**Aside Note: I have been sitting with this blog post for several months, not quite sure about publishing it, but I can think of NO better day than the feast of St. Therese to share how her intercession and friendship has blessed my life and walk with Christ. So, to my home girl- happy feast day!**

“Your will be done, Lord. If this is not your will, please shut the door.”

This was the simple but bold prayer we blurted in a fit of trust as we drove away from the beautiful home that had captured our hearts as first-time home buyers. Though the location was several miles from where we had our sights set (and far beyond the borders of the parish community we had come to love), it was the type of house we could picture building a home and raising our family in.

“What do you think?” My husband asked as he gripped my hand with excitement. I couldn’t hide the smile in my voice as I responded, “I think we should make an offer…”

Riiiiingggg.

I looked down at my phone as our real estate agent’s name flashed across the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Faith, it’s Steve. I’ve got some bad news….”

I felt my heart drop. Sure enough, God had shut the door, just as we’d asked Him to do, be it His will. Just ten minutes prior to our agent’s phone call, the sellers of this house we so adored accepted an offer from someone else.

Funny, I mused to myself, how disappointing an answered prayer can sometimes be.

And yet, it was the prayer we kept at the forefront of our home search as we continued onward. We knew in a market where homes were selling within just hours of being listed, we wouldn’t have the exorbitant amount of time we would normally take to sit and pray with a decision this big.

So, we moved forward, trusting God to guide us as we made decisions rather than waiting for Him to tell us which decisions to make. And guide, He did.

The next house we loved, we jumped at. We were the very first to look at it, and the first buyers to make an offer, which we truly believed to be a solid and fair one. “Shut the door, Lord, if this isn’t your will.”

We anxiously awaited for the seller to review the numerous offers he’d gotten, certain that ours would be the best. Four days later, our agent called us, sympathy in his voice as he told us they’d gone with another offer. Our search was back on.

By this point, I was disappointed and frustrated. We had looked at countless houses. We had made two strides forward on two different houses only to be set back at the beginning. This was not the fun, dreamy experience I imagined first time home-buying would be.

Even still, somewhere deep in my heart was a welling of gratitude and awe. We were trusting Jesus…and He was delivering, in a very tangible way.

The next “this is it” house we looked at felt different from the start. We went to the open house after Sunday mass. We were pleased by everything we saw and we felt willing to make a more aggressive offer than we had previously. We prayed, asking God to give us a dollar amount. He laid one on my heart. We called our agent and he drew up papers. I realized, on the drive home from signing them, that it was the feast day of St. Therese of Lisuex, a saint to whom I’ve had a long time devotion, and whose little way to Jesus has always inspired my own walk alongside Him.

We asked for her intercession and surrendered the outcome, whatever it may be, to the Lord.

That night, we got a call from our agent who exclaimed excitedly: “Congratulations, they’ve accepted your offer!”

I felt the praise lift from my heart to the Heavens.

Fast-forward several days- we received a call from our Inspector that there was a major issue with the layout of the duct work in the house that would need to be re-done in order for it to be safe to reside in the home. We felt our hearts sink as we braced for further disappointment. In short, we had to alter our offer on the home to one that was several thousand dollars less than our original offer, which meant there was a good chance the sellers would back out and put the home back on the market. We stood our ground with our offer, knowing we could not, in good conscience, buy the home unless we were certain we could obtain the necessary fixes. That evening, on our way home from a Matt Maher concert, our agent called us again. I could hear his smile through the phone. “Good news- they accepted your new offer.”

We arrived back to our rental home, thanked my sister-in-law for spending her evening babysitting Joe so we could attend the concert and settled in for the night. I was surprised to find a beautiful red rose sitting on our kitchen table in a glass of water…not putting the puzzle pieces together until the next day, I realized I had found the rose  within the hour of hearing the news from our agent that the house was still ours. I felt the goosebumps appear on my skin as I thought of St. Therese; we had asked for her intercession and there, on the day of our answered prayer, was a beautiful rose waiting for us- a tangible reminder for us of God’s faithfulness and nearness to even the smallest worries in our lives.

We have now been living in our sweet little home for half a year, despite other road bumps encountered before the deal was totally sealed (another post for another time) and could not be more grateful or blessed to be where we are at. We are nearer to my parents, to some of our best friends, to our Church Community…and over the past year have had the blessing of getting to know our next door neighbor, Ms. Barbara, who we have been able to help serve through some difficult transitions.

