spend the night at the house. Somehow I made calls to Michael’s parents, my parents, and most of my siblings. Sometime that night I talked to a close friend who called to check on me after she heard something had happened through a mutual camp friend. The hospital called me and put me on the phone with Michael at one point before his first surgery. His speech was difficult to understand, but he told me he was sorry and not to worry. I found out later that his jaw was broken so badly it was completely separated horizontally, and there were seven other fractures in his face.

After a sleepless night, my mom picked me up early the next morning to drive to the hospital in South Carolina. Family and friends descended on my house to take care of my five children.

I’ve never been so grateful for my mom. I was a 35-year-old adult woman with five children of my own, but I often felt about five years old over the next two weeks. My mom dropped everything and stayed with me the entire time. She made sure I ate meals and tore my eyes off my phone long enough to sleep. She listened to all the doctors’ updates with me and helped me remember all the big medical terms afterwards. She reminded me to pay my bills, and helped me delegate some of the burden of the massive amounts of communication coming through my phone at all hours of the day and night. She stepped away graciously any time we had a visitor and needed someone to leave so we could keep to the Covid two-visitor rule in the hospital. She drove me everywhere and didn’t fuss or judge or complain.

Our friends and family were amazing. The overwhelm from everyone’s kindness was painful in and of itself, I have to admit. My children were generously able to attend local summer camps, and friends took them in for play dates. My aunt and Michael and I’s siblings took turns sleeping at our house–and our house has never had so much food in it. A big group of my girlfriends sent me the Most Amazing Care Package ever (it took me days to go through it). Friends drove two and three hours from surrounding cities and states to visit us in the hospital. A large group of friends gathered to pray the Rosary for Michael. Financial help came pouring in to calm my heart. Michael’s sister made a birthday video for Michael to watch on his 40th birthday, which he spent in ICU recovering from one of his six surgeries. Michael’s brother Chris came for much of our hospital stay and was a rock for Michael and me. Michael’s uncle drove from Mandeville in a borrowed handicap-accessible van to drive us from South Carolina to Baton Rouge for rehab. There are so many more things to share and people to thank and stories to tell.

After two weeks in the hospital in South Carolina–most of it in ICU–Michael and I were able to get permission to travel to put him into a rehabilitation hospital close to home in Baton Rouge. We saw our kids for the first time in more than two weeks. Then, after only a week and a half in rehab, Michael was able to come home. That day, a big group of our friends surprised us–and brought us to tears–as we pulled into our driveway for the first time since the accident.

God’s mercy is mysterious.

All three men on the plane that day survived the crash. We are so grateful for this mysterious mercy, this showing of God’s power in accomplishing His will, though we will never know the reasons for what He permits and all that He is doing while we are on this side of Heaven.

It simply was not His will that these three men die that day. It is apparent to anyone who has seen or heard the details of this plane crash that Someone’s hands guided its fall from the sky. It is apparent in listing out the many serious injuries of all three men–who all will walk again, who all were spared brain damage, who all survived–that God permitted injury and trauma to their bodies, but only up to a certain point.

The past few months have been hard. From the tasks of caretaking, to accompanying Michael in healing in mind and body, to addressing my own trauma, to tackling a fairly complicated situation with our medical bills, to the effects of all of this on our marriage and our children, to finishing a difficult pregnancy, to watching our business dissolve.

God is providing for us, however. Things are slowly working out in His timing. We have never felt so held or so hopeful. Today is the last day of months of meals we’ve had brought to us three times a week. I can’t share all of the miracles in this one post, but they will come out in my writing and in my talks–you can be assured of that. I think God wants them to be shared.

When something like this happens, I think it’s easy to put the person or family up on a pedestal. I have watched people do that in our case. Everyone thinks that just because they can’t imagine being able to hold it together if they were in our place, that we must be more put together, maybe even holier, than they are. But I can tell you now from experience on this side of an event like this, that if God permits suffering in your life, He provides grace for you in it. But not in a way that means you walk on clouds through it all and never crumple into a ball or beat your hands on the shower wall and yell or even occasionally totally snap at the invalid you’re supposed to be caring tenderly for… It’s messy, ya’ll.

The grace He has provided for me is that despite struggling, sometimes badly, I doggedly keep coming back to trusting in God.

A friend sent me a card at one point that was a wonderful signal grace for me. The card said something to this effect:

Scream, cry, pray, trust. Curse, question, faint, trust. Be human.

There’s no right way to go through a traumatic event like this, other than to keep your eyes on the Cross as much as you can, and keep coming back to the fact that it’s either all true, or it’s all a lie. The grace He sends me is often that He highlights memories and realizations of all the evidence pointing to His true presence in my life.

Consolation…

Our sixth baby, Joseph Luke, was born on October 14th. Back in the spring when I was starting my new job and was exhausted and nauseated for four months straight, I didn’t know what a consolation this baby would be. When I was in the hospital with Michael in June and July, and wondering with real anxiety whether he would be walking and driving by the time we had the baby, I didn’t know what a consolation this baby would be.

God is so good. We had been open to the gift of a new baby for a long time before getting pregnant with Joseph, so finding out about him just two weeks after starting the first out-of-home, full-time job I’d had in 12 years was a surprise–why yes it was. But I could never had guessed what a gift he meant to give us this year. And by us I mean my entire family. My other children are all in love with our new baby, and he is a joy for all of us.

That’s how God works all things together for your good; His hand is in your past, present, and future, though you know it not.

Let’s swap prayers

Please pray for Michael and I to continue to navigate our insurance and medical bill situation with trust, wisdom, and unity; for complete healing in every way for Michael; for a new job for Michael; and for yet another transition for our family as I go back to work in January. Be assured that I am praying regularly for each of you and your personal intentions!

P.S. I will be giving an Evening of Reflection talk at Holy Rosary Catholic Church on Thursday, Dec. 1st! Sign up for this free event here. All women in all seasons of life are welcome. I’d love to see you.

The post For Better or for Worse: Our Year of Trusting God through a New Job, New Business, New Baby, and a Plane Crash appeared first on Erin Franco.

A little life update

For me, Monday, February 7 needs to get some kind of Lifetime Achievement Award for “Most Different Day from Exactly One Year Before.”

