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Tales from the Quarantine Valley

I keep wondering what to write on this blog, since it has primarily focused on reflections on infertility. I don’t have anything particularly new or insightful to share there because my thoughts and struggles have been directed elsewhere.

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And so, as the big questions have me stumped and I’m writing in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, here’s a basic “how we’re doing in quarantine” post, in case anyone needed more ideas of how to stay home without going crazy.

What I’m reading:

  • Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
  • Old issues of National Geographic Traveler (I miss you, dear friend)
  • Life of Leo XIII by Bernard O’Reilly (My edition is from 1904, and I’m loving this window into history)
  • My massive cookbook collection, which leads me to…

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  • Pizza. Oh my goodness, I’ve perfected it finally. This is my most proud stay-at-home accomplishment.
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  • Chicken Fajita Soup
  • Scones
  • Pizzelles
  • Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • Soda Bread
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  • White sandwich bread

If any of these interest you, happy to share recipes. And no, I haven’t jumped on the sourdough train yet, but if I can’t get more yeast soon enough then perhaps I will. I just find myself averse to doing it now because so many others are doing it, and part of me enjoys the illusion that I’m original.

What I’m practicing:

  • Guitar – playing loads of praise music while our son jams along on his drums. He can’t talk yet, but boy does he have rhythm. Whether or not he’s a little prodigy remains to be seen.
  • Piano – perfecting Clementi and introductory Beethoven, hoping to get through those books and order something a little more challenging. I do have Beethoven’s piano sonatas waiting for me, but perhaps a more experienced pianist could guide me to the next phase.
  • Chinese – I’ve been doing this on Duolingo for some time now and I’m really enjoying it. Ever since we went to China to bring home our kiddo, I’ve been hooked.

What I’m listening to:

If anyone has any other podcasts you’re loving and think I would too, drop a comment!

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  • “Helping” in the kitchen
  • Climbing all over the furniture
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  • Bubbles
  • Lots and lots of educational TV
  • Practicing dumping out every container he can get his hands on
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  • Rifling through the fridge and eating at teenager levels even though he’s 3.

Next week we start the adventure of distance learning with his special-needs preschool. No idea how that is going to work, but if you’re a special-needs mama and have experience in this, I’d love to hear from you.

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I’ll admit it has been super hard to pray, and time for meditation like I used to do pre-adoption is basically gone. But now that everyone seems to be uploading spiritual resources during the pandemic, I’m getting more spiritual “food” than I have since the day we went to China. This includes:

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I promise I have a very good reason for not having written here in about 9 months. And I promise I’ll tell you what it is. But you’ll have to wait a minute or so.

We’ve had so many new and different experiences since last year. You can see the highlights on my 坚果加速器下载 (trips to Texas, Rome, Panama, Chicago, etc.), but I’ll focus on the big stuff.

I spent the entire month of October 2018 living in Rome at the North American College, covering the Synod at the Vatican on social media. Some really cool stuff happened:

paul and pope

But it wasn’t all papal greetings and gelato. As the month wore on, I felt more and more uneasy about something. The scandals, the clericalism, it’s hard to stomach for anyone, but when you work for the Church, it takes on a new level of intensity. The Church is made up of humans, and sometimes those humans can be horrific cesspools of sin. Theoretically I’m supposed to know that (I am one, sometimes, of course). And I was already starting to feel demoralized over all of it before my trip. But while in Rome, I snapped.

I ran into a chapel and said to the Lord directly, “If this is your kingdom, I don’t want any part of it.”

Bet you’ll never guess what he did.

Somehow, through some connections, I was invited to go to Eucharist with a community of the Neocatechumenal Way on a Saturday night at a parish in Rome. I couldn’t resist – I just had to see what this was about. I won’t go into detail here but suffice it to say I was floored. This is someone who likes singing in Latin, who loves incense and solemn worship spaces, who prefers silent Adoration to the praise and worship version… and yet, at a little parish in Rome, I fell in love with the liturgy of the Neocatechumenal Way.

When I returned home in November, James and I joined a community here in the DC area. It’s hard sometimes, especially since we hover between two parishes now, but the way that the Way celebrates the Eucharist is what holds me there. And the fact that we’ve met more people in just a few months with the community than we have in years at our other parish.

Outside of this massive shift in the way we experience Catholicism, everything else in our lives was also going crazy. Work was hard. I stopped going to choir because I felt overwhelmed. I began feeling like I had to just tread water. But also, something else was going on all the while.