As in many other places in my life, I look back on the (literal) shut doors with gratitude, awe- humbled to have been able to witness the Holy Spirit moving so clearly in our chaotic discernment. Not only has this house become the safe-haven for our domestic Church, the place we pray and grow and learn together, but it is a physical reminder of what happens when we follow the example of saints like Therese and trust wholeheartedly in Jesus; when we step into His loving arms and relinquish our will and surrender the control we never really had to begin with, He provides.

 

 

I (Faith, here!) remember the first time I heard Jesus’ Divine Mercy described as an “ocean”.

“Immerse us in the ocean of your mercy, Lord” I have prayed fervently, time and time again, whether beseeching this grace for the betterment of my little family or that of the entire human race. It has always made sense to me, the idea of God’s mercy being an ocean. The ocean is vast, its depths fathomless.

It seems it would be only fitting to liken God’s mercy to such as the sea.

I was thinking this same thing as I admired the beautiful ocean stretched out to the horizon while standing ashore Crystal Beach in Destin, Florida just a week ago, my son excitedly clutching my hand next to me.

One of the greatest joys of that trip to Destin was being able to introduce him to the ocean for the very first time. As most toddlers, he is quite repetitive. Give him a snack, and he’ll undoubtedly ask for “more”, even after eating the entire bag of teddy grahams. Tickle his belly in a way that leaves his little body shaking with laughter and he will, without fail, beg through his giggles “again.” That is one of his favorite words in fact, one he will impart when something which sends wonder through him happens.

He hears/sees a plane in the sky? A clap of thunder resounds? We drive past a bridge (his current obsession)?

Without missing a beat, he’ll turn to me, his eyes wide, and beseech “Again?”

And so it was with much joy (and satisfaction) that, as he stood in the surf for the first time, grinning from ear to ear as a wave washed past his knees and looked up to joyfully ask “again?”, that I was able to say “Yes, sweetie. Again. It will happen again. And again. And again. You’ve only to stand there and let it hit you.”                                                              

And then it hit me…to the right, the sun was setting behind a string of condos and buildings, smearing the sky into a pink and orange covered canvas… to the left stretched miles and miles of sand, the whitest I’ve ever seen… and in front of me, the ocean moved and breathed and danced—her tide hurling itself upon my toes, receding seconds later, only to return once again.

Over and over (and over) again, this happened.

I realized in that moment that it is not just the seeming endlessness of the ocean that makes it comparable to God’s mercy. It’s also its rhythm. It’s motion.

It returns.

Without fail.

Every time.

That is the movement of God’s mercy. It is a tide that will only ever return to beckon us Home, no matter how many times we fail.

It is as present to us in the moments that we doubt it as in the moments we seek it.

It is always there, always coming back to us, calling out to us. Just like grace, it is a gift given freely…just like grace, it is one which we must accept in order for it to accomplish its work in our lives.

I’d like to imagine that God, in His infinite goodness, saw us as we are, people subject to living within minutes and seconds and hours, people ever changing, growing- always in motion- and knew that we would need His Mercy  to be the same way in order for it to reach us where we are, at any given moment.

Perhaps that’s why Scripture tells us that God’s mercies for us are new every morning.

Just as the waves of the sea continually wash upon the shore, changing its composition a little at a time, so, too, is the Lord’s mercy ,thrusting itself against the sands of our hearts, ready to erode away the parts of our lives that are not for our good or His greater glory—to make us new.

To make us whole.

Last weekend, I had the privilege of attending the 3^rd annual Pro-Life Women’s Conference put on by Abby Johnson’s ministry “And Then There were None” in conjunction with several other fantastic sponsors. I’ll be honest, as someone who has been actively working in the pro-life movement since junior year of college, I pridefully and wrongfully assumed most of what I’d be hearing would be things I already knew. And while there were a lot of things that I already “knew” with my head, God absolutely used this weekend to RE-new my heart for the pro-life effort and remind me of these seven imperative lessons for any and all of us who consider ourselves pro-life:

*disclaimer: please note that the following represent my personal views/interpretations, and are in no way representative of any of the views held by the aforementioned organizations