On February 7, 2021, I was a stay-at-home, homeschooling, 12-passenger van-driving Catholic Mom of Many, and I was helping my husband in the evenings with marketing the business he started when the pandemic dissolved his job.

On February 7, 2022, life felt fairly close to a 180 degree turn from a year ago.

All five of my five children now attend school five days per week.

I quit homeschooling last year to work from home for two businesses my husband and I started when his job dissolved in the pandemic.

We sold our big Ford Transit last year and downsized to a 2007 minivan…which was totaled two weeks ago in a car accident (I am doing mostly OK). I’m currently driving Michael’s truck while we look for a new vehicle.

Oh, and I started a full-time, work-outside-the-home job at a marketing firm on Monday morning that I’m loving, after not working outside the home for the past 10 years.

He gives everything, and takes nothing.

A recent Abiding Together podcast episode was on Isaiah 61, in which Christ proclaims freedom for captives, crowns for ashes, and a year of favor, among other things.

A year of favor.

Something shook me to the core as I read the passage again later in prayer.

At first, everything in me wanted to read that passage as, “God is going to fix all of my problems this year!”

But then, the still, small voice.

The past year has been a year of favor.

He has been bringing beauty from ashes, in some ways I can see now, and some in ways I don’t understand yet.

For one, He has chosen not to let me live in fear.

Each of the major changes in my life over the past year brought up many fears I would have sworn up and down I didn’t have. Having to deal with them head-on was so hard but so freeing for my soul.

It freed me to trust more deeply and live more abundantly.

Dare I say that one day, I will see that He gave me everything, and took away nothing in this past year?

I don’t [have to] have it all together

I joked with some close friends last week that the season of deep trust I continue to navigate in my life has given me lots of material for upcoming talks I’m giving.

This spring, I’m speaking several times about tackling anxiety by imitating Mary’s fiat. Her pattern of faith is something I’ve used over and over again this year in hundreds of moments of fear, doubt, and discouragement, and it’s something I’ve read over and over again in the writings of the saints.

Not to say I’m an expert at walking on clouds of Every-Little-Thing-is-Gonna-Be-Alright. Or Marian devotion, for that matter.

(If any of my closest friends are reading this, now is where I thank you publicly for your patience with all my stress texts!:)

But as my wise friend Jill told me once, we don’t have to have it all together before God can use us.

We also don’t have to pray a thousand Rosaries and Do All the Things before Our Blessed Mother takes us by the hand.

Rest, ponder, receive

These three words came to me a couple of months ago. It’s become my pattern of faith over the past year in particular. It is modeled after what I’ve found in the life and example of Our Lady.

I rest my mind in His Sacred Heart.

I ponder the situations of my life in the company of Christ with clear eyes based in Truth and reality, combined with trustful surrender to Divine Providence.

And I look at the people and situations of my life as something to actively Receive as gift from Him who weighed all my blessings and challenges carefully in His hands, and found them perfectly matched to the needs of my soul and His Plan into eternity.

“[He] will bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.” -Isaiah 61:3

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to bloom where I’m planted this year.

The post A Year of Favor appeared first on Erin Franco.

“Are you still doing Humble Handmaid?”

People ask me this question all the time, especially since I changed the header of my blog a couple of years ago from “Humble Handmaid” to “Erin Franco.”

And the fact is I’ve been doing a lot more speaking and radio than writing these past few years. Blog posts have been few and far between.

Yet notebooks upon notebooks fill my closet. I have dozens of half-started blog posts in my phone’s Notes app that I jot down in the carpool line or while chopping bell peppers for dinner. Since getting back on Instagram a couple of years ago I’ve enjoyed getting a mini writing fix there from time to time.

All blogs–and writers–change and grow over time. Twelve years after starting Humble Handmaid as a brand-new young mother, I am returning to my roots and reimagining them into my new season of life.

Introducing The Humble Handmaid, a semi-monthly e-newsletter to encourage you to rest, ponder, and receive the goodness of God.

If you’re already subscribed to my blog, then you’re all set. If not, you can subscribe right here.

And don’t worry–I’m not planning to clutter your inbox. Goodness no.

Have I mentioned I’m running around town in a 15-year-old minivan marketing two family businesses, have five children in school with two different carpools, and need 8 hours of sleep per night? I also live with my best friend, and it does both of us a world of good to spend time together regularly.

Ya’ll, I’m not Superwoman over here.

When you do open The Humble Handmaid in your inbox, my goal is that what you read will be a breath of fresh air to your mind and a moment of grace for your soul.

I hope you’ll love it.

The post Rest, Ponder, Receive: Introducing The Humble Handmaid appeared first on Erin Franco.

My mom had them. Your mom had them.

Mom-isms.

They are those things you begin to say over and over (and over) to your kids that you hope they’ll take to heart. They’re those “I’m totally stealing that!” things you hear your friends say to their kids.

My kids currently range from 11 to 3. The older they get, and the older I get, the more I’m convinced that all of my Mom-isms are really just the questions and truths that I want to live by when I grow up.

From one momma to another, here are my top ten Mom-isms in this current season of life. I’d love some comments on this post with some of yours!

Peace be with you!

The post 10 Mom-isms I Say to My Kids That Are Really for Me appeared first on Erin Franco.

My iced latte this afternoon is creamy and delicious. The hum of conversations, soft jazz, and the tapping of my laptop keys is a special kind of music to my ears. I’m at one of my favorite local coffee shops, where I’ve spent many happy hours of my life over the past 12 years blogging my heart out.

My plate has been so very full these past months. I’ve missed blogging. I’m working on making more time to write regularly, though. Our business coach told me this week that he thinks I should make time to get away and write so that I can stay more balanced and energized for my business.

If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be working with a business coach, I would have assumed it was for the online ministry projects I was dreaming up last spring, like my November 2020 Mom in Peace Online Workshop.

But our business coach is not helping me bring all my ministry ideas to life. He’s coaching Michael and I through the startup year of our 3D laser scanning and drone services company, Red Stick Visual Solutions.

I had no idea a year ago that I would have a beautiful corner desk of my own in a spacious home office Michael built after Christmas for us.

I had no idea a year ago that my homeschoolers would be happily installed in small charter school near our house.

Or that I’d have a 14-year-old minivan in my carport rather than our big 12-passenger van.

Or that I’d be working side-by-side with my husband in the secular business world.

Or that I’d be enjoying it.