Last June, when I chaperoned a bunch of teens at a LifeTeen camp in Georgia, I said that my life had been changed forever. I meant it. I couldn’t yet say what it was, because my family reads this blog, and I was keeping this a secret until I was ready to share with them.

My husband and I have a wonderful life. A wonderful, awesome, sometimes challenging, but very fulfilling life. And infertility is a big part of that life. We had attempted adoption about 3 years ago, but we knew it wasn’t where God was calling us, at that time. So we stopped trying to adopt, and we focused on life.

When I went on that trip to Georgia, something happened between me and God. I felt like my heart had been stretched. And… at the end of the week, I decided I wanted to adopt.

We researched international adoption all summer long, and in September 2018, just before I left for a month in Rome, we started the process to adopt a child from China. The entire paperwork process was fraught with many ups and downs, and many, many moment of me wanting to give up. There was even one period of time (December 2018) when our social worker told us she wasn’t going to approve us. I wanted so badly to call my mom and cry but James and I had decided that we weren’t going to tell our family until we were matched, because we wanted to do this on our own, and make these decisions with just us and the Lord.

Throughout the whole process, never once were we at a point where we were “craving” a child. It was more that God had placed this on our hearts and we knew that, if it worked out, it meant that somewhere in the world, there was a child he wanted us to love. And we knew that if it didn’t work out, that would be ok too, and we had often resigned ourselves to that kind of suffering.

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I’ll share more about the way God has been leading us through this, but that’s a long enough blog post for now. ❤
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And the Glory of the Lord Will Be Revealed

Summer of 2018 has been miserable.

There have been no morning coffees on the deck, no pleasant afternoon walks, no evenings gazing up at the stars. At least, not since about June-something. The reason? It’s always either 100 degrees, or raining, or both. It’s the most awful summer I can remember.

And that’s just the weather.

Without going into detail about everything else, suffice it to say that I’ve been angry, sad, overwhelmed, worn down, and just so, so, so done. I’m done.

It’s been a long, dark summer.

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Light dispels the darkness. Darkness is despair. Light brings hope.

Jesus is the Light.

When Christ comes, he destroys the darkness. He is Light. He is Hope. He is Love. Justice. Mercy. Life.

This morning, my usual routine of opening the bible to a random page, it fell on Isaiah chapter 40:

Every valley shall be lifted up,
every mountain and hill made low;
The rugged land shall be a plain,
the rough country, a broad valley.

Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

You can read the whole passage 坚果加速器官网下载免费. Usually, when we read this passage, we think of John the Baptist, the “voice crying out in the wilderness.” We think of the Incarnation, of Jesus coming to earth 2,000 years ago. But isn’t it also a message for us today?

The Lord sees the darkness we are in, and he is coming to save us. He sees all the work that needs to be done. He sees the jagged mountains of pride, the deep valleys of deception, the rugged untamed wilderness of self-serving hearts.

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I’ve been getting a lot of comfort today in the words of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. We often tend to think of this as a Christmas carol, but really it’s not. Read it slowly.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.

O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who ordered all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show
and teach us in its ways to go.

O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.

O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,
unto your own and rescue them!
From depths of hell your people save,
and give them victory o’er the grave.

O come, O Key of David, come
and open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe for us the heavenward road
and bar the way to death’s abode.

O come, O Bright and Morning Star,
and bring us comfort from afar!
Dispel the shadows of the night
and turn our darkness into light.

O come, O King of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease
and be yourself our King of Peace.

Come, “O Wisdom” Come, “O Lord of Might”. Could you imagine a prayer we need more right now? We know that Jesus promised never to abandon us. We wait for him to come and reveal his Glory.

Maranatha!

 

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Last week, a perfect storm of events came together in a way that changed my life forever. I went on a trip that I didn’t plan, and I didn’t even want to go on, but I knew it was what Jesus was asking so I said yes and now…

Ok, let me back up a bit.

Two months ago, I got this text from a priest at church: “Want to go to Georgia with some teens?”

I knew exactly what he was talking about. Every year, our parish youth group drives down to Covecrest, a LifeTeen summer camp in Tiger, Georgia. Our group was mostly girls, so they needed another adult female chaperone.

No. Heck no. Oh my goodness no.

I had seen the pictures from last year. People covered in mud from head to toe. Sunburn. Sweat. Bugs.

