Their vibrant colors remind us of the life and beauty that await as the warmth of the coming season eclipses the darkness of winter. The chickens know it, too, as we can tell by the many eggs we’re beginning to collect each day.

In the heat and light of the sun, we are all a little more active outdoors, taking note of the rapid changes as trees leaf out and the early bearing peaches and cherries start setting fruit. It’s also time for the many spring chores that will set the stage for the garden’s main show of abundance come the heat of summer. Irrigation needs fixing. Garden beds need amending. Paths beg to be re-mulched, lest our walking space and our growing space become indistinguishable.

In the midst of all this preparation, it is good to remember just what all this work is for. After all, we could simply make the drive to our local grocery store and have our pick of produce right away—no tending, no weeding, no pests munching away at the fruits of our labors.

Why do we put ourselves through all of this? What is the point of growing all our own food, or even any of it at all?

For our family, health has always been at the forefront of our motivations. Cultivating a non-toxic, organic growing space was important to me, even before I knew how depleted our soil was, before I felt my own vitality slipping away in the grasp of chronic disease.

The advice now is to down handfuls of supplements, buy this product because the earth is tired and can no longer give us the nutrients she was meant to. Never mind the intricate mysteries that make nutrients bioavailable in nature’s lovely packaging. And so we keep on with our monoculture farming of the minority of crops that can survive the thousand-mile journey from field to our plates. We douse them in synthetic fertilizer and pour on the poisons that purge the pests, never mind what it does to our pollinators. We may have banned DDT, but can we truly say we aren’t still headed for a silent spring?

While we hope for our system to change, we know that our health begins here in our home. It grows not only out of our soil, but out of the time we spend with our hands in the earth and our faces toward the sun.

Of course, we all know that there may come a day when we don’t see abundance in the grocery store and instead survey empty shelves. Shipping delays, a fragile supply chain, or some as-of-yet unknown disaster might be rare. But does that mean that we can take the availability of food—or perhaps more to the point, its affordability—for granted?

The things we call progress always come at a price—some sacrifice or another that we have now for something we believe will offer us a greater tomorrow. Growing and preserving our own food, despite any apparent utilitarian purpose, is a choice to preserve the wisdom of those who have come before—both their prudence and the practical skills that enabled life for them for generations.

When we preserve our food, we preserve lost skills. Not so very long ago, most American households grew some of their own food to put it up for the winter. At the dawn of Gerber, a hundred years ago, it was the canned food in stores that was the expensive luxury.

Our cheap modern conveniences may save us time and effort, but they come at the cost of health and vitality, robbing us of the ability and desire to exert any effort at all. Nowadays, it’s becoming rare to find a household that cooks for itself, let alone raises or grows their own food.

Rest and leisure are lovely gifts, but they’re only made meaningful when they punctuate ongoing creative projects that offer purpose to being alive. We weren’t made to lie low. Convenience tempts us to pursue a life of ease. But when we make ease and entertainment our sole end, what we pursue is, in fact, a life of nothingness.

The antidote to the toxins running through our bodies and souls is, at least in our home, making the most of what we’ve been given. Cultivating our small patch of earth may not yield every bit of what we need, but the very act of doing so is an answer to human needs more fundamental than merely what we consume.

And of course, what can never be overstated is the sheer wonder of doing it all. Our hands have a part in the magic of growing things. Our eyes feast on the exquisite loveliness imbued in the colors and textures of the garden. And our tongues taste the spicy zing of garlic scapes and the tang of golden raspberries, too delicate for grocery store shelves.

All this among the buzz of the bees and butterflies and hovering hummingbirds—tiny co-creators with us, doing their part to create and take their share, drinking deeply of the oasis of enchantment.

When we grow our own food, we grow so much more. As Wendell Berry reminds us, “Outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders. We see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.”

Here’s to the feast of wild wonders just budding up to bloom.

Looking to grow more of your own food this year?

I invite you to follow our journey and tour our garden on YouTube for lots of ideas about how to maximize your growing space and preserve the harvest—while keeping up with the many demands of busy family life.

And for my full system of growing food for our family in a backyard, get my BOOK: Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaiming Eden in Your Own Backyard. You’ll find step-by-step instructions for making the most of what God has given you, right where you are—no relocation to sprawling acreage required.

(And as an added bonus for fellow homeschool families, it includes a downloadable expansion to turn the hands-on experiences in the book into a full year elementary science curriculum!).

Around the Web

I’ve been doing lots of promotions with two books releasing back to back. Many of them are still in progress, but here are some of the interviews and articles out now that you might enjoy:

“Reclaiming Eden in a Backyard: On Growing Things Where You Are” at Catholic Exchange

CatholicMom Lenten Bookclub: The Bellbind Letters:

• Episode 1: Letters 1-6

• Episode 2: Letters 7-12

• Episode 3: Letters 13-18

• Episode 4: Letters 19-24

• Episode 5: Letters 24-30

My interview at Catholic ReCon on all things conversion, bioethics, and books. Basically the story of how I went from being an obstinate Lutheran teenager to a Catholic author and homeschool mom!

“Subtle Lies Quietly Sabotaging Your Marriage” on the Dr. J Show

“The Devil’s Plan for Your Motherhood” at Ave Maria in the Afternoon

“Change the Language, Change the Culture,” in which I do a dramatic reading from my Screwtape-inspired The Bellbind Letters

“Disembodiment—Or Something Else?” a podcast adaptation of my response to Helen Roy on our need to touch grass, and what screen-based life does to our bodies

Could we really make a third of an acre feed a family?

On the surface, it seemed impossible—but what we discovered changed everything about how I think about food, space, and stewardship.

On the one hand, a third acre can’t supply us with beef, dairy, or grains that we need to feed our family. The more I lean into this lifestyle, the more I learn to provide for our family with what we’ve been blessed with—the more I believe the goal isn’t really self-sufficiency. Not entirely. It’s interdependence with a like-minded community of those who believe that all of this—the growing, the preserving, the handmade life over the instantaneous one—is worth the effort.

I can’t raise my own cows, but I can purchase beef in bulk from someone who raises them like I would. I can make our family’s yogurt with raw organic A2 milk from a dairy just miles down the road. I can grow an abundance of berries and watch as my children bite in and let the juices run down their chins in hot summer sun.

“Can we call this a homestead?” I kept asking myself.

Our little piece of land in cookie cutter suburbia sure doesn’t look anything like what one pictures when you hear the word “homestead.” Some people say it isn’t right to call this a homestead, and I go back and forth on that myself.

At the end of the day, for me, it all comes down to mindset. When you make the commitment to become your own food source, to learn long lost skills, every tomato grown and berry pie baked becomes something intangibly satisfying.

Yes, it is as much work as it sounds. More, probably.

“Why do you do it?” people ask. “Is it worth it?”

God didn’t put us on this earth for a life of leisure. Sunday rest, yes, but rest from fully extending ourselves in imitation of our creator who actively labors in all of creation.

When we create, we act in His image. When we grow our food, we take on the stewardship he has given us. I love caring for our soil, for the pollinators on our patch of Earth.

We are to grow where we’re planted and be good stewards of what God has given us, to be faithful in the small things. For those who can be trusted with what is little will be trustworthy with still more.

We do what we can. Every journey begins with a single step.

Our first year growing in this space, I got just shy of a year’s worth of potatoes and more squashes than we could eat. The following year I got six months of onions. The potatoes were small, and washing the dirt off to prepare them for supper was more labor than I was used to.

This year we added garlic to our storage crops, and I’m amazed by how crisp and flavorful it is straight out of the garden.