My name is Erin, and I have a Covid Story

Every last soul on Earth has a Covid story.

For a while in 2020, I convinced myself I’d be the exception.

A year ago, my way of life as a homeschooling, stay-at-home mom was largely untouched by everything going on in the world.

But then Mike’s hours started being cut at work. And my beloved twice-per-month house cleaning service was the first thing to go. Then the kids’ music and sports activities. But I could take one for the team. So could the kids, who I had to drag to their activities most of the time anyway. I had all this new time, after all. I just knew this pandemic stuff would blow over by the Fall, and Mike’s hours at work would return to normal.

It was all going to go back to normal soon.

Things didn’t blow over, as we all know. Industry projections worsened, Michael came to me in the early summer with the idea for a new side business doing 3D laser scanning and drone videography. The business would help make up for our tightening finances and would serve as a possible fallback option if he lost his job. He told me he was more worried than he had let on that the industry he worked in was going to continue forcing companies like the one where he worked to downsize. We discerned a Yes to his idea, and he started doing a few projects over the summer.

Fast forward to October. I had spent the summer dreaming up the Mom in Peace Online Workshop, and I was busy pulling everything together for the month-long workshop to go live November 1st.

Michael and I were simultaneously discerning by necessity whether we should take his side business full time. One thing we kept coming back to was that I had some significant and valuable skills to offer the company if we went full time. My education, professional background, and volunteer work in marketing and public relations–plus my experience with websites and social media because of having Humble Handmaid for all these years–would be invaluable to a new company.

– 1 –

I Met St. Joseph

October was also the time frame that St. Joseph came into our lives.

A friend gave me Fr. Don Calloway’s Consecration to St. Joseph as a thank-you gift after a Domestic Church marriage retreat we led in October, but I didn’t pick it up for a few weeks. When I did finally decide to start reading through the book, though, I was immediately blown away by my re-introduction to a saint I’d never thought much about.

I was struck by so many things about St. Joseph and the Holy Family of Nazareth that I’d simply never thought about before. For one, as Mike and I’s financial situation became tighter and tighter, the poverty and dignity of the Holy Family was often on my mind. I remember receiving the gift of tears one night while watching The Star with our kids. I’d been reading about the near-scandalous poverty of the Holy Family in Fr. Calloway’s book, and suddenly it hit me while watching the end of that movie when Mary has baby Jesus in the stable: the incomparable dignity, unwavering faith, and unimaginable poverty of Mary and Joseph at the Nativity.

May and Joseph trusted God so much, that even what would easily be a Worst Case Scenario to others–certainly to me!–did not make them lose their faith. Mary gave birth to one’s first child alone, with few supplies, in a foreign land, with no friends or family or birthing helpers….and outdoors in an animal pen. Joseph was only able to provide her that much. Then, they had to flee an evil government planning the unspeakable, and run away in the night to a foreign land where they didn’t speak the language and had made no living or work arrangements ahead of time.

But it was the Lord’s will. And it was enough.

I started sharing my thoughts and also pieces of what I read with Michael, and his interest in St. Joseph was peaked as well. We decided to do a novena to St. Joseph together in November specifically to make a decision about the business.

Boy did St. Joseph deliver.

– 2 –

I Started a Technology Services Company with My Husband

On the ninth day of the novena to St. Joseph, we found ourselves unexpectedly sitting across our long farmhouse kitchen table from a business coach who had just finished working very successfully with a close friend of ours.

Three days later, we found ourselves in possession of two second-class relics of St. Joseph and Our Lady.

Michael and I decided to take a leap of faith. We quit the little that was left of his job and went full-time with Red Stick Visual Solutions.

The plan was that I’d keep homeschooling but would start start working seriously with the business as co-owner, primarily handling anything having to do with marketing. Michael and I coordinated extra childcare so I could work. I hyper-scheduled my time Monday through Saturday to get in 15-20 hours of work per week.

To further economize, we made the decision to sell our big 12-passenger van and downsize back to an older minivan. (I am going to stop myself before I gush here about the miracles St. Joseph did for us in finding us our wonderful new van though. I still praise and thank God for it daily!)

For a couple of months, I kept up a grueling pace with starting up the business, homeschooling, and running the house (even with Michael home and helping more). I got a lot done, including re-branding the company and building a new website. I enjoyed working, too. I just want to be clear. It’s been exciting, fun, and satisfying to work again in this capacity.

But by February, I was crumbling under the stress of everything I had on my plate. More and more, I would have to call just one more homeschool day or two or week off so I could rest, get a deadline for the business done, or finally change bedsheets.

I started having a nagging question in my head and heart: What is God actually asking of me right now?

– 3 –

I Put My Kids in Public School

When I took that question to prayer and to conversations with Michael and my spiritual director, I realized that God was actually not asking me to do it all.

Michael and I discerned–again in unity–that our family needed me to serve in a different capacity for this new season. Our change of discernment on homeschooling was fast. Michael and I made the decision officially on a Sunday to start the next day with looking into enrolling the older three children immediately in our neighborhood’s public elementary school. (Our youngest two were already in a Mother’s Day Out program a few mornings a week.) Then, on Monday evening, we found out about a new, tiny charter school near our house through a random text from an old friend. We had a call with the admissions director of the school on Tuesday, toured as a family on Wednesday, and the kids started on Friday.

Just like the van…St. Joseph’s intercession was all over little miracles that made our path straight in this situation. This school was the perfect soft landing for my homeschoolers. They love their school. The teachers have been wonderful. Everything with their school has been smoother and easier than I even hoped for. I am grateful. I still pinch myself sometimes at how good God has been to me.

“Be not afraid”

You know, being a classically-homeschooling, big-van-driving, stay-at-home Catholic mom of many had become part of my identity. I admit it. I held that worldly identity perhaps a little too tightly.

I’ve always told people that we were taking it year to year with homeschooling, though. We have always said that we want to keep our children’s needs, my own needs, and God’s will in our educational and lifestyle decisions. But when it came down to the circumstances of the past year forcing us to discern something radically different from what I’ve been doing for the past six years, I realized how much fear I had to deal with. God gave me the grace to go there, though.

The Heart Work that God did on me in a short time during our discernment about school was profound.

You know, when God says “Be not afraid” in the Bible 365 times, He means it.