“No. Freaking. Way.”

So I resolved to call our priest and tell him no. But as I thought “no,” I also felt a little voice pulling me. I was calling him, instead of texting, because part of me, I guess, was a little open to persuasion.

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I went to Mass, thinking I would try calling again after. And, well… I looked at the tabernacle and I asked Jesus what to do and don’t you know it… he said Come to Georgia. 

Clear as day, in that gentle voice he always uses so you know it’s him. And his words, “Come” instead of “Go” – he was implying that he was already there waiting for me. It was an invitation, not a command.

I was stuck. I didn’t want to go, but I knew it was him. So I called our priest and gave him my “yes”. He promised it would be awesome, in a way. “No one comes back the same,” he said. I was… a little skeptical.

Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus himself asked me to go didn’t stop me from spending the next 2 months dreading the experience and sending spiteful text messages to said priest (i.e. if I die of malaria it’s your fault). But he laughed it off, and off I went to Covecrest.

covecrest

“No one ever comes back the same.”

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The kids were great – very welcoming, kind, well behaved, so much that for many of them it was easy to forget they were in high school. But the activities, the hiking, the bugs, the mud – it was all difficult for me.

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My cross was weighing heavily on me, and my heart was being re-broken, it seemed. I had thoughts like, “If I had kids, no one would ask me to do this.” (Sounds a little like something I’ve said before.)

And yet, I loved being there for these teens. I felt like a mom to all of them. At one point in our small group, I opened up about my MRKH, and it was wonderful to see how sharing this story invited others to open up about their deep wounds too. I knew that God was using me, but it was so painful. I sent my daily guilt-trip text to our priest, but now it had become, “I hate the idea of abandoning these kids after this week.”

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The last night of camp, something beautiful happened. I was with 4 of the kids, and I mentioned that if I had kids, I would have liked to sing the Salve Regina as a lullaby.

They asked me to sing it to them.

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We drove home singing Taylor Swift and Disney and all the latest Christian pop music. We prayed the Rosary and evening prayer, and my heart was about to burst with joy. We finally parted in the middle of the night with hugs and tears and promises of prayer for one another – and I’ve written some of their names in my prayer book.

I felt as though my heart grew. “You’re going to think this sounds weird,” I told our priest, “but I feel as though my heart has been stretched, in a good way. I feel like I want to love more.”

“I knew it!” he said. “That’s what he (Jesus) does! He makes us capable of loving more. You went on a trip that you didn’t plan and you didn’t want to go on, but you were open just a little bit, and that’s how he was able to work.”

(“I knew it.” Goodness. It was all a set up. Looking at you, two dudes in your 30’s with beards.)

And so here we are, a week out from camp, and… I still can’t sop smiling. I even had a moment in the car driving to work where I found myself overcome with joy thinking about the MANY children that I have.

Remember what I wrote last summer, about that feeling that I would have 坚果网络加速器? I think I’m watching it come true.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that God is faithful, and that he is working all things together for my good.

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So we wrote a letter…

Hi Everyone!

We talk a lot on this blog about what it means to be a woman, and a Catholic woman at that.

We talk a lot about hope, and what it means to have hope when the outcome you’d like just isn’t going to happen.

Last week I got the change to talk with Chloe Langr of OldFashionedGirlBlog.com about the experience faith, femininity, and infertility on her podcast, Letters to Women.

Here it is:

http://www.oldfashionedgirlblog.com/letters-to-women-podcast/infertility-letter-woman

Enjoy!

Do you remember?

Do you remember?

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This afternoon, I took a little break from work to walk around my alma mater (Catholic University). It was the first real spring day after a long spell of post-winter chill.

 

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Where I live, April is usually warm and sunny, but this year it’s been noticeably overcast and cold. It’s so strange to see people wearing their winter coats to checking out the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin. (I promise you, if you’re not from DC, it’s not usually like that).

The extended winter of this year has been matched by an extended winter in my soul. More than once in the last week have I asked myself, “Why, if it’s Easter, am I still stuck in the Garden?”

As I began my walk, I said a little prayer and asked Jesus to come along with me.

First I noticed the dandelions, and the tiny little purple and blue flowers peeking out among the weeds.

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Do you remember?

And something began to stir.

Then I saw the tulips, with their bright red petals.

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Do you remember?

Yes, Lord, I do! I remember when dandelions and violets were priceless little treasures, and each new bloom was filled with possibilities.