1) The pro-life movement (encompassing all issues concerning the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death) is one of RESTORATION. What I mean by that, is that at the heart of our work in these matters is (or should be) an effort to ‘restore  to a truth’ rather than “fix a “problem”. These issues we find ourselves facing—abortion…euthanasia…suicide…these are wounds. They are symptoms, not the root, of the brokenness that exists in our fallen world. Having personally discussed this with many a philosopher, I truly believe that at the crux of these wounds is an identity crisis. (for which Theology of the Body is TOTALLY the anecdote – but I digress, another post for another time). As a collective society, we have forgotten or for some, perhaps, never understood or been told, that our inherent dignity lies outside of ourselves and in the One who created us; that it is in Him alone we will find true satisfaction & true knowing of ourselves. If we don’t know our Father, and are thus, unable to truly know ourselves, we will not know where to go to fill the voids that inevitably plague us—the ones that cannot be filled by relational love, or temporary highs, or attaining. And when we fail to understand where to receive this affirmation of our dignity which we so desire, our lives will be spent searching for restoration IN the brokenness rather than beyond it. We as pro-life people are called to be bearers of a Truth and bringers of a Light that will restore what has been disordered by sin, namely, the reality and origin of the dignity of every human life.

2)  We should never use another person/group/etc’s pain as a platform for our agenda. There is no denying that abortion is one of, if not the greatest, human rights tragedy of our time. It is the cause of millions upon millions of deaths. It is loss on a scale of epic proportion. But the place to argue this, is not in the wake of someone else’s grief, regardless of whether or not we believe the grief to be ‘valid’. We should never come to that table, with comparison as our goal. The first words to leap from our lips in the discussion of other humanitarian issues should never be “Oh yeah? Well abortion is more tragic than that.” We are pro-life—when a human heart is breaking, hurting, aching, regardless of what brought that about, we should always meet that first and foremost with compassion.

3)  We need to reclaim the narrative surrounding abortion, motherhood, womanhood, and adoption. One fantastic speaker reminded us in her break-out session- “Words shape perception and perception shapes reality.” The smallest words can make the biggest difference in how something is perceived. One example provided at the conference was concerning the perception of adoption in our society. When we use certain phrases like “giving a baby up for adoption” we, often unintentionally, perpetuate a fear surrounding this life-giving, love-giving option. When we say “make an adoption plan” – the whole perception changes, from a mother who is  abandoning a child to one who is intentionally and purposefully making a plan to give that baby a different opportunity than what she can provide. Which is exactly why we need to be SO intentional with our words surrounding all life issues. We need to choose language that validates, that encourages and that authentically empowers those whom we talk to and those whom we talk about.

4)  Community is what happens when we come alongside others and walk with them where they are at. Most people would pin community as a place or a group of people. A noun. But I learned this weekend that true community is a verb. It’s something that happens when ACTION is taken. Community is an outward sign of the Holy Spirit at work within our hearts and our relationships, and when authentic community happens, it is a beautiful sight to behold and a force to be reckoned with.

5)  Our most imperative pro-life work will be accomplished in the smallest things. In loving our spouses. In teaching our children. In being a friend. And so we must be careful not to fall into the notion that being pro-life has more to do with our voting ballot than with how we live our lives day to day. Pro-life is meant to happen at the heart level, first, and flow outward from there. It is not just to be a value we hold, but a mannerism in which we live, speak, act and treat those around us.

6) OUR. Stories. Matter. SO much. And, on one level or another, we are each called to share them. Whether we are mothers, or grandmothers, or students, or single young adults—whether we’ve known great suffering or not—whatever God has done or is doing in our lives, is not meant just for us. Revelation 12:11 says “they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony.” This verse in itself is proof that not only does your story matter, it is needed to overcome the work of the Enemy of Life in our world. He is conquered by Jesus, and then again by us sharing who Jesus is in our lives and what He has done for us. Boom- double whammy. So never let yourself be told that you are too young, or your wounds too deep or your past too dark. I pray that each of us, when the opportunities arise, will have the courage to share our hearts knowing that what God will do with our courage is far greater and more important than anything that we have to fear.

7)  We as the ‘pro-life movement’ are victorious- but the victory is not “ours” to claim. This probably sounds like an oxymoron, but what I mean is…(as said by one of the fantastic speakers to grace the main stage) “we are walking from a place of victory, not to it” wait. Pause. read that again. “We are walking from a place of victory, not to it.”… because God already conquered all that we are battling. Sin. Death. He has defeated it! And so we have the advantage of knowing the outcome…we WIN, sisters! And that should allow us to go into this battle joyfully. That is why we can be filled with hope even as we stare directly into the face of evil, ugly things. But we cannot do this unless we remember whose victory we carry…it isn’t ours, its God’s. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard pro-life leaders, speakers, ministries, claim that “they” or “we” will be the ones to end abortion in our time. NO, my beloved brethren, “we” will not. The Enemy of Life would certainly love for us to think just that. That somehow, “we” can do it. To put the pressure of such a responsibility on our shoulders and watch as it drains us of our energy, passion and love until nothing but despair and bitterness remain. WE can claim victory because we have been claimed BY Victory, by our Victorious God. Because we are HIS and our identity is in Him and Him alone.