He doesn’t want us to live in fear. He loves us too much for that. He wants us to live in freedom from all fear of wildernesses and deserts in our lives.

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” -Isaiah 43:19

This verse has been written on the chalkboard in my foyer since last November. Truly, God continues to may a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert for my me and my family. I have a “Miracles & Provisions” list in my journal that is line after line of God making a way for us for months now.

He is so good and so faithful!

Thank you with all my heart for remembering my family in your prayers, and may the peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding guard your heart and mind (and mine) in Christ Jesus!

The post Three Things Covid Made Me Do That I Never Saw Coming (But God Did) appeared first on Erin Franco.

I felt the front of my linen apron grow warm and heavy against my skin as my two year old poured a bath toy filled with soapy water down my front. The almost-four-year-old laughed hysterically.

I reeled back into the present moment.

I was kneeling on the hard tile floor at the side of a bathtub containing my two youngest little boys. My ears rang with their squeals of laughter, as well as some good ‘ole screaming-for-the-fun-of-it.

My thoughts had been drifting again, worrying and analyzing a Problem in my life I didn’t know how to fix.

My soggy apron pulled me back to bubble baths and little boys. Jesus, I trust in You. I give you this Problem. I choose peace. I choose not to worry.

Again and again I drifted (got soaked a little more) and returned. By the end of the bath, my apron dripped steadily onto the tile floor right along with my slippery-wiggly little boys.

“Begin again”

At one time, I would have been hard on myself for constantly drifting off like that. I would have fussed at myself for not being able to give my Problem to God and be at perfect peace ever after about it. I’d have felt guilty for not being more present to the kids.

I truly operated from a place of feeling like God was up there just waiting for me to get it together. My internal dialogue would have sounded a lot like, “Man up, Erin! Give your kids a 10-minute bath without worrying, for goodness sake. This is getting ridiculous!”

I’ve learned though that shooting for perfection in the spiritual life is still the goal, but getting closer to that goal looks a lot different than I used to think. The best any of us can do is to catch ourselves drifting away (from peace, from virtue, from God’s will) as quickly as possible, and to simply and wholeheartedly begin again.

Take it from St. Francis de Sales:

There is no better way to complete the spiritual life than to be ever beginning it over again.”

So many good-hearted, Godly women I know seem to be living with the mindset that their lives will be holy once they’ve “arrived” at some spiritual spot in the future that they feel merits the word. I used to think like that. These are women who are showing up each and every day, broken and journeying and healing and hoping and working their tails off. They’re suffering and loving and raising their kids and discerning God’s will bravely and imperfectly…just like you and me.

Every last one of them inspires me.

I wonder what the world would look like if we all viewed ourselves with the kind of mercy and respect with which our friends view us…with which God views us.

I wonder what the world would look like if we remembered that God doesn’t get tired of us falling and then beginning again. We are the ones who get tired of ourselves.

Learning to see ourselves as God sees us

I’ve been reading Dr. Greg Bottaro’s book The Mindful Catholic this summer, and boy has it been a gift for me as I continue to grow into that merciful, ‘begin again’ mindset. Catholic mindfulness is nothing if not an invitation to learn how to see ourselves more like God sees us.

In The Mindful Catholic, Dr. Bottaro writes that:

Mindfulness is the awareness of the present moment with acceptance and nonjudgment…Mercy is at the heart of nonjudgmental awareness. A dispostion of acceptance and nonjudgment toward yourself is a disposition like that of God, who sees you with the dignity he created you with, and looks with deep love and mercy at you. This gaze of love sees past the mistakes you make to the heart of who you are. It is far too easy to associate who we are with what we do. While it is true that our actions are important, there is a core of our identity that is deper than what we do or don’t do. This is the foundation of the gaze we need to learn how to look at ourselves with. Trustful surrender to God in the midst of any circumstance is possible only if we can experience deeply that God thinks we are good and worth his love. This sense needs to also inform the way we feel about ourselves.

I’m just sharing from the step I’m on, ya’ll.

Because what I’ve been learning over the past couple of years in particular about being merciful toward myself is so needed in our culture. Maybe even and especially for Christian mothers.

Let’s make “begin again” our motto. When we lose our temper with our children. When we sleep in instead of wake up on time for that morning prayer routine. When we shoot off that uncharitable comment about a friend. When we have a bad morning. When stress and anxiety feel all-consuming, and we realize it’s time to retreat into that inner room and talk to God about it all.

Wherever you are today, I pray that you would be open to spending time in prayer seeking the truth about how God truly sees you and what He is actually asking of you at this moment. And I pray that your heart would find rest of every kind in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

A friend shared this incredibly beautiful song by Sarah Kroger with me recently. It’s kind of the perfect song to accompany this post:)

The post Why “begin again” is the motto every Catholic mom should have appeared first on Erin Franco.

I’ve lost count of how many friends, family and acquaintances will be venturing into homeschooling this fall. Families have every reason under the sun for choosing homeschooling, but the pandemic has definitely added many new ones.

This post isn’t a manifesto on why homeschooling is the best thing you can do (it’s not), or how to make the perfect schedule (if you’ve figured that out, email me), or how to not mess up your kids (there’s probably no recipe for that:).

Whatever your reasons for homeschooling or why you’re here, I hope this post will lift your spirit, give you a few practical tips, and help you to find and maintain more peace with homeschooling.

First things first: What homeschooling is NOT

Homeschooling is not this awesome, good-for-you thing that only the most brave, organized, patient, and holy moms are “called” to. Please don’t put a cape on me!:) If I had a dollar for how many times I’ve talked to a non-homeschooling mom who has said she could never homeschool because she’s not patient or organized enough…well, I’d hire a lot more help around here.

Homeschooling is also not the best option for every family, right now or at any time. It’s a multifaceted, very personal lifestyle choice made for a reason, a season, or a lifetime by families of remarkably diverse backgrounds. And it’s something that you’re going to be seeking God’s will about if you’re a praying kind of girl.:) God’s got homeschooling for a season or a while in his wonderful Plan for some families but has a wonderful Plan involving other school options for others.

If God opens doors to homeschooling for you, or just seems to be making it your only real option right now, you can join my club. I actually started homeschooling five years ago simply because we couldn’t afford our parish’s Catholic school, but wanted a daily environment for our kids that integrated our Catholic faith. I never would have considered homeschooling seriously unless I had to. It’s not been all sunshine and roses, but the benefits to my family and the relationships with my particular kids have been huge.