I remember when I would sit in the grass and make chains of clover, and listen to the birds and wonder what it was that they were saying.

Yes, Lord. I remember. I remember what it was to be a little girl.

You still are, to me, and you can be, again.

Sometimes in the dark and stormy winters of life, we forget that there ever was a spring. Sometimes the chill sinks so deep that we don’t even realize there was a life before grief. Hope? What’s that?

If this is you, I promise you, spring will come. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I know it will.

Do you remember?

Nicodemus said to him, “How can a person once grown old be born again? Surely he cannot reenter his mother’s womb and be born again, can he?” Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

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What does it mean to be a woman?

What does it mean to be a woman?

What does it mean to be a woman? Certainly there are a lot of conflicting responses to that question. Catholic women in particular have a rich history and wealth of tradition in the theology of femininity. A lot of what we talk about, though, has to do with motherhood – both physical motherhood and spiritual motherhood. But for women dealing with infertility, this can be a painful thing to think about.

Shortly after my diagnosis (in my late-teens) I went through a gender identity crisis. If I was born without a uterus – actually created by God, but without a womb – could I truly call myself a woman? I bought a copy of Alice von Hildebrand’s “The Privilege of Being a Woman”, hoping that it would give me some answers. When I got to the part near the end (maybe the 7th chapter?) where she begins, “Every woman has a womb…” my eyes welled up with tears and I threw the book in a rage. I cried and cried, and told my mom, “I just wish someone would write a book to tell me what it means to live and be a woman with this condition.” My mom is no theologian. She didn’t know how to answer. But she did say, “Maybe you’re the one who’s supposed to write the book.”

Maybe. Does this blog count?

It’s been over 13 years since I started this journey, and I’m finally at a place now where I can enthusiastically answer this question:

What does it mean to be a WOMAN who is a follower of Jesus Christ, a Catholic, a daughter of the Most High?

Let’s take a look at some real-life examples (who also, coincidentally, were not physically mothers).

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Contrary to Dan Brown novels, Mary Magdalene didn’t become the secret matriarch of a centuries-old bloodline. But she did have a unique relationship with Jesus.

Mary Magdalene was a woman who, in her desire to be loved, fell into sin and became broken. Jesus saw her in the midst of this, and had compassion on her. He lifted her from her life of sin, freeing her from seven demons and accepting her beautiful act of contrition and repentance saying, “Her sins are forgiven her, for she has loved much.” She understood what it meant to be loved and rescued by Jesus, and wanted nothing more than to sit at his feet and listen as he taught her. She was the first one whom he appeared to after his Resurrection.

Having finally known true love, she gave her whole heart to Jesus. She teaches us that to be a woman means to love deeply, to run and jump into our Savior’s arms, and never look back. She shows us that, as women, we have the privilege of having a special, deep love relationship with our Rescuer. A woman’s relationship with Jesus is a very different thing than a man’s relationship Jesus, something that is worth reflecting on further.

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Jumping 13 centuries into the future, we find the most adventurous example of Catholic womanhood the world has ever seen. This peasant farmer’s daughter bravely gave her “yes” to God when she was asked to leave her home and lead the French army during the Hundred Year’s War.

What is perhaps most impressive about Joan is her profound courage and trust in the Lord. She went where he led her, even though it was unheard of for a woman (let alone a teenage peasant) to go before the future King of France and be given leadership of his army. She trusted in her Voices (Sts. Michael, Margaret, and Catherine) and not in herself. When she realized that she had been trusting too much in herself, she confessed the sin of pride. After that, she gave everything she had over to the Lord, even though it led to her death by burning at the stake. In her last moments, she asked that a crucifix be held level with her eyes, and as the flames roared around her, witnesses say she called out the name of Jesus.

Joan of Arc teaches us that to be a woman means to be brave. It take courage to give our full trust and reliance on Jesus, no matter the circumstances. Courage and bravery are things we typically associate with men, but Joan of Arc shows us that they belong just as much to women, and perhaps more so. Her unyielding loyalty and trust in the Lord are uniquely feminine as well.

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Being a woman means being the Lord’s daughter, and no one understood that better that St. Therese. Jesus was her first and only love. Her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, is full of sweet, simple thoughts about how a “little” soul like hers can reach the heights of sanctity simply by giving every little thought, word, and action over to the Lord. She writes that Jesus never showed himself to her in a vision, never even in a dream. But “weak” and “little” as she was, she knew that Jesus loved her, and would always carry her in his arms.