Progress is slow, but with every harvest we are gathering not just food, but reaping the benefits of all our hard work, painful lessons, and experiencing the freedom of producing a bounty with our own hands.

After you try to grow your own food, it becomes impossible to be ungrateful for the abundance we do have. I honestly look back to all those years that I just had no idea what it takes to sustain a family, and I’m amazed at how far we have really come.

In this time, we have big plans, lots of projects coming up to showcase how to be creative with the space you have.

If you enjoy this, I’d love if you would share it with someone. I think we all struggle with these limiting beliefs, and it just comes down to giving it a leap of faith, no matter how small a space we’re given.

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Everyone can grow where they’re planted, and we all benefit from greater knowledge of these skills, of really caring for ourselves and the needs of our family that used to be so common.

If you’re curious to see this process in action, our YouTube channel shows how we transform a small suburban backyard into a productive, thriving homestead. Watching it come to life has been one of the most inspiring parts of this journey, and I’d love to share that with you.

Of course, all of this isn’t just about our family. If it were, there would be no need to share what this looks like on YouTube or to write it all down in a book.

Ultimately, I hope families’ eyes might be opened to the wondrous possibilities in their own soil, yards, and back porches. That’s why I wrote Grow Where You’re Planted: so that we all can become better stewards of what we have, and to participate more fully in the miracle of creation. In this book, I break down step-by-step how families can turn whatever space they have—whether a small suburban yard or even a corner of their patio—into a space that spills over with seasonal abundance

Get My Copy

I’ve already heard from many of you who have purchased the book, and I am dying to see pictures of all of your gardens this year!

Wouldn’t that be amazing, to fill up our screens this summer with the fruits of our labor, to inspire others to get outside, to touch grass, and revel in the magic that happens when we plant seeds in the soil?

Here’s to becoming better stewards of what we have, and learning to grow wherever we are planted.

AMDG,

Samantha

This week on the Mama Prays podcast, I chat with Tina Mayeux, sorority girl turned Carmelite turned stay-at-home mom.

Tina shares all about what drew her to the Carmelites, as well as the ordering principles of Carmelite spirituality that have shaped her motherhood over the years.

You won’t want to miss Tina’s tips for creating a peaceful, Christ-centered home!

WAYS TO LISTEN

I am endlessly grateful for every single one of you who takes the time to tap a star rating or write a review in your podcast app!

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Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Website: www.mamaprays.com
Connect: samantha@mamaprays.com
Podcast: Mama Prays

^{Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’}

^{Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’”}

— Matthew 25:31-40

WAYS TO LISTEN

I am endlessly grateful for every single one of you who takes the time to tap a star rating or write a review in your podcast app!

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Sanctifying the Housework

What is God’s will for you right now?

As an undergrad converting to Catholicism, I spent a more than typical amount of time contemplating this question. I loved giving retreat talks on vocation and discernment, and I took more than one course in Ignatian Spirituality. At one point, I even pursued a certificate in spiritual direction – before my master’s program unceremoniously cut that certificate halfway through. Clearly, that was not God’s will for me.

Even now, after most of my life’s major elections have been made – I’ve chosen a spouse, decided to have children, stepped away from work outside the home, begun homeschooling – even now, the question of God’s will remains elusive. Or rather, its answer is deceptively simple.

It’s easy to get caught up in daydreaming about how I may be called in the future. Although God is present in the future, I am not. I am only here, in the prosaic present. The much more relevant question for me to be asking myself is “What is God’s will for me today?”

And I kid myself a little when I imagine the answer is hazy. The uncomfortable truth is that the answer is clear; it just isn’t as glamorous as I would like it to be.

More often than not, God’s will for me today is a sink full of dishes and a bottomless basket of laundry. And like my 8-year-old, I often respond to these duties with a huff and an eye roll. There are so many More Important Tasks I could be doing. Except that assessment doesn’t match up with the upside-down hierarchy of the Kingdom.

As mothers, we are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, instructing the ignorant, and counseling the sorrowful. As we broker peace and administer mercy, we are – according to Jesus – blessed (Matt 5:9). St. Paul instructs us, “Whatever you do…do it for the glory of God,” (1 Cor 10:31). Whatever the work, we are to become living sacrifices, to give all that we do as for the Lord, and to give cheerfully (Romans 12:1, Col 3:23, 2 Cor. 9:7).

How often am I cheerful as I strip the sheets again in the stages between potty training and potty trained?

God’s will for us isn’t something in a far-off land, some great mission we have to accomplish (unless, of course, you have been called to foreign missions work, in which case, God bless you!). For most of us mothers, His will is here in our homes and in our daily duties. It is being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control to our husbands and children.

Just because the square footage is small doesn’t mean we shouldn’t see our homes a mission field. We can resolve to honor St. Paul’s instruction to “pray without ceasing” by gently drawing up sheets neatly, offering the menial task for the good of the tiny heads that will rest on the pillows. We can iron stubborn wrinkles out of our husbands’ shirt collars as we pray for their witness in the world and spiritual leadership in our homes. We can endeavor to receive these menial and thankless duties as they are: gifts from the Lord, fuel for the slow burn of the refiner’s fire meant to purify our restless hunger for accolades and accomplishment, leaving nothing behind but shining humility.

As the saying goes, we can practice gratitude when we greet baskets full of laundry; they mean we have been gifted with children who have clothes to wear. A sink full of dishes means we have plenty to eat. A floor that demands mopping beneath our feet means we have a roof over our heads.

And yet, sanctifying the housework means more than simply being grateful for it. It means seeing our duties not as drudgery, but in the divine light with which they have been appointed to us.

Our children and our home are gifts, but they are also not truly ours.

These gifts are His, and their careful care is our mission.

Whatever job we could be doing out there in the world is a position that would undoubtedly receive many applications, a role that could be filled by any number of competent individuals.

Our children have been given to us and no one else to mother. He has asked us to match their socks, cut off their crusts, and bless their foreheads as we tuck them into their covers each night.

Jesus assures us that whatever we do to the least of these, we do unto Him. How does it change our perspective if we imagine that it is Christ for whom we are setting a place at the table?

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Website: www.mamaprays.com
Connect: samantha@mamaprays.com
Podcast: Mama Prays

^{She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak.}

^{Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.”}

^{The Lord said to her in reply, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”}

— Luke 10:38-42

WAYS TO LISTEN

I am endlessly grateful for every single one of you who takes the time to tap a star rating or write a review in your podcast app!

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Too Busy for the Better Part

After guiding my hand to tie tiny apron strings around her, my daughter busies herself with miniature pots and pans. She is a flurry of culinary activity, feeding me magic soup and dandelion tea. A cookie sheet comes in and out of the oven in record time.

The obnoxious pink hue of the play kitchen is one that my husband declared would never find place in our home when I sat round with our first child, checking off items to add to our baby registry. Four births later, those rules have gone the way of all the parenting rules we were absolutely certain about before holding our first newborn in our arms. The kids’ rooms are peppered with colors that shine bright and happy – just like our memories.

The stove burner lights flash and gurgle as she places the pot just so. Reflecting on these changes has me acutely aware of the passage of time, and my arms ache to wrap around my littlest while she is still small enough to fit neatly in my lap.

“Come here,” I beckon. “I’ll read you the bunny book,” I offer, throwing out irresistible bait.

She barely manages a glance over her shoulder at me to declare with total nonchalance: “I’m too bissy.”

The sting of rejection is ameliorated by the smile in my heart at the importance with which she holds her current preoccupations. My heart is pierced by this bittersweet double-edged sword: the adorable seriousness with which she takes her play and the fact that she is clearly parroting a phrase she has heard before when her own requests for cuddles or playtime were similarly rebuffed.