Every (homeschooling) mom battles insecurity

Self-doubt and insecurity haunt homeschooling moms just like any other mom. Here is my Titus 2-cents wisdom from the trenches, though.

Don’t talk to the snake

Don’t talk to the snake. Don’t let him waste your time and drain your mental energy. Tell those d-words where to go and banish discouraging thoughts as soon as you are aware of them. Our job is to show up with our loaves and fishes each day, and trust that God makes it enough. Plan the work, then work the plan…as best you can with what each day brings and what you have to offer. Do what is right in front of you in each moment, and leave the thought of all the rest to Him.

Be gentle with yourself

Remember that we are usually much, much harder on ourselves than God is on us. It is an ancient, terrible Christian heresy to believe that when we have two options, God always asks the harder thing of us. If a friend came to you with your same set of circumstances and challenges, what would you counsel her? You wouldn’t say things like, “Man up and get it done!” or “You’re not cut out for this–you’re too flaky and weak and selfish and impatient and _______.”

No. You’d build her up and remind her of her strengths. You’d speak to her of her good, good Father in Heaven who doesn’t want her to beat herself up all the time, and who is pleased with her just as she is.

The devil’s favorite tool is comparison

Don’t compare your family, your life, your homeschool, your History curriculum, your post-partum body, your decorating skill, your kids’ sports achievements, your cupcakes, your virtue, your anything, to anyone else.

If you remember one thing from this post, let it be that.

Don’t compare yourself to the one homeschooling mom acquaintance you know who had cookies in the oven, a reasonably tidy house, adorable crafts on her walls, and her five children idyllically doing their two-grades-ahead math homework in the huge treehouse in the backyard—the one time ever you stepped into her house.

We’re so quick to judge ourselves wanting from limited observations of pieces and highlights of other people’s lives.

But you know that mom I described above? She fights insecurity as much as anybody else. Her journey to finding and maintaining peace has been the greatest fight of her life so far. Very few people in her life know how much she’s been through. But she’s come far. She is a great mom, and has been successful in homeschooling her children so far, and she does bake a killer batch of chocolate chip cookies when she’s stressed out.

Her kids aren’t really doing math two grades ahead of them though. Not even close. I would know.

Because she’s me.

That day you stopped by my house, my husband went into work late and so was able to help corral the kids to do some extra cleaning up. I stayed up too late and got up too late, so used paper plates for breakfast again to make cleanup faster. The crafts on the walls were ones my older kids made themselves from a kit my aunt dropped off recently. The younger kids’ crafts are all from their Mother’s Day Out classes from last school year. (Yep, since we’ve been able to afford it, my two youngest boys attend MDO during the homeschool year three days per week!). We do have a huge treehouse in our backyard that my husband built himself, but a couple of the big kids were doing their math work in it only because I banished them from the house. The bickering that morning had literally been so ridiculous that I blew my lid at one point around 10:30am, and had to throw on another episode of Wild Kratts for the littles and step into my bedroom for ten minutes to calm down. I hadn’t gotten dressed yet anyway for the day, so my self-imposed time out did double duty.

See how there’s a very different picture than the one insecurity could paint?

Stay in the Truth, sister. Pray for the grace to hold the horses on discouraging thoughts that make you feel worse about your life and question Everything You’re Doing. If God calls you to this homeschooling gig for a time, He will get you through it.

God doesn’t waste any time that we spend trying to do His will. He works it all together for our good. So make it your motto to never go into your head alone; always bring Jesus with you. Take it from someone who has been there, big time, and is finally (more often than not) on the other side of insecurity and fear. When we ask for bread, He will not give us a stone.

Happily Ever After moments

On the other side of that visit you made to my house, though, we probably had a lovely afternoon. While my toddlers took an extra-long nap (win!), those chocolate chip cookies I stress-baked tasted amazing with glasses of ice-cold milk while I read a little more of Summer of the Monkeys to my big kids. There are some awesome moments that homeschooling can give us with our kids.

I like to think of homeschooling as having Happily Ever After moments. It is sometimes so hard and feels impossible, but there are sprinklings of idyllic moments if I can remember to live in gratitude and look for them.

What my own homeschool looks like

If you’re a new homeschooling mom, you probably needed the above part of my post more than what’s below. But in case you’re wondering what I personally do in my homeschool, I’m happy to share.:)

I’m going into my sixth year of homeschooling. I’ve homeschooling multiple students from PreK through 4th grade so far. We do our schoolwork on our kitchen table because we don’t have a separate school room in our modest home. And yes, sometimes it feels like I am constantly decluttering and getting after the kids to clean up. But it all works, somehow. And when it doesn’t…God provides. Or we just take the day off….#homeschoolingperk:)

That’s where my experience lies, but I’m happy to share what I’ve done so far. So often we don’t need or even want an expert, though. We just want to hear from somebody who’s a step or two ahead of us in something–and seems to be doing okay.

Scheduling

I only plan to do schoolwork on Monday through Thursday. I personally like to start my school year by mid-August, and end in mid-May, which gives me lots of flexibility for holidays, trips, stomach bugs and just-because-its-too-pretty days off.

Fridays are my flex day, for doctors’ appointments, house cleaning, field trips, or travel. If we couldn’t do school one or two of the regular school days of the week, sometimes I’ll do the work on that Friday, or sometimes I’ll just call it a two-day or three-day week. That’s a big perk of homeschooling, at least with a style that doesn’t require a lot of deadlines, which is easier to find in the younger grades where I still am.

I use a teacher’s planner to write out assignments once a week–usually during my toddlers’ nap time on Friday, Saturday or Sunday afternoons. I try not to have to use Sundays if possible for this.:) I have a spiral notebook for each child that I write their daily assignments down in each morning. I’ve had success writing assignments down on our dry erase board and letting the kids check things off as they go, but my toddlers would erase things 90% of the time, so I moved back to the notebook idea.

Ideally, getting sit-down-with-Mom schoolwork done by lunchtime is my goal, with older children able to use our family’s after-lunch couple of hours of rest and reading to finish work that can be done independently. In our house, Naptime has a capital N. I’ve had napping children in my home for 11 years straight now, so it’s a part of my routine that I depend on. I do chores and start dinner during Naptime. My older children read, listen to an audiobook, or find something else quiet to do. I almost always take a short nap and some prayer time as well.