 

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If you’ve made it all the way to the bottom of this post, thank you for sticking it out and reading to the end. I pray this sharing of what I learned will be a source of encouragement, or inspiration, or call to action (or whatever it is that the Lord knows you may need) as you continue to uphold the dignity of every life in all aspects of your own. And if you’d like to continue the conversation started at this conference, I’d love to hear your thoughts and share more of my own- feel free to comment or email!

Love+Blessings,

Faith

Over the course of this Lenten Season, Jesus has been teaching me, little by little, that it is actually possible to be fearless. Not just to be courageous, acting in spite of fear (though this is a great virtue, certainly) but to actually be WITHOUT fear.

I’m sure that must sound crazy. It does a little bit to me still, too when I’m being honest. But since when has the workings of the Holy Spirit in our hearts ever really fit into that neat little box where the constraints of our human understanding reside?

You see, what He has been revealing to me (and continues to), in little and big ways, throughout this desert walk, is the possibility that when one is so intently focused on Him and filled entirely with trust, there is, actually, no room for fear in the mind or heart. When Jesus takes up the full lens, the vision changes entirely. When the trust is boundless, so is the propensity to endure.

I was thinking tonight on my way to ‘keep watch for an hour with my Lord’ in adoration about the role that fear plays in the story of Christ’s passion. In many ways, it is the catalyst to the entire event. The fear of the Pharisees plotting the take down of the man whose mission they so tragically misunderstand. The fear of the apostles coursing as adrenaline through their veins, causing them to flee the side of the truest friend they’ve ever had in His moment of deepest need. The fear which leaps from Peter’s lips in the lie “I do not know this man.” The fear which pits Pilot against his gut as he renders the allowance of Jesus’ crucifixion. The downright terror of Judas after he realizes what he’s done and who He’s turned against.

As we see in these instances in Christ’s passion, and perhaps as we know from our own lives, fear dictates. It monopolizes. And it is neither a kind master nor merciful master. Fear barricades opportunities. It tramples prudence. It snuffs out love.

These realizations dawned on me anew recently as I began experiencing anxiety surrounding none other than my parenting abilities. (because toddlerhood isn’t hard enough, right?) I found myself in a place of constant worry- wondering if I was doing things ‘right’ and ‘enough’ and on and on. At the climax of my wrestle with this fear, my husband gently pushed me out the door to a women’s evening of adoration and reflection, during which a very wise priest shared the general origin of many of the fears we experience as human beings. To paraphrase his beautiful message- ‘we are people built to converse…and we will inevitably do so. And when we don’t converse with the trusted ‘others’ in our Church community and when we don’t converse with Christ, we will talk to ourselves. And it is this inner monologue that produces so much of the worry and anxiety we find ourselves facing about our circumstances.’

The light bulb when on right then and there as I was hit head-on by the truth. There I was, making myself believe that the pressure of parenthood and all the responsibilities it entails were laying squarely on my shoulders. I was relying (or trying to rely) fully on myself to get the job of raising an amazing human done. I was turning inward. And the pressure was paralyzing. The panic had never been more real. Because sisters, the truth, is that isolation breeds doubt. The truth is that whatever we have been given to carry or to do has been given to us in Christ, and it is ONLY in Him and THROUGH Him that we can step forward.

I can’t tell you the relief that flooded the depths of my being that evening as I relinquished the outcomes to Jesus or the peace that came as He whispered to my tired little heart “Just do your best and I’ll do the rest.”

Though since that moment, there have been many more where I have allowed fear to shackle me still, I am so deeply encouraged by those in Christ’s Passion story who lived this trust so fully- Our Mother, Mary, St. John and St. Mary Magdelene stand out to me in particular. It didn’t matter that they were surrounded by an angry mob, that they stood in contrast to the crowd around them, they merely kept their eyes on Christ, and, as such, found no reason to fear intimate proximity to Him, even as He endured horrific suffering. They are proof to me, if nothing else, that while following Christ will not spare heartache, it can be done fearlessly…that it is possible to so deeply desire to just be with Jesus that literally nothing will matter as much as doing so.

