Desire

I have lost some of the enthusiasm that drove me to create an entire, new prayer schedule, and also somewhat more of a daily routine.  I worked on it over the weekend, talked to my husband about it last night, and launched the project, or at least the rough draft of it, today.  Even before the day began, as I spoke with my husband last night, I experienced some inner trepidation and questioning... why am I doing this again?  What actually needs to change?  Aren't we already doing ok?  Aren't I?  Why do I want to make more sacrifices or commitments?

Of course I might look back and tweak my goals a bit, or I might toss out the new prayer routine altogether if it is not good for our family, but for now, the reason I came up with it, was because I thought that it would be good, and I cannot let it go until I have seen whether or not it is--and, I cannot see whether or not it is good until I practice it faithfully to see what it brings.

I didn't start this new challenge because I am feeling so much love for God and so much hunger for Him that I wanted desperately to be allowed to pray more.  Far from it.  God and I have been wrestling, like Jacob and the angel, for several weeks now, throughout late night feedings, late night awakenings of the baby that aren't even feedings, and many moments of a crying baby throughout the day where I feel at a loss with what even to do.  Even before the baby, I cannot say that I had been having any urges to fall on my knees in prayerful adoration or to lift my hands to my Maker. 

So often I do not even feel desire for God, but I am convinced with all of my heart that He is desirable.  He is the Maker of all that is good.  He is my Provider and Sustainer.  I have experienced His help and joy in my life.  I know that we are made for Him, and that we find our complete happiness in Him.  I believe all of this.  St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a miraculous summary of theology.  Who understood God and His mysteries better than this holy genius?  He had a prayerful experience with God, as Jesus told him that he had written well of Him and asked him what he would have for his reward.  Now I can think of a lot of things that I would want as a reward if Jesus asked me... but St. Thomas wanted only one thing: "Only Thyself, Lord."  Who is this God he desired so ardently?  I want to know.  I want to know Him more, and not only what I have already experienced of Him.

My mom was telling me a story of St. Therese that I had heard previously, but still appreciated hearing again.  One of St. Therese's older sisters was giving away a basket of her old things to Therese and another sister.  The other sister picked carefully through the basket to pick out a couple of objects.  Therese did not pick through it, but grabbed the entire contents and said that she wanted it all.  This was the same spirit with which she pursued Christ and allowed herself to receive all that He had to give her.  I want all.  I hope for all.  I do not want to miss all of the plans and good gifts that my Father has to give me. 

Even if my heart does not feel aflame, I know that its deepest thirst and most desperate hope is for Christ, and not just for a little bit or for me to be a little bit given to Him, but for me to be completely consumed by Him and for me to receive Him completely.  This isn't going to happen with fireworks and boom bands playing but with simple and faithful obedience. 

I Can... Will I?

Yesterday I could not take my eyes off my little baby boy rocking away in his swing, fast asleep--his perfect little nose, his floppy cheeks, the peaceful look on his face with his eyes tight shut.  So much beauty I can hardly take it in.  My heart can hardly hold so much love.  And then I thought of God, and how we are made in His image and likeness.  If this is His image, I was thinking, how great must our God be!

As I have been reading and reflecting on the book A Mother's Rule, I have been skeptical about the amount of time she devotes to prayer and scripture study.  I can hardly believe that that could fit into a mother's schedule, especially a mother with more kids than me and who homeschools.  At first I doubted that it was possible, but then I became afraid, afraid that God might be calling me to make more sacrifices in order to invest more time into my relationship with Him.

I have become accustomed to excuses, as a mother.  A priest told me in confession not to feel bad for being late to Mass because I had a baby.  I often felt faint during pregnancy or was physically unable to kneel during Mass.  My prayer is constantly interrupted by a child.  As moms, we know that our lives do not look like nun in a convent, and sometimes a half hour of quiet prayer is an elusive pastime or a rare luxury.  We have so many reasons to not be able to hear everything said at Mass or to find that we have had difficulty entering into prayer, mind and heart, for months.  I often long to express all of my feelings of inadequacy to a sister in Christ with the hope that she will tell me it is ok... that it is to be expected that I would not be accomplishing more.  However, this book seems to do the exact opposite, not in anyway to discourage a mother who is seeking to live out her faith and to lead her family in holiness, but to challenge her to make decisions and to grow in diligence so that she actually can do more and have more peace in her relationship with the Lord. 