Therese shows us a uniquely feminine combination of gentleness, humility, and trust.  She fully embraces the Lord’s words, “Unless you become as little children…” No matter what happens, no matter what you do or do not achieve in this life, you are Jesus’ little girl, and nothing will ever change that.

 

 

Things I Should Be Doing

Things I Should Be Doing

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For example, James and I have been married long enough that we could easily have a preschooler by now.

And many of our friends do.

Had we stuck with our adoption plans, we could easily have a baby by now.

And many of our friends do.

Last weekend, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a woman for the first time. Not a girl anymore.

I should be making cookies for my preschooler’s class.

But instead, I put on my best face and made cookies for the parish picnic.

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Lord, we have a lot to talk about, you and I.

He heard me.

When one of his children wants to talk with him, you can’t expect him to remain silent, can you?

Take courage, it is I.

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Radical Trust.

What do these words even mean? They’re also there, repeating in my heart. It’s like he’s telling me that he wants me to abandon all of my plans and desires and wait to accept whatever he places in front of me. And so this is what I’m doing.

And it’s been bringing me so much joy.

The reason I’m putting it out there is because I want you, in whatever you’re going through to have hope.

Maybe Jesus is calling you to this radical trust too – this idea where we can see that yes, bad things have happened, or they loom on the horizon, but no matter what we know that Jesus is with us. The only reason he allows any of this to happen is because he wants your salvation. He wants you to be with him, to have eternal life, and the shortest way there is through the cross. All of our pain, confusion, grief, trials – it’s not the end of the story. The cross is just a gateway to the resurrection.

 

(As a little side note, as soon as I finished writing this post, I Googled “radical trust” and found this amazing post from Jennifer Fulwiler: The 7 Habits of People Who Place Radical Trust in God. I think you’ll like it!)

 

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Called out of Barrenness

 

Years ago a priest told me “No one is called to infertility. You’re called to be fruitful.”

It took me a good long time to figure out what this means, but I think I’ve finally gotten there, thanks to Jesus. Let me explain.

For a good 12 years, I spent a lot of time crying over not having a uterus. Now, and really it has to be a miracle, my tears have changed into laughter. That’s not to say that I don’t still feel the pain of infertility (Mother’s Day Mass was very hard), but something else has been going on, and I want to tell you all about it.

About two years ago, someone told me that they received a vision of my children. They (my children) were in heaven, they were with Jesus, and they knew that they couldn’t be born to me and James, but they loved us very much. I wondered, “How can this be?” But now, I think I finally understand.

I’ve had this feeling lately that somehow, despite permanent infertility, I will have more children than my Nana—who had 10. These aren’t necessarily legally adopted or even actual 坚果加速器下载, but rather they are people of all ages. Just ordinary people with their own lives, and somehow I will be a mother to them. And someday, after I die, I’ll get to see all of them, and who I impacted, and how. I think about this, and it fills me up to a point where I just have to cry – but from joy.

A few months back, there was a moment when I received Jesus in Communion, talked to him about my parish, and he told me that my parish family (and all the Catholic faithful) are indeed real family that even shares the same blood – His. We are blood family. I can’t really explain why that hit me so deeply – perhaps years of feeling hopeless in that my family would never truly grow. But it will. And it’s already bigger than I think it is.

And following this realization, the Lord brought me several opportunities to act upon this, and be “fruitful” in a sense.

In May, I went to a meeting where the Lord used me to encourage and inspire people on my parish staff to go out on social media to meet the world. “Be not afraid of vicious comments.” “Christ has no Facebook page but yours.” What started as a strategizing meeting for these people to pick my brain turned into an occasion for the Holy Spirit. I was on FIRE. The Lord wasn’t just using my professional knowledge to help the parish – he was using ME – my personality, my joy, my enthusiasm. The next thing I knew, they had asked me to run it for them, and here I am finally with a real outlet to use my marketing skills for something I truly believe in.

Also in May, James and I hosted a dinner party at our house for my sister and mother’s birthdays. As usual when we’re hosting something, I told Jesus that it’s his house, his party, and his job to please take care of everything and make sure it goes well. Per usual, he was all in favor of this, and we had the most wonderful time. James and I could really see what the Catechism means when it mentions that couples without children can “radiate a fruitfulness of hospitality.” We’ve had at least two more dinner parties since then, and I’ve found that I am the most happy when I’m having people over for dinner.