In reflecting on all of this—I have thought, too of two stories in contrast to each other—that of Peter when he walks on the water and that of the hemorrhaging woman who stretched out her arm to touch the cloak of Christ in order to be healed. One was told the impossible could be done for Him, the other TRUSTED it would be. If I close my eyes, I can see their walkings as if side by side—Peter atop a stormy sea, the bleeding woman pushing through throngs of people—Peter takes his gaze from Christ’s and turns inward, realizing he alone is not capable of doing what he’s actually doing, he sinks; the woman so determined for Jesus to heal her, so trusting of the fact that He can do what she cannot that ALL she sees is His garment as she reaches forth to touch Him.

The choice is ours, a freely given choice.

And so, as you walk alongside Christ this Good Friday, I encourage you to see Him and ONLY Him. Let the Holy Spirit fill you with the trust that will set you free. Set aside your current crosses and take up His instead.

Matthew 11:30 “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

 

Love+Blessings,

Faith

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

“Repent and believe in the gospel”

Every year on a Wednesday, I hear one of these urgings spoken to me as a thumb print of black ash is swept across my forehead.

The words, the ashes, the altar stripped of decoration and cloaked in purple, the solemn readings- all of it is meant as an invitation to ponder my mortality in the light of God’s Divinity, to consider my life and the things in it and remember which are finite and which are infinite and to adjust my heart accordingly.

I think that for those of us, like me, who had only ever experienced death at a distance, the ask to remember our mortality and be moved by it can fall on somewhat deaf ears- hardened hearts, even.

Which is why I know it was God’s blessing upon me that I happened to be in Hawaii, on the U.S.S Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, no less, when the (accidental) ballistic missile threat occurred earlier this year. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the oil and see its glossy sheen floating atop the waters of the Pacific, only feet above one of the four U.S. ships sunk during the bombing at Pearl Harbor. I can still feel the adrenaline rush in my gut as I read the words eerily pulsing across my cell phone screen while I stand atop a sunken grave: “Alert: Ballistic Missile Bound from North Korea to Hawaii. Seek Shelter Immediately. This is not a drill.”
There was no immediate panic, thankfully. All around my husband and I, people began looking at the same alert as it flashed across their screens, whispering among themselves. It wasn’t until a second alert of the same urgency came, followed by the blaring of sirens as we were rushed from the Memorial back to the main ground of Pearl Harbor that I actually considered death and felt its potential immanency like a shudder down my spine. I inhaled deeply, my hand instinctively reaching for my husband’s. We began to pray a Divine Mercy Chaplet aloud together.

Hundreds of thoughts seemed to come simultaneously. I thought of my baby, Joseph, napping peacefully hundreds of thousands of miles away from us. I thought of the last kiss I had planted on his forehead the night before we left for our long awaited vacation. I thought of the years of his life I wouldn’t be present for, if I truly were to die that day. I thought of all my friends and loved ones. I wondered if death would hurt.

And then, I thought of Jesus.

I thought of Him as He is portrayed in the Divine Mercy Image, hand outstretched, mercy and life pouring out from His most sacred Heart.

As my lips formed over and over again around the prayer “Jesus I trust in you”, I realized that THIS is the moment I had lived my entire life for. The moment when I would greet that loving gaze, face to face….that all the moments preceding this one were steps to get to here. To death. To LIFE.

And for that single moment, my priorities aligned perfectly. Because suddenly, getting that perfect, poetic picture of myself walking on the beach didn’t matter. All of the responsibilities and distractions awaiting me back in ‘every day’ life didn’t matter. How I looked, or sounded like, what others thought of me, what I ate, my joys and sufferings- in that moment, NONE of it mattered as much as Jesus and none of it could distract from the intense, immediate, dawning reality that I NEED Him…and that to trust in Him is the most important thing I could ever do, in my life- and especially, in my death.

Shortly thereafter, the missile threat was dispelled as a mistake.

I watched as around me, relief settled onto a crowd of people who, moments before, had been crying, praying, clinging to one another. People began to laugh and chatter and joke. I realized in that moment how quick we are to cast our mortality to the side in a clever punch line…and how little we really consider the POINT of all this living that we’re doing.

So today, sisters, as we enter into the desert in the shadow of our Lord, I pray that He opens our eyes anew to our own littleness, that our need for Him is realized anew- that the hunger in our stomachs never surpasses the hunger in our hearts for the Heavenly homeland to which we journey and that the HOPE of each finite moment we are given in this life rests grounded in the infinite Eternity for which we were created.

Love+Blessings,

Faith

Dear Camper,

I thought of you today.