Instead of a pat on the back and a keep doing what you are doing, I am seeing more and more that often the lack of order in my day is not just due to dirty diapers and unpredictable risings from naps.  So much is due to my own lack of self-discipline, the little decisions that I make to lay in bed for twenty more poor quality minutes of sleep after a morning nurse instead of jump starting the day, or of trying to do more than I know is possible in an allotted amount of time and then paying for it with rushing Agnes to bed way too late or leaving my husband with dirty dishes as I go off to nurse or go somewhere for the evening.  I can do better if I want to do better, but it means that I will have to grow in self-knowledge and self-control. 

For some reason, my daughter is up from her nap after 30 minutes and is not going back to sleep, so I am cutting this off without finishing to practice what I am talking about!!  Self-control and first things first!

Christ my Strength

Yesterday my husband and I sat down for our "weekly" husband and wife meeting, and he asked how I was doing.  It was the wrong part of the day.  I was tired and hungry, and Edmund was crying and wouldn't even nurse.  I could barely think past my own grumpy attitude and I was feeling hopeless about ever being able to have a peaceful routine with such an unpredictable baby.  I told him I wasn't writing the blog anymore (to which he quickly and rightly replied I was too emotional to make a decision at the moment), and I spouted off my ugly feelings about how God must not want me to succeed, and that by me reading a book about order and feeling drawn to it, He was just dangling something in front of me that I could not have.  Basically, I lost it.  After I ate a granola bar and Clayton got Edmund to sleep, I remembered that I love my life and God and that God is good.

I am so weak, and moments like three o'clock in the afternoon when it is almost time for Agnes to wake up, I feel desperate for a nap, Edmund has not given me a break, and my to do list has only a couple of checks next to it, that I often slip into despair and resentment--despairing feelings of how the world is crashing down and resentment towards whomever I can find to resent, myself if I can't think of anyone else!  It never is the end of the world and God never really has stopped caring about me, and He is not out to get me.  My lack of joy in these moments is not due to anyone else's or my own failures, or even due to Edmund's erratic schedule.  My lack of joy is due to my lack of God and my too much of self.

Ironically, I become discouraged that God is not helping me to succeed, when really, I want to succeed so that I can be a holy woman.  If I do not do it for God, then what is the point?  And if He does not give me relief in certain areas, He is either trying to teach me something through it, or I am not doing my part.  I believe that deep down, I don't really always want to do good things for God.  I want to do good things for myself.  I want to do good so that I can feel good about myself and so that I can feel like others have a reason to admire me.  Even confronting this does not automatically make my priorities fall into place.  I need Christ, and I need Christ even in order to recognize that I need Him.  I need Him to rub mud in my eyes and to open them. 

I recently read a different translation to a popular Bible verse: "I have the strength for everything through Him who empowers me."  -Phil. 4:13  This wording struck me.  I have the strength for everything.  I have the strength for the big and the mundane, the expected and not expected, the desired and the undesired.  I have the strength for it all.  IF Christ empowers me.  If I do not have Christ, the One Who gives me strength, than I do not have the strength for everything.  I do not even have strength at all.  I cannot succeed, and even were I able, my success would have no purpose.  Christ is the answer, above all, to all of my striving and wanting and hoping in my daily life.  I can only pray not only that He would increase in me, but that my thirst for Him would increase, would become a fire burning in my bones, driving me only towards Him who is my allotted portion and my cup. (Psalm 16:5)

Jumping in

Last night I was feeling excited and anxious about trying to incorporate the Mother's Rule into my own life, a more disciplined schedule that would ensure that my time maintained a healthy balance of my top priorities and responsibilities in a way that would glorify and honor God--excited, because I had hope that my life could improve with this and the fruits that would come of it, and anxious, because of fear that I could not possibly turn the unpredictable feedings and sleepings of my infant and the constantly changing schedule of my husband into some sort of routine. 

