God's promise

I had such a rough day with David. My little Eeyore with the dark cloud hanging over his head was stressed from the time he woke up this morning at the very early hour of 5:40 a.m. He climbed into bed next to me and began his litany of complaints. Isaac was still sleeping so David and I had some quiet time before school. I eventually had him calmed down and off to school.

After school, however, his mood hadn't improved. If anything, the stress of school had made it worse. He just walked in the door, laid himself down on the floor and wailed. The rest of the day it was off and on. He'd be Ok for a little while and then something else would trigger a breakdown. By the time I had him tucked in bed tonight, I was exhausted and frustrated and at the end of my patience. I couldn't help but wonder where I had gone wrong as a parent to have David see the world as such a threat to his existance. And yet, at the same time, I know that he was born this way. Even as a tiny baby, his stress level was high.

While I was sitting outside the boys' room tonight waiting for them to go to sleep, I began reading "No Small Miracles" by Norris Burkes, a pediatric chaplain. I came across a passage that spoke directly to my tired heart:

"The mother's love reminded me of the miraculous way in which God whispers his love into the hand of each of us when we are born, placing there a promise that, no matter what, he will never let us go. And having pledged that love to us from our first breath to our last, he wraps our fingers around that promise for safekeeping."

Yes, God loves my David just as he is, and so do I. My spiritual director always tells me to trust that God has a plan for my children. I know that is true. My part in that plan is to get up every day and love my children to the best of my ability, and to trust that God is holding on to me as well.

Introducing the Rosary to a New Generation

I read recently that the Rosary fell out of favor among many Catholics after Vatican II. Thankfully, my family never got the memo. The Rosary has been part of my daily prayer life for as long as I can remember. As a child, I said one decade for each grade of school I was in, until I was ten and was old enough to say a full five decades a day. This is a tradition I am continuing with my own children.

As a teenager, my mother would wait up for me so that, even if it was midnight when I came home, we could say the Rosary together before we went to bed. The Rosary would become my daily companion, my strength when life got tough. The simple meditative prayers, and the grace that God provided through them, got me through so many challenges. At times in my life when I needed to make major decisions such as whom to marry or when life has been tinged with pain, I turned to the fifty-four day Rosary novena, a commitment to prayer which has never let me down. Over the years I have said the Rosary counting on my fingers in the middle of the night while feeding a baby and while buried under the covers on cold winter mornings. I think that I have even said it in the shower! These days, I say it first thing in the morning to get my day off to a good start.

October is the month of the Rosary with the feast of our Lady of the Rosary falling on October 7th. In the 4th grade Religious Education class I help to teach, we are introducing these young people to the Rosary. While three of the students had rosaries, none of them knew how to use one. I went out today to purchase little books for them that include how to say the Rosary, the text of the prayers, as well as beautiful illustrations of the scriptural mysteries to meditate on. We are going to have them make their own Rosaries and then have our Pastor come to class to bless them. I don't know if any of these children will develop a lifetime devotion to the Rosary as I have, but I hope that they will come to appreciate the beauty of the prayers and know that they can lean on them whenever they need to.

Feast of the Guardian Angels

Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels. Maybe you haven't given your Guardian Angel much thought lately. Isn't it comforting to know that we have an angel right near us appointed by God to help watch over us and that our children have one, too!

I say the Guardian Angel prayer with my children each morning, but it's value still holds for us grown-ups as well:

Angel of God,
My Guardian Dear,
To whom God's love commits me here,
Ever this day be at our side,
To light and guard, to rule and guide.

A Little Break

I've been taking a little bit of a break the past couple days. I finished this painting last night of the Elms College Chapel. I've also been working on Halloween Costumes for the kids - Isaac wants to be Cookie Monster. He has wanted to be Cookie Monster for the past two years and I wasn't able to find a reasonably priced costume so I decided to make one. When I took the boys to the fabric store to find blue fuzzy material, David caught sight of green fuzzy material and said "Look! I can be Oscar!" so now I am making two costumes! They are coming out reasonably well, however. I think the boys will look very cute when they are done. There is a Halloween Party at David's school and they are both so excited to go.