I can’t imagine who could be the most likely candidate.

Guilt pricks at my conscience and my heart sinks a little bit as the tiny aproned chef busying herself about the bustle of her kitchen becomes a mirror reflecting not only my lack of attentiveness to her, but also the ways I’ve neglected my Creator as He’s beckoned lately. All too often, this phrase is my response in the litany of invitations to love throughout my day:

In frustrations with my children… I’m too bissy, Lord.

To honor prayer time together… I’m too bissy. Lord.

To be present to Him in the faces of my children… I’m too bissy, Lord.

Certainly there are mitigating realities that place demands on my time. Meat needs defrosting. Towels need folding. Homeschool lessons need planning, and socks need to matched with a reasonably similar partner.

But do these tasks really preclude my presence with my Maker? What if, instead of all the prescriptive chatter of podcasts telling me about the vitality of the sun on my skin each morning, I made space for quiet, for the light of the Son to dawn on my soul?

Do I really need to consume all this content? Is it filling me up? If I’m honest with myself, isn’t it consuming me?

“I’m too bissy,” is my chorus, and its true. It’s true because I make it true.

I choose busy at every opportunity. There isn’t a moment that the Lord doesn’t beckon, doesn’t reach out His arms to draw me onto His lap to allow His love to wash over me.

I want to go to Him. I want to choose the better part.

I’m just too bissy.

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Website: www.mamaprays.com
Connect: samantha@mamaprays.com
Podcast: Mama Prays

He said, “I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.

— Luke 21:1-4

WAYS TO LISTEN

I am endlessly grateful for every single one of you who takes the time to tap a star rating or write a review in your podcast app!

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A Humble Gift

Tiny hands flutter in a flurry of genuflection as we wade our way into the front pew. We’re early by at least 30 minutes, but all the rest have filled up with Mass regulars, eager to beat out the C&E Catholics for good seats. Christmas Mass in a dingy parish hall with paint chipped walls and creaky folding chairs just isn’t the same (although there is something to be said for the poignancy of being relegated to second class citizens because there is no room at the inn on Christmas). I breathe deeply, as though I can draw enough oxygen to soothe my nerves for the long liturgy ahead.

We are not front pew people.

And yet, by some Christmas miracle, the liturgy progresses unpunctuated by the shrill cries of my small and squirmy squad of children. I am startled to realize that I am not only hearing the homily but comprehending it. We’ve made it through the first half of Mass with no whining, toy-dropping, or sibling beating.

I am floored; for what may be the first time in a decade of motherhood, mine is the family with the adorably adorned and impossibly well-behaved children. They snuggle contentedly and doodle quietly—and not on the pages of the hymnal. Everyone’s hair is neatly combed, and not one is missing a shoe.

I raise my eyes to our Lord on the altar as the priest lifts high the host following consecration. I survey my angelic brood and internally beckon our newborn King to do the same. “See what I have brought you?” I am eager for Him to notice, as proud as the little drummer boy beating my own parum pa pum pum as my heart flutters with satisfaction at the sweet display they make.

But one beat after I offer them up to Him, He allows me to see myself through His eyes. The matching buffalo check and absence of bickering are not the glories that I think they are. They are not prizes for Him, but for me. I am perhaps reaping the fruits of the hard-won virtues and skills it has taken me a decade to acquire (my scatterbrained creative bend renders me a slow learner of the basics).

As the King of Glory lays a poor, helpless babe in an animal trough, He shows me that my shiny offering at this Christmas Mass is no better than all those Sunday Masses peppered with petty squabbles, mussed hair, and missing shoes. All those Sundays I spent shushing babies and chasing toddlers and recovering stray crayons from under the pews, those Sundays I limped out of the church feeling as battered and bruised as if a freight train had pummeled my body – instead of my children thrashing my ego – those were the Sundays when I truly gave from my poverty. One after the other, I strung my humiliations around me like rosary beads; each was hard and unyielding and tiny, and it was all I could do to clutch the stones and utter the words.

Like the widow’s last two coins, my King prized my pitiful offering, not with the scorn I assigned my own efforts, but with eyes wise to see that I gave all I had.

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
Website: www.mamaprays.com
Connect: samantha@mamaprays.com
Podcast: Mama Prays

I wanted to let you know that all my home and homeschool posts now have a dedicated space!

If you’ve enjoyed reflections on homeschooling rhythms, curriculum tips, and little ways to bring more peace and joy to the school day, you can find them in their own newsletter here:

Subscribe to Hearth and Homeschool

This new space is casual, personal, and focused entirely on homeschooling and family life—like swapping notes with a friend by the hearth.

Thanks for following along here, and I hope to see you in the new space!

AMDG,
Samantha

 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”

And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

Genesis 7:1-5

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My toddler is screaming, so it must be Tuesday. His face is scrunched, anger etching hard lines onto his normally round face. His complexion flushes red as he hisses out a frustrated, “No,” through clenched teeth. 

It isn’t a refusal to acquiesce to my request. Quite the opposite: his is a refusal to accept my refusal. 

Except, I haven’t said, “No.” What I said was, “Not right now.”

Waiting is universally tricky, but by some strange paradox, it’s hardest to wait for the things you know are coming. 

///

I planted these peonies three years ago.

They grew hardly at all, and that first winter, they disappeared entirely – which, for someone who grew up in Hawaii and migrated to California, was a completely foreign concept.

The second year, they got bigger. We were able to visually assess their progress as the stalks reached new heights. But still no blooms. They didn’t even form buds. 

So as you can imagine, there was quite a bit of excitement in our house over the budding peonies and their breaking forth in all their bright glory. 

The kids are even more excited about the backyard. We planted fruit trees immediately after moving in, and they have bloomed every spring since. But yesterday was the first time we bit into our sweet Rainier cherries. We only picked one, and we each had a taste, savoring the heavenly juices, a foretaste of what this tree will offer in due season for years to come. 

Our timing wasn’t so great with the strawberries, which we excitedly stuffed into our mouths so quickly, only to laugh at each other's puckered faces, their sour taste filling us with the knowledge that we’d picked them too soon.  

Waiting is hard, but it is so much sweeter than impatience. 

///

I’ve written about waiting before, but these days the story that comes to mind is the one about Noah and his ark. I imagine how it must have felt to endure the ridicule of building a boat on dry land, and the conviction that Noah must have had. That’s a kind of faith I can relate to, and hopefully aspire to. 

The thing that kills me about the Noah story, is that God asked Noah and his family to get into the ark and seal it up seven days before it started raining. 

What must Noah and his family have been thinking. If you knew you were about to be trapped on that boat for - literally - God knows how long, and the face of the earth would be changed forever by what was about to happen, the last place you would want to spend your last week on earth would be inside that boat. 

How easy it would have been not to obey. How simple and reasonable would it have been for Noah and his family to look around, see with their own eyes that they are not in any kind of danger, and go about business as usual until the raindrops started to fall?

But they didn’t do that. They did as they were told, camping out in a boat on dry land for seven days. It’s like bad Mr. Beast video except instead of winning $100,000 for sticking it out, all they get is to avoid certain doom. Well, maybe that is better. 

And you might be thinking, “What’s the big deal? It was only a week.” But can you imagine the kinds of doubt that could creep in in a week – especially if you don’t know when the rains are coming. What if the serpent slithered aboard the boat, and wound his way close, his forked tongue tickling Noah’s ear?

Do you really believe God’s promise is coming? 

What if you heard wrong? 

What if all this work is for nothing? 

What possible purpose could God have for making you wait?

If we listen to the whispers, we can forget God’s words. Instead of standing firm on a foundation of faith, we topple. We chase what sounds good in the moment. We try to force God’s hand, and wrestle the result we don’t want to wait for. 