I unloaded all of my feelings about this book on my husband last night, afraid that he would discourage me from trying it, not because he wouldn't think it was good, but because I recently convinced him that we should take a temporary fast from eating out to save money and grow in self-control, that we should always do dishes and clean up immediately as part of the job, and that we should put more effort into eating more wholesome foods, all within a matter of a couple of weeks.  Could I really throw something else at him when we were already putting effort into so many areas?  It is interesting because I have often learned and seen that sometimes people should work on one habit at a time and grow in that one area, but in this book, she changed so much so quickly.  She said that it went so well on DAY ONE.  I know that she must have spent a lot of time in improving the schedule and growing in faithfulness and diligence to it, but sometimes it does seem that jumping into more ordered living (not that it will be perfect right away) takes a leap of action that can't always happen gradually.  Or maybe that is just how it works for some people.  If I wake up early enough to pray and eat breakfast before my daughter is up, but the rest of my day just sort of happens, I still arrive at 11 o'clock discouraged because it doesn't feel that different. 

So I told my husband everything and I found him answering my objections and encouraging me to do what I can to imitate this woman in my own way.  He even said that he was also inspired.  We have not ironed out a plan, but we want to begin to today.  However, we did spend a few minutes planning what we would do today so that we could maximize our family time on his last free day before working 3 twelves at the hospital. Somehow by nine we had both prayed and exercised and the kids were both ready for the day.  That might not seem like a big deal since he was home to help, but somehow on his days off I find myself more distracted and purposeless rather than efficient and productive. 

It has been so fun to grow in these little ways with my husband.  Last evening at nine-thirty I was becoming so frustrated that our baby was eating precious minutes of Clayton and my evening together by fussing inconsolably.  We had also been irritated by two huge flies enjoying the air conditioning of our apartment and no fly swatter.    Eventually I got Edmund to sleep and was ready for the tea that Clayton had prepared for me probably a half hour before.  I hadn't noticed that the flies had stopped buzzing until I saw Clayton's face puckered up in a laugh.  "Is there a fly in there?"  I asked.  "No, there are two flies in there."  We laughed and got sucked into amazon and youtube trying to learn more about eating healthy.  Before bed, I realized that in spite of the distractions and less than ideal relaxing evening with my husband, we had enjoyed our time together, and grown a little more in love, after all. 

Holiness, Tears, and Toilet Water

Last night I began to read A Mother's Rule of Life.  I was forewarned that she has older children, so to keep in mind that her life might look a little different from mine, and I might not always relate to the same issues.  Still, I decided to see what it was about and if it could help me to better live out my vocation as a mother.

As I began to read, she talked about a time when she was ready to give up because she had hit bottom.  I thought I can relate to that.  She said a few things to her husband that were worse than what I have ever said, and the way she described her house made me feel pretty good about mine.  If she was that low, then however she solves her problems in this book will certainly help me.  She describes a conversion experience with her ordinary living and daily schedule, and how Christ led her to develop a rule of life, a routine to prioritize her time and be committed daily and hourly to the most important responsibilities, and to do this all not as a religious would acquire holiness, but as a religious wife and mother.  It sounded so good, and though I had not yet read her actual routine, I was ready to start the next day with more purpose and to be more intentional about my time.  I wrote down a rough schedule of how to accomplish my duties for the next day, even knocking off some originally planned chores that didn't seem realistic to accomplish.  I set my alarm rather than planning on waiting to be dragged out of bed by the cries of my children, and I went to bed with high hopes. 

My baby Edmund woke up about a half hour later, then about one or two hours later, then about one or two hours later, then about one or two hours later, then about one or two hours later... you get the idea.  I also was up with him during a couple of these awakenings for longer than normal.  Needless to say, the motivation to wake up early enough to exercise and pray before I needed to give Agnes breakfast quickly drained away and I turned off my alarm.  That was how the day started.