I was driving home, a familiar path I’ve traveled hundreds of times, but today, something made me think of YOU. Maybe it was the reflection of my one year old son chirping happily in his car seat in my rearview mirror. Perhaps it was the nostalgia that tends to fill us all around this time of year.

Either way, I thought of you, and as I did, my heart whispered a prayer for your wellness, your happiness, your safety.

It’s been years now, since the weeks we spent together in that glorious, magical place known as The Pines. But even after all this time, I can picture your face so clearly. Of course, I’m sure you look different now. Older. But to me you are frozen in time- one of the best times of my life.

You may not realize this, but YOU were my first experience of motherhood- my first taste of the selflessness and sacrifice that is asked of a parent on a daily basis, my first understanding of how beautiful it can be to die to oneself for the sake of another, my first experience of pouring continuously into the life of another and somehow never coming up empty.

I like to think that part of the reason God crossed our paths is because He knew that someday He’d bless me with a little baby boy who would open my heart to feel and experience and live deeply, in the same way that you did. I like to think (and I really believe) that I’m a better mother today because I knew you and loved you.

I learned so, so many things from you, you know.

From you I learned that JOY, true, deep, untouched joy is as simple as jumping in the pool on a hot summer day, singing a song in the light of a campfire, encountering Jesus for the first time in Adoration.

From you I learned that despite all the sentiments we attach to it, childhood, and especially adolescence can be HARD. My heart still aches when I think of the crosses you were carrying when I met you. But my soul leaps when I recall your bravery and kindness in the face of your suffering. I hope you are still just as brave and kind.

From you I learned unconditional love…what it looks like, what it feels like, what it IS. I learned it because I loved you unconditionally. That’s what I was asked to do, expected to do and equipped to do in the weeks I spent training for our time together. But I also learned from watching YOU love. Your friends around you. The counselors who became your family. And the God-man you met and encountered personally, maybe for the first time ever while on those campgrounds. Your love was a vivacious, full, child-like love that made me wiser, more hopeful, and better.

Yes, I’m a better one for the knowing of you, my dear camper.

I hope that wherever you are now, regardless of whether you remember me, you remember and know still the Jesus you met at summer camp. I pray He is still the most important part of your day, and that you know with certainty and believe with faith that you are the most important part of His. I hope that you have continued to experience joy, and forgiveness and LOVE the way you experienced it at The Pines. I hope that your blessings are abundant, your hurts are few and your sights are set on your heavenly homeland…and I hope that someday, I’ll see you there again and we will celebrate together, home at long last.

GO TREES ->>>

Love,

Cubby

Waiting.

 That infamous verb which, so often, doesn’t feel like a verb at all.

 We all experience phases of waiting in our lives—some short and some very, very long.

 Whether its waiting in line at the grocery store, or waiting in bed for sleep to overtake us, or waiting for results at the doctor’s office, or waiting (and then waiting some more) for Mr. Right to finally pop the question.

Some waits are sprinkled with gleeful anticipation, others marked by the anxious clenching and unclenching of fists…but really, either way, we so often see waiting as synonymous with inconvenience. And so, we are quick to curse the waiting, quick to waste it on self-pity.

In these moments, when the beauty and meaning in our waiting feels lost, thrust away into the abyss of our impatience, we can turn to the example of our Mother Mary for inspiration.

Her waiting was done on the back of a donkey as she traversed thousands of miles of wilderness leading her father and farther from home with each step. Her waiting was done in the quiet of her heart as she pondered the promise of suffering spoken to her by a prophet. Her waiting was done in an upper room, amidst the trembling and woe of her Son’s disciples as they mourned His death. How beautifully Our Lady waited!  She waited, even in the difficult moments (especially then), with a heart full of patient acceptance and unyielding trust, entirely expectant that God would bring His promises to fruition.

 Her example fortifies within us the hope that God can use our waiting, and sometimes even intends it, for our betterment. Yes, perhaps there is a gift meant for us in the waiting, a deeper sweetness brought upon by the reception of something that has been longed for and sought after; perhaps there is a growth in the waiting that widens our capacity to receive.

Perhaps that’s why Mother Church, in her wisdom, has set aside the glorious season of Advent. Contrary to the belief of popular culture, these precious weeks leading up to Christmas are not meant to merely be lumped as one into this holy day. These weeks are meant as a time of waiting. And unlike many of the other periods of waiting in my life, I have always found Advent to be a time of joyful anticipation…I truly love the feeling of building excitement as each week and each candle brings us closer to the celebration of Christmas.