Like my son, who stands screaming before me, unable to reconcile himself to my answer. 

“What did I say?” I ask. “Did I say ‘yes’ or did I say ‘no’?”

He stops to think, abruptly sobered by the question and the silliness of his own reaction. “You said yes,” he replies, sniffling reflexively from too many tears. 

“That’s right. I said ‘yes.’ Just not right now.” 

No amount of poking and prodding will make a seedling pop up, a flower bloom, or a tree bear fruit. In fact, it is the passing of time itself that makes those things possible. Before progress becomes visible, there is much that must take place beneath the surface. 

///

It’s been my experience that waiting serves dual purposes. The first is that waiting makes things precious to us. The anticipation helps to make our desires known. Whether you’re waiting to receive the Eucharist for the first time, to consummate your marriage with your future spouse whom you deeply desire, waiting to meet that spouse, waiting for the financial freedom to become a stay-at-home-mom to your sweet babies, or waiting for God to grant you the joy of motherhood in the first place, waiting can be excruciating. 

Growing patience, like growing roots, takes time. Roots keep a tree grounded. They keep it from toppling over. They allow it to flourish and absorb the nutrients needed to put out fruits. And the deeper they go, the more resistant the tree is to drought and times of scarcity. 

When we are in seasons of waiting, impatience tells us to look at the fruits (or the lack thereof, rather). It says to look at the empty branches and despair. It says to go buy some grocery store fruit and paste it onto the tree. It says to take a branch off a fruitful tree and graft it onto this one. It tells us to look anywhere but beneath the surface, where the action is happening. 

God uses waiting both as a time of preparation, for us to grow roots and to clarify our desires and strengthen our resolve for times like drought, when the going inevitably becomes tough. 

And sometimes, He uses it for another purpose entirely, to bring about some good that we know nothing about. Jacob labored seven years for Rachel, only to be deceived by her father Laban, and married instead to her sister Leah. He had to work another seven years to receive his heart’s desire. And while Rachel was the favored wife, and her son Joseph saved the family and the legacy of Israel from starvation, it was through Leah’s line, from the tribe of Judah so many years later, that the Messiah would come. 

A hidden purpose, entirely God’s own. 

Whatever excruciating waiting period you find yourself in, be it wandering the desert for 40 years in search of the Promised Land, waiting for a backordered washing machine to arrive, or in the final month of pregnancy that feels itself 40 years long, resist the urge to furiously and frantically scour your landscape for fruit. 

The fruit will come. Now isn’t the time to bite in. 

Now is the time for growing deep roots and faith in God’s purposes. And that time is called patience. 

And patience, as it turns out, is as simple as accepting Jesus’s assurance to us:

Blessed are we who believe in what we cannot see. 

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In Case You Missed It

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
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“What if the Catholic school in your area was just phenomenal?” a friend recently asked me. “If they did a fantastic job, wouldn’t you prefer someone else do all that work?” 

Her question surprised me, and I was grateful to have the chance to reflect. “No,” I answered, “Not at all.” The truth, I realized, was that there was nothing our local parish school needed to do better to lure us back. For us, homeschooling isn’t about running away from a bad school system. It’s about what we’re running to. 

Opting out of a flawed system of conventional education probably makes the list for many homeschooling families, but I’d venture to guess that for most, the flaws that drive them away are not nearly as compelling as the benefits that draw them to homeschooling. And while those benefits might be readily apparent to parents who were homeschooled themselves as children, or to those who have a lot of exposure to homeschooling families, the rest of us “homeschool curious” are left with a conventional schooling experience and the intuition that there may be something of substance in this alternative approach. For parents who are feeling drawn to homeschooling, here are seven tips for making your choice.

1. Find your “why.”

It may be that you are reading this post because you’re running into problems with the school system and hoping for an escape. Between morally objectionable programs of sexual education, school shootings, or being denied the right to participate in your child’s education, there are serious and legitimate reasons to consider moving away from the school system. Still, fear does not make a great foundation for decision-making, and it probably won’t be enough to get you through the tough days (and there will be tough days!). 

If you want to homeschool, it is essential to find your why. Is it more family time? Freedom to travel? The ability to customize your child’s education? It is absolutely essential for you and your spouse to find your reasons and write them down. Make a mission statement for your family that can serve to bolster your convictions during hard times and serve as a litmus test when considering how any particular curriculum or activity serves to further (or detract) from that mission. 

2. Explore options and find inspiration.

When I was curious about homeschooling, I was blessed to attend a local retreat for Catholic homeschooling moms. Hearing their stories was transformative; it helped me understand concretely the beauty, blessings, and struggles I could expect if our family made this shift. If you can, find other families nearby who can help paint a realistic picture of what homeschooling can look like. 

Kirk Cameron’s The Homeschool Awakening is a must for all families currently homeschooling or in the process of discerning making that change, but it is especially helpful for those of us with little prior exposure to homeschooling to help expand our imaginations as to the many forms this educational alternative can take. 

There is a wealth of examples of different homeschooling styles and philosophy on YouTube. While this can be overwhelming, it is also a great resource for ideas (and can save a lot of time and money in making curriculum choices!). 

I’d also recommend reading Real Learning Revisited by Elizabeth Foss (start with the last chapter and then go back) and Teaching from Rest by Sarah MacKenzie. “Read Aloud Revival” and “The Commonplace” are fantastic podcasts for ongoing inspiration.  

3. Seek community.

It is not good for man to be alone. The same is true for the homeschool mom. We are made for community, and we need to walk with others along whichever road it is we choose to travel. Our family has been blessed to be a part of two different co-op communities, and have grown so much through those friendships. 

As a new homeschooling mom, I found encouragement and connection. I learned so much from experienced moms about the practicals of homeschooling: how it looks at different stages, which curriculum to choose, how to set up our day, and how to conquer little setbacks and pivot when strategies aren’t working. I continue to find essential support from their wisdom and example. 

It also helps to have other families with similar values trying to accomplish the same goals. When you’re swimming upriver, it’s nice to be able to turn to someone facing the same currents to remind you that your fight isn’t crazy (or if it is, that at least you’re not alone in trying to face it!). 

4. Prioritize and customize. 

One of the ways homeschooling really shines is the ability to tailor a child’s education. One of the less widely understood gifts is the ability to select your responsibilities as a teacher. You can outsource responsibilities via online classes, co-ops, art centers, sports, tutors, and even the YMCA or your local city parks and rec department. You can let go of the feeling that you have to “do it all” because 1) you probably can’t, and 2) you don’t have to!

Sarah MacKenzie recommends reviewing every 6 weeks. This ongoing evaluation serves the homeschool parent first by forcing a commitment for a period of time, preventing a constant shuffling of curriculum every time a roadblock comes up. It also allows flexibility and freedom to let go of something that isn’t working, without locking a family into that curriculum or program for a year or even longer. 

5. Prep for the bad days. 

Not every day brings sunshine. There will be storms, and occasionally a hurricane or two. As a homeschool parent, you don’t have to trudge on in the middle of a deluge. The schedule is your call. Stomach flu running rampant? School is canceled. Kids are crying and mom is impatient? Time for a dance party. Lean into the flexibility of managing your own schedule. 

School kids get snow days; our family has spring “sun days” when the weather is finally warm enough to enjoy being outside. Homeschool kids can pause for popcorn and a movie, have a rainy reading day, or pop out for a quick hike or tide pool exploring just to reset the mood.

6. Embrace the “gaps.”

One of the common fears about homeschooling is the “gaps.” For the most part, parents are not trained as educators. What if we miss something? 