My husband returned from a night shift and made his way to bed just as I was making my way out.  The baby was starting to fuss, and Agnes had been sadly calling for Mommy for a few minutes.  I got her out of bed and changed her diaper as Edmund began to scream at the foot of my exhausted husband's bed.  I finally began to nurse him, by the end of which my daughter had stunk her diaper.  Then I changed both of them, finished nursing and finally got into the shower, a few minutes into which I could hear Edmund losing it from the first floor.  Somehow while I was in the shower, Agnes had soaked the floor with what I believed to be toilet water--and let's just say the toilet was due for a cleaning--and she was pretty wet as well, either from leaning over the tub, or... toilet water.  I was supposed to meet my friend in a half hour, and Edmund was still screaming.  I needed to clean the floor, clean the things that were on the floor, and clean and dress Agnes all before I could go and comfort my baby.  And neither Agnes nor I had eaten yet, and I had not had my coffee.  Throughout this time I had said Jesus' Name many times in prayer along with a couple of choice words, not under my breath. 

Throughout all of this I was recalling the words from the book I had read the previous evening and throughout the night feedings.  I had eventually gotten to the part describing her daily schedule, which included what seemed to be about two hours of prayer.  Somehow, it seemed, her baby never needed to nurse and was always happy, that her kids did everything without needing her help, and that the two year old bathed himself.  Not only that, but her husband's consistent teaching hours of work are a far cry from my husband's nursing schedule in which not even one day of the week is consistent.  I am tempted to walk away from this book because it is making me feel bad and a little hopeless about ever attaining such order and consistency in my life.  Where I was thankful to not be behind on laundry or dishes a couple of days ago, I now feel like my life is simply trying to work in sleeping and eating around cries for attention and the physical necessities for care from my babies. 

Still, what I have understood from the book, is that she has ordered her life, and the life of her family, around prayer.  Holiness is her top priority, and while I am in the habit of making excuses for myself not frequenting the sacraments more often or never hearing the homily at Mass, because that's what motherhood is, she is looking at her day with the perspective that prayer provides the strength and reason for everything else.  I cannot imitate her schedule, but somehow I want to imitate this practice of seeing my time and days as needing first to be filled with prayer, and then with everything else.  I am a little disheartened and not sure how to move forward, but I am resisting the urge to cast away this book that makes me see myself and my self-centered or off-centered hours a little more clearly. 

Our Silly Heads

I remember several years ago a dear friend offering to pay for me to get a haircut because she was so afraid of seeing me butcher it at Great Clips, which was where I planned to have it cut.  I didn't make her pay, but I did find another place with a reasonable or free price... I think it was Kenneth's Hair Salon. 

Today I was a little more influenced by Dave Ramsey.  I needed/wanted a haircut and I just couldn't stomach the prices of most hair salons, that probably are better and safer for most people!  I debated returning to Aveda's Institute on campus, but memories of embarrassing myself sitting backwards in the massage chair and hearing my stylist ask the instructor what a round curl was (she had just told him to do this to my hair), I ruled that option out as well.  I reasoned that I am rarely happy with my haircut regardless of the amount paid, so I might as well be unhappy losing $13 instead of $45 if I was going to be disappointed. 

I drove past Second Glance and wondered if my husband would notice the missing money if I accidentally turned in there instead...  After all, he had already suggested I could spend more if I wanted to.  But I drove on with growing dread, pulled into the parking lot, waited a minute, then got out, wondering if any self-respecting women would pay only $13 for a haircut, wondering if any women even went there at all, wondering if the man on the phone really understood what I meant when I asked if it was $13 to get my hair layered and not just chopped, wondering what the people in there would think of me for paying so little for a haircut, and wondering if I should just go back home--but I took the plunge.  I sat in the waiting area for a few minutes until a woman with hair buzzed on the sides and curly on top called my name for me to come sit on her chair.  I hoped she wasn't insulted when I explained adamantly that I did not want it so short in the back you had to use a razor.  She understood and didn't seem at all offended that I didn't want her same haircut.  As she cut I was startled by how perfectly she seemed to understand what I wanted done to my hair.  It was perfect, and I could not have been more pleased.  I would describe why I liked it so much but that would be more boring than me writing about a haircut.  So kudos to Great Clips!  Glad I took the risk, and I'll be back! 