Each summer, I plan a couple of all-day planning days where Michael gets the kids out of the house for most of the day. On the first day, I clean out my homeschooling cabinet completely and order books for the next school year. The second day I do once all the books are in; I go through each subject and figure out how each one will look, how to lesson plan with it, where to start the student in the material, etc.

From the start, I told Michael that one way he could support me in homeschooling was this specific scheduled time in the house alone to organize and plan. At least for me, I need these chunks of time to wrap my brain around things and be more at peace that I’ll have time to do what I need to do.

What I do with littles

This is tough one. Googling “what to do with littles while homeschooling” will get you tons of ideas. It wasn’t a big issue for me in past years when I only had one sweet little girl too young for school. She just kind of played by herself and at a lot of snacks. But the past few years blessed me with two wild little boys 15 months apart (they’re now almost-4 and 2 1/2). I’ll be honest, homeschooling when they were home (and weren’t napping twice a day anymore!) got to be tough. Sometimes, I felt like it was completely impossible. And sometimes it is. With littles, you have to plan to adjust constantly and be creative. Also, it is so important to be patient with yourself and with where your family is.

Now, there’s something we need to get out of the way: Don’t be afraid to use educational TV shows and iPad games.

I do! And they’re a Godsend when you don’t have older siblings or daycare to help with younger children. Don’t let the devil make you feel guilty. There are tons of amazing shows for kids. And realistically, you’re not going to need to park them in front of the TV for hours and hours. A well-timed show or two will do the trick beautifully and bring peace to your home.

I do have a special box of little kid manipulatives and fun toys for my littles that only comes out during school time, but my little boys are far less interested in sitting down for quiet play than my little girl was. That’s how it goes, too. What works for one child, or a season, doesn’t work for another one. I actually switched for a time to homeschooling during the little boys’ naptime in the afternoon. I’d do all my house chores and cooking in the morning, then homeschool in the afternoons. I didn’t love that schedule, but it worked for a time.

Then last year, we were blessed to finally be able to afford Mother’s Day Out nearby for my boys. It was a huge gift to our family and a win all around. We are hoping that MDO still goes forward as planned for this fall, and I’ve even put my almost-four-year-old in the part-time PreK program there. I always tell people that homeschooling mommas in particular have to ask for, accept, and pay for as much help as they can! There’s nothing wrong and everything humble in that. There’s a lot of humility to be learned in not wanting everybody to think you’re Superwoman just because you’ve made a choice that adds a lot to your plate.

Homeschooling with littles is one challenge that every mom has to feel out on her own. And again, don’t compare yourself to me with MDO or another mom with only older children or whoever it is whose life you wish you had when you’re dreading (or in the middle of!) a tough situation trying to do a science experiment while nursing a baby and wiping up the third milk splatter of the day on the wall. You’re in good company. And you’ll be fine and I promise that your kids will be fine. Take it from someone who’s been there.:)

“Socialization”?

I have gotten this comment so many times–the one where someone is concerned about how I’m socializing my children. I always tell people this: You can do anything badly. You can have weird homeschooled kids, for sure, but honestly there are struggling or offbeat kids in every other educational option out there, too. At least in my experience over the past 5 years, there’s not a pitfall or tendency of homeschooling to make kids socially awkward. My kids and my kids’ friends are pretty normal kids with the whole range of temperaments and personalities that come with being human.

My oldest is only 10, but so far I’m not at all worried about my kids (or my friends’ children). I haven’t put my kids in tons of activities so that we can “make up for” not having them in school–although we’ve done different activities over the years for sure. At different times we’ve been involved with taekwondo, dance, soccer, guitar, violin, piano, and different Catholic boys and girls clubs.

We have many friends, and socialization just hasn’t been a concern for us. Michael and I would like to think we’re doing our best to assess where each child is, each year, as well as what the family as a whole needs and what our marriage needs. Also…what I need. Here are 10 things I ask myself when discerning my family’s schedule.

Resources i’ve loved

The Read-aloud Revival

Sarah Mackenzie and her Read Aloud Revival have been my go-to for homeschooling encouragement and good children’s book recommendations for years. I don’t actually have a membership (I tried it but found I didn’t use it); however, the free book lists and podcasts are gold. Sarah’s book Teaching from Rest is one I honest-to-goodness re-read every summer now.

St. Thomas Aquinas Academy

I used a classical Catholic homeschool program called St. Thomas Aquinas Academy for several years, and it was a fantastic option for my particular personality and needs for those years. I especially loved the peace of mind having someone else help me make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything, and was building each year toward a goal.

You pay annual “tuition” with STAA, and get yearly testing and subject placement for each student, a personal counselor to make recommendations for curricula, a planning call to plan out how much and how often and how to teach each subject for each child (or when to group students together!). Then you have a generous number of pre-paid hours of phone calls with your counselor to use whenever you want. My counselor, Debbie, was exactly what I needed to feel supported, encouraged, and equipped.

Debbie also helped me figure out how to homeschool my oldest child, a wiggly, sensitive little boy who had been in traditional school for a couple of years before we began homeschooling him. Gabe struggled with not being able to sit still at school for things like centers and story time, and with being too rough on the playground or in lines. He also struggled to focus and keep up academically. I’ll never forget when as a Kindergartener he told me in the carpool one day that, “he’d just never be one of the smart, good kids.” I spent many an hour with Debbie figuring out ideas for helping Gabe become a confident student and happy learner again. She was a treasure for me! We started homeschooling mainly for financial reasons, but in retrospect with how happy and confident Gabe has become, I know it was a God thing that we started homeschooling.

I’ll be doing my own thing (cobbling together different curricula on my own!) for the first time this year, though. I feel I’m at a place now where I’m confident enough to try some new things and see how the kids like them.

Curricula I’ve used over the years

This is not an exhaustive list. There is a lot on here because often, Debbie would recommend slightly different things for different students based on how they learned or what they needed that school year. I loved that about STAA. She helped me to figure out who needed a little extra sit-down-with-mom help that year, and who could happily tackle a workbook on his or her own.