First, try this exercise: List everything you remember about Ancient Greece. List the properties of matter. Write out the quadratic equation. How much of what you learned in school (or forgot you learned) has been critical? Conversely, how much critical knowledge do you plan to leave your children without? As a freshman in college, I remember teaching scholarship students how to do a load of their own laundry. The point is, every academic program will privilege some skills and let others fall to the wayside. 

Even if you were presented with a perfect “gapless” education (were you, really?), there will be plenty you don’t remember, and even more still that you just don’t know. (It really isn’t even possible to learn everything). Families who school at home are generally less concerned with gaps in discrete knowledge and subject-specific skills, and more concerned with the gaps of conventional schooling: critical thinking, character education, and love of learning. These are areas that the conventional schooling model struggles to address, and that individualized attention from a homeschool parent is primed to focus. 

7. Just do it. 

I like to call this piece of advice discerning by doing. Sometimes, we can get so caught up in the fear of making the wrong decision that we end up making no decision at all (despite the fact that that, in itself, becomes our decision by default). If you are stuck on repeat, make the leap. If you’re feeling called to try it, try it! Trying it for a year doesn’t need to mean a permanent commitment. We have novitiates and engagements for a reason; sometimes we need to live a commitment (or near to it as we can get) before we can really understand what it is we are undertaking. The reality may be very different than we’ve imagined. 

For us, homeschooling has been more beautiful, more fruitful, more freeing, and much, much less difficult than we’d pictured. It’s required a lot of adaptation and flexibility. But we never would have known any of it unless we tried.

Take it year by year, but as much as is possible, try to commit for a full year. This allows you to experience a fuller range of ups and downs, storms and fair weather. If you do feel like quitting, keeping that commitment can keep you from abandoning ship prematurely, as well as to help you determine whether there is a consistent pattern that needs addressing. Knowing that can mean the difference between constant second-guessing and feeling peace and confidence in deciding to expel your homeschooler. 

One last piece of advice: keep discerning. The root of the word “discern” is “to sift.” If we think about discernment as a continual process of sifting through our days to find the specks of gold and let the grains of sand fall through, we will become experts at recognizing those “golden moments” that cue us into our deepest desires for ourselves. We can then bring these to God in prayer, seeking to follow where his voice might be directing our paths. 

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Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
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Podcast: Mama Prays

– Luke 1:43-45

A reading from the book of Revelations: 

“Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.”

– Revelations 12:17

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“Mom, how big am I?” my son bounces on his heels, eagerly awaiting my answer.

“What do you mean, honey?” I ask. I am slow to look up from my reading, so I miss his gesture towards the wall. 

“I mean, how much do I weigh?” he asks. 

“We’ll have to go upstairs and see,” I reply, thinking of the digital scale in my bathroom. 

“NO!” he replies with uncharacteristic force for my usually mellow 5-year-old. “You know,” he says with a meaningful look, and this time I follow where he is pointing. 

He wants to know how much he weighs, according to the measure on the wall, where on each of their birthdays, we make little pencil marks to show how tall our children are, so that they can see how much they’ve grown each year. 

He’s asking how much he weighs, but that isn’t really what he means. 

One question that people are asking all over the internet these days has to do with the value of motherhood, thanks to a certain viral speech on a college campus somewhere in the middle of our country.

The reflection I have for you today is not a hot take on the merits or faults of that speech. This isn’t going to be a relative weighing of the value of stay at home motherhood or the permissibility of mothers pursuing paid work or passions outside the home. 

This is simply a reminder from one mother to another, on the Feast of the Visitation, that your motherhood matters. 

Because one thing that speech got right is that motherhood, in the last several decades, is under attack. We hear in Revelations that the dragon is enraged at the woman – that is, Mary - and is waging war against her offspring. We know that women have been a central battleground over the last century. We know these wounds. We know the political talking points. 

We know the voice that lurks in the darkness and whispers words that weigh on us, filling us with guilt and despair – guilt for choosing motherhood and, or guilt for not contributing enough to the world. It wants to wreck us, whichever choice we make, and we lash out and scapegoat whoever has chosen differently than ourselves. We know it all. 

But do we know just how important our motherhood is? 

It’s easy to forget, whether you’ve left a career full of accolades or are still accruing those accomplishments. Either way, the daily tasks of motherhood are mundane, thankless, unfulfilling. 

We do dishes. We prepare meals. We fold laundry. We sweep up crumbs. And whether we bake sourdough from scratch or slap some Wonderbread on the table, there really isn’t a lot of glamor in this job description.  

Sure, we can coordinate calendars with the skill of an executive assistant and plan perfectly proportioned meals to nourish our children. We become experts in removing blood stains, toy rotations, and cutting off crusts. Some of us can even fold a fitted sheet. Motherhood is challenging, and forces us to develop skills we feel are beyond us. I’m still working on those fitted sheets. 

Like I said, the tasks that make up our everyday are not glamorous. When I left work to stay home with our kids, my husband would come home every day and ask me one dreaded question: “What did you do today?” 

I hated answering that question. When I was working, that question might have any number of interesting answers. I might have had a meaningful conversation with a student or gotten some nice comment from my boss. I might have gone toe to toe with a parent or come up with a brilliant idea of how to teach a difficult concept. 

As a stay at home mom to two littles, my answers weren’t worth repeating. I got that jam out of the couch. I changed out of clothes covered in spit up. We played with Barbies while the baby inched his way across the carpet. 

My frustration with that question and our inability to appreciate the value of motherhood have the same problem as my son wanting to weigh himself by the marks on the wall: they use the wrong measure. 

My son won’t learn his weight from the wall, and we will never understand the meaning of motherhood when we try to account for it by any of the world’s measures. Not productivity. Not economics. Not statistics on good outcomes for mothers who adhered to any particular type of work related performance or abstinence. 

The immeasurable and intangible meaning of motherhood cannot be captured by a checklist. 

Mothering children is a divinely-appointed vocation, one in which the souls of our children have been entrusted to us to raise. The effects of motherhood are not inconsequential, but have eternal significance that few employment opportunities can hope to provide. 

Cardinal Josef Mindzety phrases it like this: 

“The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral – a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body. . . The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation… What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?”

And if you don’t believe the good cardinal, ask yourself who has been the most important woman in all of history. Who is the most powerful? The most influential? Whose work during her earthly days has not only moved our world, but ripples into eternity? 

The answer, of course, is the woman God crowned Queen of Heaven and Earth, his mother. 

And yet if we reflect on Mary’s daily tasks, we will find that they were not much different than our own – even if she did not yet have to contend with fitted sheets. She washed dishes. She prepared meals. She folded laundry, swept up crumbs, and made bread.

And as the mother of God, she even made the bread that comes down from Heaven. Her days were filled with snuggles and storytelling. She taught him to pray and introduced him to the community. 

Mary practiced by example what her son would later advise: “If you wish to become great, you must become the servant of all,” (Matt. 20:26). 

The greatest Woman on earth spent her days cooking meals for her husband and washing her son’s clothing. Why should we desire anything different? 

God has given us souls to steward, and no measure on earth can tell us what that is worth. 

When people say you are “just a mom,” turn the other cheek. Don't cast your pearls before swine. Those who would have us believe our time with our children is worth less than our paycheck, or who see hopping off the ladder as a death wish rather than a great leap of faith will spend their lives chasing dust and ashes. 

When they accuse us of wasting our potential, let us not take offense. Thomas Merton said only the false self is ever offended. We should look on those who see motherhood as a pitstop or an impediment to what really matters with the gaze of Jesus who looked upon the lost with hesed, sometimes translated as pity, loving kindness, or mercy. They are sheep without a shepherd. 