Lastly, I want to talk about bananas... I know--there is no good way to make that transition!  I read in a frugal cooking cookbook a story about the author and her husband sharing a banana for dessert.  Tonight, I imagined I was eating dessert when I ate a banana and thought about it as a special, delicious, end of the day treat.  I loved it, even more than usual, mostly just because how I thought of it (this experiment has to be with something that is actually good and you like eating; this would not have worked for me with a string of olives or carrots).  I still finished off our brownies a bit later... but thinking back on it, I think I actually preferred the banana.  The brownie was more of a disappointment and the banana a surprise. 

I wonder how much of our actions and opinions are really just how we have been conditioned to think about things.  I am not being a relativist here and saying it is all in our heads, but I am saying a lot probably is.  I mean how important really is a haircut?  We all want to look nice, of course, but how did they become so expensive?  I did get lucky at Great Clips (meanwhile, everyone who looks at me hates my hair and thinks I must have gotten a cheap haircut... ha!), and others might not have the same luck, but it still is interesting how much we have come to value how the ends of our hair appear.  In a similar way, does my sugary, chocolate brownie really taste better than the banana, or do I just think so because it is called dessert?  Try to sleep with that question in your head! 

Dill Comes in a Plant

The organic dilemma has infested my household, and in the past several days, my obsession with a new ambition has driven me to learn more than anyone wants to know about GMO's and OMG's and the dirty dozen and the clean fifteen.... As I eat my brownie made with generic chocolate chips and poisonous flour, my head is buzzing with excitement and new ideas of how to integrate a safer diet into my cooking and baking habits.  Of course, most blogs or books will suggest a gradual increase in organic and non-GMO foods in order to grow gradually into a better diet, but I can't stand that idea.  I want to change immediately.  I wish I could say that I am so inspired by the green movement or that I feel like I am heroically saving the existence of my grandchildren by not feeding Agnes corn injected with infertility (please do not quote me on any of this!), but really I just want a simple, all inclusive, budget friendly way to become the perfect person... I finally found the perfect book, one that tells me exactly what to do on what day of the month in what season in order to have a perfectly nutritious diet of affordably organic food.  Of course this book is meatless, which poses a problem, and it is only showing up as tiny letters on my Iphone, which poses another problem, but still I am going to give it a try.  Whether it is my faulty perfectionism that drives me or a selfless awareness of how eating organically will save the world...;) I do want to grow in this area, because facts are facts, and I think it is a good idea.

While I am dying to jump all in, only because I prefer to fail in a big dream than succeed in smaller steps (not the best trait but sometimes it turns out ok!), I am lucky that we have already taken a couple of leaps in this area, one buying a quarter of a cow and the other paying for a share of weekly Ohio grown vegetables, that arrive every week and depend on my diligence to keep from becoming fly food in the dumpster.  Naturally, I have kept an eye out for recipes that include at least most of the vegetables that need to be eaten so that I can make up for all of the days of ignoring the big green bag in my refrigerator; and of course, thawed roast beef so I can dump all of the less than fresh rest of the vegetables in a crock pot and hope that no one can notice. 