But really, what would that joy be, or would it even be, without the wait?

 Of course, our sweet Jesus does not ask us to give of something which He himself has not given—we can draw comfort, too, in His examples of waiting—for 40 days in the desert, in agony in the silence of a garden, for nine months in the womb of His mother. Such is the beauty of the Incarnation for which we prepare this Advent, that our God Himself was willing to experience waiting and the weight it could beset upon the human heart.

So, my sisters , as we prepare to enter this season of waiting, let us not be dismayed. May we take immense hope in knowing we are not alone or un-thought of In our waitings, whatever they may be. And may we run quickly into the arms of the One who still patiently awaits us in the tabernacle, for even as He pursues us, He waits for us to come.

 Come, let us adore Him.

Love+Blessings,

Faith

There is a little village nestled in the countryside of Herzegovina and Bosnia known for a beautiful tradition called ‘the wedding vows of the crucifix’. For centuries, this town has maintained the practice of centering their marriages around the Holy Cross, recognizing that there is an indissoluble relationship between that union ‘which produces human life’ and the ‘sacrifice which produces divine life’. As a result, they are likely the only city in the world that can claim a divorce rate of 0 among their 13,000 inhabitants.

Upon learning of this tradition, my husband and I were quick to find a way to incorporate it into our wedding mass. I can still recall the feeling of my fingers resting upon the wood of our Celtic Crucifix, interlocked with the fingers of my husband as we promised to love and honor one another, ALL the days of our lives. The priest then reminded us, in front of all of our loved ones (and in the words of the tradition itself) “you have found your cross; it is a cross to be loved, to be carried, not to be thrown away but to be cherished.”

It is a funny, but perhaps, quite fitting image to think of your spouse as your cross, when considered in light of the Cross of Christ. Marriage, or any vocation, isn’t easy. It’s not meant to be a light and airy experience…its meant to be lived out in the trenches of life- in the hard moments, the ones burdened with sickness, marred by hurt; the commitment is for the good times, yes, but even more for the difficult ones.

In thinking of our vocation as a cross, we can learn directly from our savior, Christ, Himself, in how to bear it. We can see from His example of humility how to embrace our cross, to take it up in our arms and cling to it- and more, cling to He who made the cross the very hallmark of  our salvation.

Often we may approach our crosses as Simon of Cyrene, hesitant, or even resistant to bear and to live what is asked of us (what we are called to!). Likely though, just as Simon’s heart was transformed from one of loathing for the cross to love of it—we, too will find that walking  the way of the cross brings us so close to our Jesus that embracing it is no longer such a terrible feat, but a life-giving and gaining one

That Celtic Crucifix present at the exchange of our wedding vows now hangs proudly above the kitchen doorway in our little home—and each day it serves as a reminder to our marriage, to our family, to me—a reminder that we are loved so much by our God that He would become human, come wade through the muck of life and experience every pain we’ve ever felt just to restore us… a reminder that suffering need not be feared, but embraced as an opportunity to love…a reminder that in the end, love always triumphs .

We adore you Oh Christ and we Praise you, because by your Holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

It happens (almost always) as I wait in line for confession. Sometimes I feel it in my gut as I enter the stillness of the adoration chapel. Or just before I divulge a previously hidden feeling to a close friend. It’s that fight or flight instinct which suggests I’d be better off hightailing it the other direction rather than laying my heart bare.

Why is it that so many times, we as human beings find ourselves terrified by the idea of intimacy and vulnerability?

After all, it is the very thing which we were created for—intimate relationship with our Creator.

The desire for intimacy with Him is literally written upon our hearts, authored into that which makes us human… yet (for me at least) it seems like so often the act of putting a ‘comfortable’ distance between ourselves and God is a deliberate one.

Whether its the want to avoid facing our wounds and disappointments, the shame we feel we must keep hidden from our all-perfect Lord or the fear of what vulnerability with Jesus might cost us, we fall so easily into the same old pattern brought upon us by that first sin in the garden- the inclination to falsely believe that somehow God isn’t enough to fill our voids.

In this past Sunday’s gospel reading, Jesus asks the apostles “Who do you say that I am?” and their immediate, knee-jerk reaction is  to deflect, to list off the speculations of others rather than bare their own thoughts and hearts wide open before Him.

Patiently, ever so patiently, Jesus pursues them. “Who do YOU say that I am?”

Perhaps in so many words, what Jesus was really asking them (what He’s asking each of us) is “Who am I to you?”

And facing that question can actually be terrifying.