Learning Without Tears

Faith and Life

Classical Kids CDs

Building Writers workbooks

Seton handwriting workbooks

Story of the World

Apologia science

Math U See

Writing Tales

Writing with Ease

The Body Book

Draw, Write, Now! books

BOB books

The Harp and Laurel Wreath

Little Angel Readers

Miquon

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

A Child’s History of the World

Voyages in English

Language of God

Explode the Code

Faith and Freedom Readers

Christian Liberty Nature Readers

My Catholic Speller

Various Mother of Divine Grace curricula

New curricula I’ll be using this coming school year

The Story of Civilization

Meet the Composers

Blessed

Story of the Bible Vol. I and II

Beginning Latin I

Geography Centers workbooks

IEW Structure and Style

Poetry Memorization (IEW)

The Good and the Beautiful (for handwriting, science, and art)

Whew! That’s a wrap! I hope this post has been helpful to your heart and to your planning as a new homeschooler. God bless you and give you His remarkable peace wherever you are right now!

The post New to Homeschooling? This Will Calm Your Heart appeared first on Erin Franco.

Even though I haven’t released a new episode of The Right Heart Podcast since 2016, I still get emails regularly asking if I am going to ever podcast again, or where the episodes are (they’re all right here!)

Just so you know: I’d love to podcast again someday. It’s always in the back of my mind in discernment. I’ll keep ya’ll updated on that.:)

I’ve been growing into my family for the past few years, and that’s where I felt called and where I was physically and mentally able to be. Honestly, it was a relief when I gave myself permission to stop podcasting and blogging for a while so I could…sleep.

The year I released The Right Heart Podcast, I got pregnant with Baby #4, Roman, who is now almost 4. Then Baby #5, Aidan, came fast and furious right behind him, which threw me for a loop and keeps my hands full to this day. I also started homeschooling my two oldest children in 2016, and have been growing into three homeschooled students for the past several years.

I’ve been doing a couple of speaking events per year for the past few years, and I also had fun creating “The Catholic Mom Minute,” an ongoing series of one-minute vignettes I record for my local radio station. (If you’re interested in bringing the Catholic Mom Minute to your local Catholic radio station, shoot me an email here.)

But mostly, I’ve been busy surviving my blessings and trying to be present to what God put in front of me, just like every good-hearted Christian momma ever.:) In the past year, though, God’s been giving me a little more space to dive ease back into more ministry. It’s been such a joy for me, honestly. Last fall, I gave a retreat for mothers with my dear friend Jill Fruge, which we called the Titus 2 Mothers’ Day of Reflection.

I am finally getting around to sharing my keynote talk from that retreat. It’s one of my favorite talks, ever. It’s my personal story of battling deep insecurity, anxiety, and overwhelm with a litany of truths concerning the goodness of God.

I also want to share this link to my friend Jill’s beautiful talk on finding Christ in her marriage and in each of her children. Jill is one of my Titus 2 mom friends. She’s a physician and working mother of six, is active in our parish ACTS community, and is just an incredible woman in so many ways.

Enjoy!

The post Miss my podcast, The Right Heart? Here’s a talk I gave recently about my battle with anxiety, insecurity and overwhelm that I think you’ll enjoy appeared first on Erin Franco.

It’s been a few days weeks now since the glow of All the Lovely Family Time has worn off a bit for Michael and me. How about you?

But honestly, we’ve had a lot going on over here.

A few weeks before quarantine hit our area, Michael broke his arm in a freak accident at home. He ended up having to have the arm rebroken weeks later and five screws put in. Right around that time, we started experiencing some financial difficulties. All the stress contributed to a mixup with my hormone medication that made me a little extra edgy (among other things). And, of course, the education of my children–just like millions of other parents–changed overnight to the less-than-ideal. My whole homeschooling model this school year depended on my three- and two-year-old sons being in Mother’s Day Out three mornings a week. For everyone who has ever wondered what homeschooling moms do with the Littles while trying to supervise older children in their schoolwork, I have next-to-zero advice, except for this mantra I picked up from my precious three-year-old niece Adelynn:

Count to ten, take a break, make a plan, do your best.

Oh, the wisdom from the mouth of babes.

So, yeah, we’ve been scrambling a little over here. I’ll be honest. But our faith life as a couple has been a huge gift and help lately.  

Meeting in the middle

I thank God for the Domestic Church movement helping Michael and me learn how to pray together, especially because we are so different in how we approach our spiritual lives. (And by different, I mean the polar opposite that you can be while both being the same religion.)

I’m the spontaneous-out-loud-oversharing-kinda-rambly-steals-everything-you-were-gonna-say pray-er of the two of us. Michael is most comfortable praying silently and alone.

But you know what? Over the past six years of being in Domestic Church, we’ve plugged away as best we could to meet in the middle with couple prayer. I’ve tried to tone down, and Michael has never failed to show up. We both respect the heck out of each other for it.

Michael still doesn’t absolutely love praying out loud with me (or anyone else). He gave me permission to share that. But he’s a lot more comfortable than he used to be. He’s also much stronger at spontaneous prayer these days than he thinks he is.:)

Praying together as a couple is so powerful because it’s two spouses both believing in God enough to invite Him into their sacrament, over and over again. It’s an act of faith, together. It’s not about being fancy, or long-winded, or having all the right words.

During the craziness of the past several months, it’s hard to explain the peace that comes with knowing Michael and I are consistently inviting God into this, together. The way God is showing up big time in our marriage right now is even harder to express.

The most intimate act of your marriage?

Praying as a couple is just about the most intimate thing you can do with your spouse. Honestly, I’d argue that it’s more intimate in many ways than physical intimacy.

That’s why it’s so hard sometimes.

I’ve spoken about marriage and couple prayer many times in my work with Domestic Church movement. I have met tons of strong Christian couples who have shared how much they struggle with couple prayer.

Again–this is intimate stuff. And it’s still feels that way often for Michael and me. Sometimes, we’re so mad that we have to practically pray through gritted teeth. Sometimes, we’re so exhausted that we only manage an Our Father in the dark as we’re falling asleep (which is more than fine!). But if you haven’t had prayer together be a part of your marriage before, I encourage you to try it.

Need just a little more encouragement? Learning to pray as a couple brings more emotional and spiritual intimacy to your marriage, which is a tremendous help to physical intimacy.