It is our job to be salt and light. Beggars showing the other beggars where to find food. 

Motherhood is littleness. Motherhood is servanthood. And motherhood is monumental – by every measure that matters.

5 Tips for Homeschooling with Littles

I am fairly certain I have read every post and listened to every podcast episode that attempts to answer this question, and I can tell you one thing: they all fall short. None of them has the magic answer, and spoiler alert: I don’t either. There just is no easy way to homeschool in the middle of the chaos of toddlers and preschoolers.

There are, however, a few tips and tricks that make the roar quieter and the messes smaller. So, take solace in the fact that it is not just you; this is a tough season for everyone, and I am told by many a wise mother that better days are ahead. In the meantime, here is what is (sort of) working for us.

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Our Themed Toddler Busy Bins

Here, you’ll find recipes with ingredients for themed busy bins, designed to be low-mess, independent, and engaging for those little hands and minds. Each has sensory, fine motor, building, and creative components and can be rotated on a daily basis to keep each activity fresh and exciting for your little one.

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Summer Bible Study for Catholic Families

Summer is the perfect season to explore faith with your children, and what better way to do it than through a Bible study that’s engaging, educational, and fun? Whether you’re lounging on the beach or enjoying the shade of your backyard tree, these resources will help you and your little ones dive into the Word of God together.

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Dear cherished listeners,

Your support for the “Mama Prays” podcast has been a beacon of light in our journey together. Now, I’m reaching out to ask for a small favor that can make a big difference. If these episodes have touched your heart or offered you solace in the midst of motherhood, please consider leaving a rating and review.

Why? Because your feedback not only warms my heart and encourages me to keep going, but also helps other mothers discover the podcast. It’s a way to extend the circle of prayer and support to more women who might be seeking inspiration just like you.

So, take a moment to share your thoughts and let the world know about the blessings you’ve found in “Mama Prays.” It’s quick, it’s easy, and it truly means the world to me.

Thank you for being a part of this community. Your voice matters, and I can’t wait to hear it!

With gratitude,

Samantha

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Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad
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^{He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”}

^{And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.}

— Mark 10:13-16

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I am endlessly grateful for every single one of you who takes the time to tap a star rating or write a review in your podcast app!

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One of the first blog posts I ever wrote was an earnest, idealistic piece on the importance of bringing our children to Mass. Several years and four kids later, those sentiments are as obsolete as that first blog. My own words pop into my head and my stomach churns — bloated from years of weekly humble pie.

Our trip to Mass today is no different than any other Sunday. We rush into the car, stopping halfway out the drive to rush back inside in search of someone’s lost shoe. Despite our best efforts, our on-time buffer window shrinks, and we silently and anxiously pray that we’ll make it into the pews before the procession beings.

What is the point? I ask myself. The question has become almost a ritual. What is the point of subjecting ourselves to this weekly hour of humiliation in which we will be lucky to pray a passing song lyric in the midst of mediating sibling disputes in hushed whispers as my husband and I take turns escorting out the naughtiest child outside? The church may as well have had revolving doors for all the time we spent inside it. I hadn’t heard a homily in years.

What is the point?

As I lean my head against the cool glass of the car window, steeling myself for the hour of misery that surely awaits, no exterior sign prepares me for the particulars of what’s to come.

As we pull up to the Cathedral, shivers of dread run up my spine despite the summer sun’s glaring heat radiating from the asphalt. We hike up the grand concrete staircase that beckons all to enter in and yank on the brass door handles, to no avail. The doors are locked.

Mentally chastising myself for forgetting that Mass is being held in the adjacent gym during Cathedral renovations, I relinquish the final glimmers of false hope of being on time. Still huffing from the trek up the stairs, we begin our descent down the other side, our little ducklings waddling along behind us. Sweat trickles down my back, soaking through the thin but tightly-wrapped baby pink fabric of the wrap in which my newborn nestles snuggly, blissfully ignorant of her role as personal heater.

The gym doors swing open with a bang and my heart drops as I realize that not only have we missed the procession, but the gym has been set up for Mass facing the side we just entered. We slink past the hundreds of chairs, heads hung low, trying to avoid the gaze of their occupants, slowly realizing that every single one is filled.

Mass continues on behind us. Not that we can hear it over the creaking of the ancient wooden bleachers beneath our feet, which have been built in such a way that one must climb to the very last row — the one nearest the ceiling — to enter them. The second we take our seats in the nosebleeds, our oldest announces that she needs to go to the potty. My husbands creaks his way right back down the ancient stairs with our oldest and toddler in tow, leaving me with our newborn and usually mild-mannered son to manage.

Today, he shows no signs of manners, mild or otherwise.

When he finally notices that Dad is off to do far more interesting things than stare at the roof of the world’s tallest gym, he immediately recognizes the unfairness of the moment and demands to be given his rights to go along. He lunges to make his escape, and I tighten my grip on his arm as I watch my husband disappear through the gym doors, oblivious to the struggle we’re having in the rafters.

Incensed by the grave injustice he endures at my hands, my 4-year-old deploys his most effective weapon, shrieking at the top of his lungs,

“You’re saying a BAD WORD to me!”

Clearly, something has been lost in translation. The only “bad” word I have used is “no” (in this conversation anyway), and yet his repeated refrain reverberates from the rafters for the whole assembly to hear that I have been swearing at my child during Mass.

As we are the only family that has been exiled to sky-high bleacher seating, it is abundantly clear just which mother is allegedly spouting profanity at her young son.

This might be my deadliest dose of humble pie to date.

Eventually my husband returns, oblivious to the mascara that streaks down my face, hidden beneath my veil, pulled close to mask my shame.

Mass continues, and I go through the motions numb and unaware, save the ebb and flow of behavioral disasters breaking over me, heedless of the way their constant swells have eroded my resolve over the years.

When it is time for communion, my merry band of littles ones stomp down the stairs creating a cacophony that seems impossibly thunderous for such tiny feet.

What is the point? I sigh, despondent. Someone somewhere must have mistaken my inward groanings for a prayer, because as we round the corner to come up the center aisle, I catch sight of my little girl’s hand enclosed in my own, and the haze of my despair lifts, giving way to the brightness of a new truth dawning inside me.

This is the point. Here in this stuffy gym, our Lord and Savior waits to greet us at the end of this aisle. And as we walk hand in hand towards our Lord, I see that this moment is an image of our lives together.

It is our God-given vocation to lead these souls to Jesus. That is why we suffer the torment of bringing the wiggly and whiny to church every week — so that they can come to know and love their Maker.

And on the really good days, I see the fruits of our labor blossoming through spontaneous prayer, sketches of Sacred Heart, playing Mass together, concern for the poor, a tiny act of virtue in love for a sibling.

But in this moment I see something new: it goes both ways.

Not only do I lead my little girl up the aisle; she is bringing me to Jesus.

She brings me to Jesus in a hundred different ways every day. She brings me to Jesus in sheer gratitude for her existence, when I pray for her, when her little faith shines forth in thousands of brilliant questions all my high school students in eight years never thought to ask.

Even more than that, she brings me to Jesus when she brings me to my knees. It’s the tough moments, all these little humiliations, the times in my motherhood when I suffer the refining fire of my own insufficiency. Whatever leads me deeper into the mystery of the limitless love of the Father covering all my faults and failings, leads me into the freedom of my dependence on Him.

I can surrender to these humiliations happily, reveling in the reminder that I am never truly in control.

Maybe someday I’ll even surrender my desire for that control.

For now, we walk, hand in hand, urging each other along, divinely-appointed companions on this long, slow road to Jesus.