Because answering it honestly requires a delve into our own interior life. Its not a question which can be answered from behind walls or within a locked room. It s a question which does its job, quickly and effectively, of drawing us out from behind our masks, our pretenses, of crossing the distance from comfortable, to intimate in a single bound. It’s a question when, faced, does not allow us to run or to medicate or to distract, despite the instinct we may have to do so.

It draws us into intimate proximity with our Creator, into a space where He can look into our hearts and see the boundaries we have drawn, the ones, perhaps, we’ve asked Him not to cross. He sees the compartmentalized boxes of our lives, strewn in disarray, some marked boldly with the words “God is allowed here”, and others with “I can take care of this myself” or “not good enough for God to touch.”

Today, as Jesus asks you that question “Who do you say that I am?”, I beseech you, sisters, to let Him in. Let his loving gaze dissipate your borders, wipe away your labels.

With one, honest answer, you can dive headfirst into that for which you were created. 

With one look, He can sweep you away from yourself and into the brilliant light of His embrace.

Let Him.

“Shh.”

I sway back and forth in the dark, cool cocoon of my son’s nursery as I press a pacifier gently into his mouth. I close my eyes and begin counting backwards from sixty.

29…28…I quickly glimpse down at him and sigh quietly in relief as his eyelids, heavy with sleepiness, finally begin to close.

I gently place him in his crib, marveling at the sudden stillness of the baby who, only moments before, was wriggling fiercely in an attempt to escape my arms. He looks so peaceful now, as his eyelids flutter and his chest rises and falls softly.

Before I’ve even closed the door to his room, my mind has already jumped ahead to  the never ending to do list awaiting me as always. I glance at the clock- mentally calculating how much time I’ll have to return some emails, get dinner in the crock pot, unload the dishes and start a project for work. On a good day, I know I’ll have about an hour and ten minutes to get as much done as possible. On a tough day, it’ll only be about forty minutes (which sounds like a lot- until you try to cram your entire list of tasks into it.)

Dishes first. I decide as I step towards the kitchen, only to be stopped in my tracks by the clarity of a still, small voice in my ear and a gentle knock upon my heart.

“Give this time to Me.”

I stifle a chuckle (because I at least know better than to laugh outright at God) and respond patronizingly,

“But Jesus…I have so much to do. You in fact know how many items are on my list today. I have to get at least some of it done before Joseph wakes up”

A second of stillness, and then,

“Give this time to me…and I will give you rest.”

I sigh. Rest. What an elusive concept that seems to be in these long but blessed days filled with wifery, motherhood and ministry.

Dinner, laundry,  emails, design projects, writing- the hallmark responsibilities of my vocation at the present moment.

All that doing, and still, there’s more to do.

“When was the last time you rested?” Jesus gently prompts.

“Well…” I hesitate.

Because I know I’ve had plenty of moments, despite my busy schedule and very mobile nine month old, of sitting in front of screens, scrolling mindlessly. Or delving into the plot line of a show on Netflix as I rest against my husband on the couch.

“I’ve sat…” I begin to respond.

But I stop.

Because deep in my heart of hearts, I know what Jesus means by resting…and I know the idle distractions I’ve given into now and then don’t quantify. Sure, I’ve sat…sat on my phone, at my computer, in front of the T.V.

All that sitting, and still, I haven’t rested.

When it comes to the Scriptures, there is perhaps no one who’s story resonates more with me at this point in my life than Martha, the hostess too busy making her home feel welcome to actually stop and bid welcome the King of Kings in her presence. 

Despite all her good intentions, her well-meaning attempts at checking off the boxes on her to-do list…she still missed the point.

I can only imagine how humbled Martha must’ve felt as Jesus’ kind eyes met hers and he gently exclaimed “Martha, Martha…you are upset and worried about many things, but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better…”

“I want to choose what is better, Lord.” I whisper.

And so I sit in stillness, no screens to distract me from who I am with.

I let Him fill me as I pause long enough to accept and appreciate His generous love.

And as I sit with Him, I think back to earlier, to my son striving to wriggle from my arms, resisting the rest I knew he was so in need of. And I realize how often that is me, resisting the Lord’s embrace, disregarding His invitation to soak in the REST my soul so desperately needs.

So, today, I resolve to choose what is better.

To give not only the gift of my service, but the gift of my TIME (even if it means the dishes sit in the sink or the laundry goes unfolded for an extra day.) —to my husband, my child, my Lord…to give them not merely the gift of what I do, but the gift of who I am…and know that that is enough.