10 ideas to begin, boost, or bless praying with your spouse

In this time of pandemic, when extraordinary stresses are attacking marriages everywhere, it’s been on my heart to put together this list of 10 ideas to begin, boost, or bless prayer with your spouse. Michael and I have personally used all of these ideas at one time or another in our marriage. And as we have had to deal with each new stressor that’s come at us during quarantine, we’ve needed to change things up and even go back to things we’ve tried before.

My goal is that every couple will be able to find at least one or two helpful new ideas on this list that speak to them right where they are. And in case you need to hear this–don’t we all?!–right where you are is a holy place.

We all talk about wanting to have a holy marriage and family like it’s something we aspire to be someday, but every time you pray with your spouse in any way, you are holy. Every time you pray for your spouse, you are holy. Every time you get out of bed and show up to your marriage and family with your loaves and your fishes, you are holy.

So take heart. Be bold. Because your marriage has as much potential as God has power. And in this strange time for our world and even for my own family, I say that to myself. God is present. He is moving in this time.

Marriages are being attacked for so many as never before. Let’s fight for our marriages and families by getting on our knees both alone and together.

As St. John Paul II said, “So goes the family, so goes the world.”

The post 10 Simple Ideas to Begin, Boost or Bless Praying with Your Spouse appeared first on Erin Franco.

“So Erin,” said a Catholic radio morning show host last week, “You’re a homeschooling mom of five, so you’re a pro at having everyone home with you all the time. What tips can you give all the listeners out there in quarantine suddenly spending all day long with their kids and struggling to get things done in the chaos?”

For a moment, I internally kicked myself hard for saying yes to this interview.

Because all that was coming to mind was a dead-honest, gut reaction of an answer: Jesus and coffee. That’s really all I’ve got for you.

God always gives us more than we can handle

My spiritual director is so good at reminding me that I’m doing the impossible.

I tried for years to read all the right books and all the right bloggers, but I have never been able to schedule, plan, or chore-chart my way to perfect peace in my home.

It’s an unbelievable amount of work to educate my children, figure out three square meals a day for seven people, and keep everyone in clean underwear.

But guess what?

I know lots of beautiful, strong Catholic families whom a lot of people look up to, and their kids drive them bananas with bickering, too. The mommas struggle with patience, anxiety, and difficulties in marriage too. And by the end of the day, their toddlers rarely have pants on either.

Not to mention the spouses sometimes snap at each other, yell at their kids, or throw pack ‘n plays across the room in frustration, too. (Can I tell you what a grace I received when I found out one day talking to a friend I wasn’t the only one whose has ever manhandled a Deluxe Graco Pack n’ Play in anger?)

It doesn’t matter what your situation is–whether you were already homeschooling or whether you have one child home or eight, younger children or older children: God always gives us more than we can handle.

Imperfection comes with the package of family life, and it’s not because you’re doing things all wrong or you just haven’t figured out all the tips and tricks to make your family life be as smooth and Pinterest/Snapchat/Instagram-worthy as you think you’re supposed to be making it.

It’s because if we could handle everything family life threw at us by finding the perfect blend of schedule, rules, organization, and healthy living practices, we wouldn’t need God.

So, if life is crazy right now at your house, it’s partly because the world is crazy right now and partly because family life itself is a challenge by design.

I want to share a few simple things I’ve been doing to fight to keep my peace of heart during these last weeks.

Three things I’m doing to seek and maintain peace of heart during quarantine

– 1 –

I’m staying off my phone more

My anxiety and stress hit a high point a few weeks ago, and in prayer that day I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me clearly that I needed to fast from my phone.

No news. No social media. Email and bare-minimum texting twice per day.

It helped a lot.

If you’re really struggling with discouragement or anxiety, my first recommendation is to fast completely off social media, email and texting for a set amount of time. I was inhaling so much communication and information on my phone that I was constantly on my phone instead of present to my kids.

– 2 –

I’m praying (a lot) more

Some of Mother Teresa’s sisters once came to her during a difficult and busy time and asked if they could schedule less prayer time so that they could have more time to serve the needy and get things done.

Mother Teresa’s answer was that they needed to add an hour more of prayer to their day.

This is true for me. During these last few weeks of quarantine and some other stresses in my life, I’ve needed more time with Jesus than I have in a while, and boy has He been coming through.

One thing I realized because of fasting from my phone was that reading a lot of religious or positive content on social media and text messages was creating the illusion that was doing a lot of praying–when I actually wasn’t.

– 3 –

I’m being kind to myself

I think most of us at home with our families want to make the most out of this special season, but we have to make sure we are not putting self-imposed pressure on ourselves to make every day memorable and educational. Pushing myself to be Susie Homemaker Meets Fun Mommy Meets Educator Extraordinaire while I’m a hot mess until I’m a hot mess puts a damper on the entire family.

Especially during quarantine, I’m being intentional about being kind to myself. Extra rest. Daily naps when at all possible. Reading. Daily walks. Skipping laundry for prayer time or to watch an occasional Jane Austen movie (I loved the new Emma!). Eating cookie dough for one (see recipe at the end of the post:).

And definitely, when needed, I’m more than fine with a little extra screen time for the kids. The quality time with my kids has been awesome. We’ve made beautiful memories from some activities I planned and many things that I didn’t. I’m not worried that a little extra down time for me and them is doing any harm when we’re having so much extra quality time as a family lately.

I am called to do the impossible as a mom, and so are you. We join in Jesus’ own Mother’s footsteps every day of our lives, if we really think about it. Every little yes we say to showing up as a wife and mother, day in and day out, echoes her Yes. And each of those little moments is holy. We all talk about holiness as if we’re hoping to get there one day, rather than realizing that we are holy every single time we say yes to God in the smallest thing.

So yeah, we moms have more than we can handle. Yes, our task is impossible. But God’s math isn’t our math. After all, He’s the kind of God who writes straight with crooked lines.

Part of the equation I have figured out though, is that motherhood requires lots of Jesus…and coffee.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough for One

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp white sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla (I like to add a touch of almond extract, too)

1/8 tsp salt

6 tbsp flour

1/4 cup chocolate chips or M&Ms

Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla and milk, then salt and flour. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Enjoy!

The post Hey moms, if family life feels chaotic during quarantine, here’s why you’re not doing it all wrong (and a recipe, because cookie dough for one is a thing) appeared first on Erin Franco.