My husband snapped this candid shot of my and my littles on that creaky staircase in the stuffy gym on that stifling summer day, basking in the glow of relief after surviving yet another Mass with our zoo in tow.

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad

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The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

— John 5:6-9

Several months ago, I was enveloped in the deep blackness of my autoimmune disorder. I had lived for several years with minimal symptoms following my diagnosis, but this past fall, it sucked me under.

Piercing joint pain shot through my back and hips. A heavy blanket of exhaustion fell over me. It was too much to boil water. Looking back, it is hard to explain even to myself how lost I was to the effects of this disease. It stole me from my husband, my children, and even from myself.

I had a recurring nightmare as a child that I was crawling behind the other children, trying to keep up, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. They would close, no matter how I fought the urge. That dream is the nearest example I have to explain the experience of the exhaustion that overtook me.

Worse than the physical pain and all-encompassing exhaustion was the fact that even if I could push past the pain and muster the energy to move, I simply didn’t want to. It was as if someone had turned the off switch to all of my peace and joy, and the only emotion I could experience was misery.

I spent weeks on the couch, unable to will myself forward, too tired to try, wondering where I had gone and who I was now. I knew I was still inside myself, somewhere deep down, but that me was small, muted, and inaccessible.

Thankfully, I received some terrible test results. These test results told my doctor that I was very, very sick (that much was apparent), and I had to follow a rigorous regimen to heal all the ways in which my body was going wrong.

I would have done anything — with glee — if there was even a chance of escaping the misery.

That regimen included stopping all exercise save one daily walk in the sunshine, switching prescriptions (the last one was making things worse), many supplements (20 pills and one dropper a day), frequent rest to remind my body it was not, in fact, under constant threat of bear attack, and adding in nourishing foods like coconut water and seaweed, and abstaining from all grains, legumes, eggs, processed foods, nuts and seeds, refined sugars, alcohol, and dairy. This is the part where I offer the obligatory disclaimer that this is merely my experience, not medical advice.

I was not a fun dinner party guest. I even had to make myself my own separate Thanksgiving dinner to avoid being plunged back into the deep pit of despair.

But it worked. By Thanksgiving, I was not only well enough to boil water, but I prepared five dishes and two pies that complied with all my new restrictions. I relished the joy and relief of being myself again.

Of course, it wasn’t without difficulties. “What can you even eat?” was a question I got asked. A lot.

“Meat and vegetables,” I answered cheerfully (or as close to cheerfully as I could pretend, depending on how many times I’d already answered this same question for the present inquirer).

“I could never do that,” was often the bewildered and pitying response.

“You could if you felt bad enough,” came my response, the memory of desperate, anguished days surfacing, along with the gripping trepidation that this respite was temporary, and that any day I’d be pulled back under without warning.

Only now, several months later, I am beginning to wonder about that last response.

By the grace of God, I am learning to manage this condition and most days, I am myself and peace and joy flow naturally. My flare ups are not as severe, involve only one or a few symptoms, and the terrible blackness appears to have vanished.

As I have encountered others who suffer from similar or adjacent conditions, I find that what I had said in the past is not, in fact, true: not everyone who suffers greatly is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to recover. And of course not every kind of suffering is something that can be ameliorated by lifestyle changes — but many things are.

And this is true of the spiritual life as well. There is so much pain and loneliness that result from our own insistence on clinging to anger and resentment and our own sin.

Or we want to go our way morally, departing from the teachings of Jesus as handed to us by his Church. We insist on our way, and we get burned. You name, and we do it.

We have premarital sex and get our hearts ripped out.

We cohabitate and six years later, we’re left alone and much less of a catch than we were before the relationship started.

We contracept and the tiny joys meant to refine us on our path to holiness never appear, our silent hallways never echoing with the pitter patter of little love escaped from bedtime for just one more drink of water.

Or we do everything “right,” but we do it with resentment in our hearts, failing to cultivate the virtues that make a life of self-giving love such a sweet and easy yoke.

Instead of reveling in gratitude for the sweet moments, we covet our “me” time.

Instead of easing the burdens of a cranky spouse, we bristle at the obligation to love them in good times and in bad.

Instead of relishing the wondrous gift of the other, we foster irritation at their every imperfection, conveniently forgetting all those who remain patient with our own.

///

“Do you want to be healed?”

It’s a deceptively simple question. Of course we want to be healed. We just don’t always want to be healed enough.

As this reflection is brewing in my brain, I discuss it with my 8-year-old. I explain to her about the man waiting by the pool at Bethesda. Actually, she has just seen this scene depicted on The Chosen, so I don’t need to explain much. But I do ask her to consider how it might have felt to be that man, waiting his whole life for someone to carry him into the pool so that he could be healed. What must he have thought about this man Jesus who showed up and instructed him to simply pick up his mat and walk.

Was he irritated? Impatient? Annoyed? He knew what he needed to be healed, and Jesus is standing there offering him a different way.

Was he willing to try it Jesus’s way? Or did he say to himself, “I could never do that?”

At this point, my daughter pipes up excitedly from the back seat, “It’s just like me, Mom!”

“What do you mean?” I ask her.

“I prayed my whole life to be healed from my eczema. And we’ve had that medicine all along. If I had just listened to you and done what you said, I could have been healed years ago.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

Do you want to be healed?

We all have our illnesses. How many of us have the courage to say, “yes”?

Whatever it is, however you thought it was supposed to be healed, give it to Jesus now. Surrender it all, even the cure you thought you needed. Leave it all behind.

It’s time to rise, pick up your mat, and walk.

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad

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— Luke 15:20

“I hate you. I hate you!” my daughter screams from behind her door. Her words cut me, but this is hardly the first tantrum that we’ve weathered. I stand outside, deaf to the sound of kicks and screams. They used to break me inside; familiarity has numbed their sting. 

“Let. Me. Out!” She punctuates every word with a pound of her fist against the door. This is her mantra, her fit of rage. I listen but I don’t respond. In her anger, she has forgotten the truth: I am waiting for her outside.

The door isn’t locked.

If she chose, she could walk back into my arms at any time. Instead, my prodigal daughter sits and stews in the fumes of her own fury. 

This is where I vacillate as a parent. I waver between wanting to tow the hard line of justice and wanting to embrace her with arms of mercy. I want her to learn her lesson, to have the discipline to calm down and sort through her feelings and transgressions in a productive way. I want her to seek reconciliation. At the same time, I feel for her. I know the paralysis of the fear of rejection, even as an adult woman. I want to reach in, salve her pain, and help her breathe again. 

On this day, when the screaming quiets, I walk through her door and scoop her up. Today, her hands do not push me away. Today, she crumples against me. The stiffness of fear and anger are gone. Her tiny hands clasp around my neck as she lets her head fall against my chest. When she is through soaking up affection and reassurance, she is ready to take my hand and walk out of her room. No, the door was never locked. Still, she needed a tangible sign to walk back through it. 

This is the gift of confession, that tangible sign of the grace God offers us. We are never locked out. But, sometimes, we allow ourselves to be locked in by our own fears and shame. We let Satan twist us up on ourselves, sometimes so much that we blame God for the isolation we feel. We convince ourselves that it isn’t even us who have done wrong.

God is unfair and his rules are outdated. We ignore him. We pretend not to be hurt by consuming the things we know will consume us. We build our own prison walls, and then rail against God when we realize how trapped we’ve become. 

There is an old tale of monkey-trapping in which a small piece of fruit is placed in a vessel with a long, small neck. The fruit is small enough to fit down there, but large enough that the opening becomes too tight for the fruit to be withdrawn once the monkey wraps his hand around it. There is nothing stopping the monkey from releasing the fruit and walking away. He remains trapped only as long as he refuses to let go of the fruit. 