Today I made a pasta recipe that included the remainder of basil, dill, and zucchini that were rotting in, I mean filling up, my kitchen.  It was awesome.  And I don't say that because I am an amazing cook or a super homemaker--I'm not.  I barely saved the expensive fresh produce we invested in from being added to the carrot casualties of last week.  It was awesome because normally I avoid recipes that include cutting up more than an onion, and I try to stock up on recipes that include a bunch of canned, open and dump, ingredients.  How can I spend the least time cooking so that I can enjoy the rest of my life and be with Agnes?  But today as I watched my blender attempt to puree the basil and dill and oil and garlic, I experienced the food in a different way.  I was delighted to see the green variety swirl into one healthy mess of what would be the flavor of the pasta, no dry spices or canned foods necessary.  I even called for Agnes to come watch it with me.  I am in no way against canned foods or dried spices or easy recipes, but I do think it is so easy to get caught up in saving time that we lose it.  Today I felt a little more alive, preparing these vegetables that were a little more alive, a little better tended to when grown, a little more recently picked from the earth, and I enjoyed it.  I don't know where this current organic frenzy will take me, but I am thankful that my husband and I get to do this Ohio farm thing, this summer, and that I am forced to slow down a little bit and encounter what I am actually doing.

Change and Grace

Five months ago I started this blog, and I finally feel at a place to return to it, at least for tonight.  It might be that writing is slipping back into my life as a special and integral part of it, or it might just be that my toddler is asleep and my husband is out with my seven week old.  Ah, the freedom of not being touched or needed for an hour...

My motherhood has taken on an entirely new dimension.  I do not just have one child, one budding personality, one little girl who holds my heart in her hand and around whom my days revolve.  Now my life is a great balancing act--and I am not just talking about how to carry two children down the stairs at once or how to carry a laundry basket with a baby carrier on my front--a constant juggling of needs, the need to nurse, the needs for new diapers, the need for hugs, the need for a "good job" and "you are beautiful".  Some moments I want to run away from it all and escape, and other moments, usually following an emotional catastrophe, I find that my baby has weaseled himself into the baby carrier I wear for the fifth time that day, but that he is close and peaceful and mine, and I remember that my little girl is the most delightful person in the universe.  This is good, I know in those moments, and one day I will long for this time again, when my baby boy's head is resting on my heart and my little girl is delighted by a cup of milk and my lap.

My husband told me, when I was breaking down over my unavailability to my daughter in the first couple of days of Edmund's life, that we were going to get to know Agnes in an entirely knew way.  We were going to get to know her as a big sister and to witness this new development in her life.  Such a wise man!  I have been amazed and inspired by my daughter!  Though I have been stuck nursing plenty of times when she has asked for help with a toy or dealt with a baby hanging from her mom hours a day or hardly had a moment with her mom without her crying brother in the background, her response to Edmund himself has been the most welcoming and loving possible.  She has never shown any jealousy toward him but treated him immediately like he belonged.  I am thankful to be witnessed to by my daughter, whose entire life has altered and who has been largely inconvenienced and who has responded with love. 

God's grace is sufficient, I am learning... again.  I am also learning it is not sufficient for the tomorrow that lives in my head.  His grace is sufficient right now.  I am so helpless, and a baby who does not nap well, or hardly at all without me wearing him, and who loves to wait until Mommy has snuggled back in bed to decide he wasn't done nursing, is a baby who brings his mother to her knees in complete and utter surrender, not because she feels so trusting towards her Creator and Savior, but because she is one inch away from trading her faith, that seems ridiculous in the moment, for despair that begs to be allowed dominion in her heart.  I remember the days when I felt like I could conquer anything for the Lord and opened my hands with the joyful prayer to God... anything for You!  This is the anything He asks, and it is scary how close I come sometimes to rescinding that prayer of self-gift, because I am learning what self-gift feels like.  Of course it is painful and sometimes I feel so empty, but then I am filled again.  Christ provides.  I finally drag myself out of bed after trying to ignore for a few minutes that both children have woken up, and I find my little girl in her crib smiling... "Hi!" and sometimes she starts jumping back and forth across her bed.  Laughter.  This is grace to me--the help given by God to do what I could otherwise not do.  And He provides with renewed fervor in my heart to serve Him, a scripture verse that makes me feel understood, an encouraging word from my husband.   He always gives the strength needed, when needed, and how it is needed.