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I find myself now, at the start of August, brimming with joy. Sure, there are plenty of stressful things going on, but for the first time in my life, I really feel like I’m using my talents for God, and that just makes me so very happy. I’m meeting new people, making new friends, and learning new skills. I feel so alive.

Thinking on all of these things now, I’m in awe of how much things have changed for me. Jesus doesn’t see me as “infertile” or “barren” and he doesn’t want me to see myself that way either. He loves me (and you!) just as we are and will use us in his own way to build up the kingdom. And those crosses that we carry – he’ll use those too, and through all of this, he’s creating something absolutely wonderful.

“Behold, I make all things new.” -Revelation 21:5

 

On Four Years of Marriage

On Four Years of Marriage

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary.

I know, four years is just a baby in marriage terms. But it’s worth reflecting on, I think. Especially since so few of my fellow millennials seem to be interested in marriage these days.

If you know me in real life, or if you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll know that my life isn’t perfect. But there is one thing that has stood out above all else:

These four years have been, hands down, the best of my life. God blessed James and I with the most beautiful marriage, and it’s only getting better with time.

I’m aware that not everyone has this experience. God gave me a tremendous blessing that I don’t deserve. I won’t pretend to speak for anyone else’s experience here. I simply want to share a little bit about what this blessing has been for me, especially since the majority of this blog is primarily focused on the lack of one particular blessing (namely, a womb).

So, without further ado and caveats, here we go:

Four years ago, we entered into this life with the expectation that we would continue to grow and to change. We imagined that our lives wouldn’t be easy, but that we would grow together, love and support each other, come what may.

We knew from the get-go that this was beyond human ability. But we also trusted that, from that day forward, God would give us all the grace we needed to make it work. “Christ abundantly blesses this love.”

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I know that in the grand scheme of things, four years of marriage is nothing. We’re basically newlyweds, right? Speaking of being newlyweds…

People said that newlywed feeling would wear off. I’m still waiting for that to happen.

People said I would wake up one day and wonder who the heck I married and why. I’m still waiting for that to happen.

People said that the first year would be the hardest. Or that marriage, in general, would be extremely hard.

What I’ve seen is this – LIFE is hard. Marriage is a vehicle that makes life better. And like any vehicle, it occasionally needs tune-ups and repairs. Maybe it gets a few dings and scrapes. Maybe it gets in a wreck at some point. But you spend those hours in the garage applying enough sweat and elbow grease, and you get that baby shining.

And you remember that you can’t do it alone. It’s not a one-person job. It’s not even a two-person job. It’s a you + me + God-person job. God’s in charge, and you two just do your best to listen to his direction.

You’re always going to change. I’m not the same person I was four years ago, and neither is James. And we’re certainly not the same two college students who met on a dating site nine years ago. And that is wonderful, because with God’s help, we’re growing together into a life that our 20 and 22-year-old selves would be thrilled to catch a glimpse of – which brings me to my next point.

People, especially pious people, like to say that marriage is about “self-donation”, “service”, “life-giving love”… all of those things are true, of course. But I’m going to channel my inner Flannery O’Connor and tell you, in practical terms, what this really means:

Marriage is a life-long activity of continually helping another person get their sh*t together.

You do this for each other, on both spiritual, emotional and literal(physical) levels. And maybe you spend a little too much time in the weeds, helping your spouse find their wallet for the umpteenth night in a row, and you get a little frustrated. But in a moment of grace, God calls you out of this and gives you a glimpse of the big picture.

Maybe he lets you see the love in your husband’s eyes when you came home from work late, again, and he took it upon himself to make your lunch for the next day. Or maybe you see it when you’re in confession, and you realize that everything you feel guilty about stems purely from wanting to love him more, and better, and the only reason you’re crying is because you just love him so darn much and you need Jesus to help you do better, because “the spirit is willing…” And then you realize…

It’s ok. It’s all ok. All of the mess. All of the suffering. All of the crazy. Because He’s doing great things for you, and even if you don’t see it all here, that’s ok, because it’s not about here. It’s about heaven. He’s making you saints, in and through your struggles.

Marriage was never meant to be a destination – marriage was and is always about the journey. “Happily ever after” is the way all the good stories begin.

Happy Anniversary, James. I love you. I love our life together, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And we’ve only just begun.

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