We imprison ourselves with our unwillingness to let go. We are trapped by the illusion of being trapped, locked in only because we are unwilling to try the handle and walk out of the darkness. Many times, freedom is not this easy and our pain is not something we can simply walk away from. 

But sometimes, it is. 

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad

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Podcasts: Mama Prays

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

— 1 John 1:5-9

“Mommymommmymommy!” The breathless stringing together of my title is familiar, but the urgency with which my daughter calls is uncharacteristic. Her voice is laced with fear, so I rush into her room. The light of the early morning creeps into her room. It’s not enough to eliminate the darkness, just enough to cast deep shadows. 

In these shadows, apparently, lurks a monster. Cowering under her covers, my daughter points him out, and I wrestle him into the light. “See?” I pick him up and show her that the evil monster is actually a crumpled sweater, his mouth not full of jagged teeth, but an empty sleeve poking up from the pile of cloth below. 

“That’s not scary at all!” she exclaims.

Monsters, like most of life, are scarier in the dark. Sin and shame are most powerful when we let them whisper lies in our ears. We cover them up and turn off the lights so no one will see.

What that really means is that we can’t see them clearly either. In the dark, they lose their form, take on distorted shapes that trick and terrify us. We think we are safer in that darkened room, alone with these monsters. We don’t want anyone else to see them. Terrifying as they are, we want to hide with them because, after all, we created these monsters. We deserve this fear.

Shame traps us under the covers. 

Freedom is as simple as crying out to our Father. He knows the landscape of our room. Our mess is not likely to trip him up. He is willing to enter our darkness, to pull us out of the beds we’ve made, and turn on the lights. 

This is a different kind of scary. What we’re likely to see is far less benign than a sweater; it is also often far less deadly than we imagine. The Father knows well the rooms of our hearts. It is not he who is afraid of facing our sin. We are. He wants to come in, to clean up, to take away the darkness and the pain and fear that rules when we face our sinfulness alone. 

The thing about sin, though, is that it isn’t just scarier in the dark. It’s actually more dangerous. The darkness of sin doesn’t lighten on its own; it’s more like a black hole, absorbing the light, creating more and more darkness. And on our own, we can’t resist its pull. 

Luckily, we don’t have to.

Books: Mama Prays Devotional | Reclaiming Motherhood from a Culture Gone Mad

Connect: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Podcast: Mama Prays

In my third trimester, wrangling three kids under 6 at Mass is what it must feel like to be one of the roly-poly bugs my children flip onto their backs. My limbs are in constant motion, but it does no good. I wish I could just curl into a ball until the threat goes away.

Alas, today it is me and not the bug who falls victim to my children’s poking and prodding. But instead of testing with a long stick, today they’re testing limits. What happens if I dart out into the aisle when they’re not looking? Our two-year-old wonders. With his body.

The three-year-old, meanwhile, is testing the limits of physics. How many hymnals can I add to this stack before it collapses? Noisily. Can my body really fit all the way under this pew?

It can’t. “I’m stuck!” And now the whole church knows it.

Normally, I’d be amused by the fact that he managed to time his piercing cries for the miniscule moments of silent reverence as the priest slowly sits himself back after the homily.

Not today.

Today, I am not. Handling. It. Well.

And so, it’s the six-year-old that gets me. Her flat-out refusal to honor my request to meet some expectation so simple it not need be uttered turns out to be my last marble. Her steely eyes have transported it to another dimension, and in the absence of all my many marbles, there is nothing to hold back the emotions from spilling over.

Fat tears splatter on the ruins of the hymnal tower. Not tiny tears, either. This is no graceful trickle of regret, nor a shy pool peeking over the edge of eyelids. This is a hot hot, shameful flood of failure — the kind that spills out of one’s nose as well as one’s eyes.

I am a sight to behold.

Before I can sink further into this pit of hormonal self-criticism, it’s time for communion. My 6-year-old, shocked by the reminder that I have feelings, has reverted back to human form, but it’s too late. There’s no putting a finger in the dam. I’m crumbling.

We wade up the aisle, and for once I’m not grateful for this robust community. When we left California, it was only a hope and prayer that we might land amongst like-minded Catholic families. For the first time, I’m wishing away these friendships. I want my anonymity back.

I shift my veil forward, hoping it covers my face and shields me from facing their concern, from being made to endure vulnerability.

I take communion. I recover. I laugh later as we all eat together in the Cathedral basement.

I know the veil is not for hiding. At least, not permanently. It’s not meant to be a wall. It’s meant to cover that which is sacred. It’s meant as a sign of the dignity of what is underneath.

And, at the right time and the right place, it’s meant to be removed.

Maybe I’m not ready yet. But soon.

Lord, help me to unveil my heart.

…

I forgot the bobby pins. I cringe as I curse internally and double-back to the holy water font for a double dip of mercy. Women who wear veils aren’t supposed to curse, right?

Women who wear veils are probably also supposed to arrive on time for Mass and have thought about what to pack in the Mass bag more than 37 seconds before leaving the house, too.

Women who wear veils are supposed to have confessed before Sunday rolls around, not begin confession with the vague but accurate, “It’s been…a while since my last confession.”

Women who wear veils check their hemline before leaving the house so they don’t arrive at Mass before realizing that their pregnant bellies have raised the hemline of their skirt so high it could be confused with a skirt out of the closet of Britney Spears circa 1998.

Women who were veils are also supposed to pay attention to the homily, pray reverently, and have enough humility to wear the veil without reflecting on what kind of woman they might be perceived as.

I’m reminding myself of these very facts as the forgotten bobby pins come back to haunt me. I feel my veil slip over my face just before my two-year-old tugs it off.

Oh boy, I sigh. We’ve discovered a new game.

Some remnant of my mischievous pre-mother spirit rises within me: if you can’t beat them, join them.

Before I know it, I am engaged in a game of peek-a-boo and my son’s laughs echo all the way to the large wooden beams of the ceiling.

And before my inner critic can shame me with another lecture on what women who wear veils shouldn’t do, I’m swept away by the image of another Woman who wore a veil.

She’s looking at me, and her face isn’t somber. Her finger isn’t wagging, and her spirit isn’t somber. It’s playful.

Her gaze returns to her own laughing child, his chubby hand raising her veil between their eyes. The love between them is palpable. Up and down the veil goes, and with it my world shifts.

Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what all the women who were veils do or don’t do.

Just the one.

…

When I come across the photo, it looks peaceful. I see what my husband saw when he clandestinely snapped the shot on his iPhone: my children are gathered around me and I’m smiling. The photo doesn’t show the sweat running down my back from chasing them around the gym-turned-temporary Mass space. It doesn’t show my heart thudding with anxiety as I try to keep them around me, to prevent them from darting up the stairs or out the door. A photo might speak a thousand words, but I’m grateful this one says nothing of my experience that day.

Instead, this photo tells a different story. No longer is this moment a brief respite from the chaos of Mass in a gym on a hundred degree evening. When I come across it later and I see myself veiled, surrounded by my children, it shifts my focus. The ego of the moment evaporates, and I’m left with a renewed sense of purpose. Like Mary, I am keeper of these souls for a brief moment before they return to their Maker.

Motherhood is not primarily about satisfying my desires, but His. No matter the transient chaos, fleeting joys, or passing sorrows, we’ve brought them where they belong.

They are in their Father’s house — even if today, their Father makes His home in a gym.

Its not the house of a judge or a headmaster. We aren’t here to be weighed and measured. We are here because this, more than any place else on earth, is where we belong.