On the reading front, I have been enjoying a tome I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the library (there wasn't much in the theology / spirituality section that day) - "Old Books, Rare Friends" by Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern. It was written in 1997 by two elderly women who were the best of friends and shared a lifelong love of reading and books. They went into business together as rare book dealers back in the early 1940s. As someone who enjoys books and history, I am finding it fascinating. One quote cemented the fact that I had found kindred spirits in these women. Leona wrote of going to the library when she was young: "Proudly I marched off with my selection, still sniffing the musty odor of books, a smell that was somehow warm and comforting and exciting all at once and would remain with me forever."

Experiencing Joy

"Fill us at daybreak with your kindness, that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days." - Psalm 90:14

Sr. Mary Charleen Hug, S.N.D. writing in today's Living Faith reflection encourages us to reflect on what it means to have joy as opposed to what it means to have fleeting moments of happiness.

For me, Joy is . . .

having a small bit of quiet time in the morning before the boys are up to say my prayers.

having my boys snuggled up next to me as we read stories together.

feeling the warm sun on my face as I push the boys on the swings in our backyard.

seeing how peaceful the boys look when they are sleeping.

going out for a walk on a beautiful day.

crashing into bed after a long day, with my husband beside me, knowing that all is right with our tiny little corner of the world.

Happy Blogiversary!

My blog is 1 year old today! Thank you for sharing this year with me.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Bernie took the boys to his parents' house this evening and I was left with a couple glorious hours of "alone time." I began by weeding my garden, turning over the soil, and planting some tulip and daffodil bulbs. It was so beautiful outside - warm and sunny. I was actually in a t-shirt and shorts! I was just in my glory. It felt so good to be doing some manual labor and working with the earth. Plus, it is such an act of hope. I know that in the spring, after all the cold and snow, I will be so looking forward to those first green shoots pushing through the ground.

After about an hour and an half, I came inside and got changed. When I was in my room, my box full of my journals caught my eye. I have a horrible memory, and thankfully, I realized that when I was relatively young. I wanted to be able to remember what it was like to be a teenager. I began keeping a journal a few days after my 15th birthday. My parents had given me a "blank book" for Christmas. It is without a doubt the best present I ever received. Now I have about 15 of those journals. I tend to write once a week these days, mostly updates on what the boys are doing. I have always figured that I would give them to a granddaughter someday. I know - it's awfully presumptious of me to think that I will have a granddaughter considering that my parents have 7 grandsons! Still, I would have loved to have such an insight into my own grandmother's life (or even my parents' lives). We get such an edited version of our parents' and grandparents' lives. It would be wonderful to know what really happened and what life was like for them.

This evening I dug down deep into my box for that first blank book from long ago. It covers 2 1/2 years of my life from the end of December 1989 through July 1992, right before I started college. I sat down and read it cover to cover. There were so many events I had completely forgotten about. There were people I could barely remember. Tucked into the pages were love letters, including one very special one that had been taped inside my locker the spring of my sophomore year of high school. The writer has probably long since forgotten writing it, but it was beautiful and it is something I have treasured all these years. Written onto those pages was boy trouble and more boy trouble, and more teenage angst than one person should have in a lifetime! "Mentally stable" would not have been the term used to describe me in those days.

I read about my nephews, who were little boys then and are grown men now. I read about fights with my mother and my dread of going to college. I read about my plans of writing the great American novel and creating world-renown art - no one can say I didn't dream big! Reading it though, I started to wonder if I would actually want anyone reading those pages. I'm old enough now to be embarassed by my youth. In fact, the thought crossed my mind that I should actually throw those old journals away. I can't do it, though. Too much of my heart and soul and yes, even teenage angst, was poured into them. I also realize that life is a journey and those days were part of mine. Hopefully, my yet-to-be born granddaughter will realize that as well.

I enjoyed my trip down memory lane. I can't help but wonder, though, if my fifty year old self will look back at the words I write now and be equally embarassed. If only we could get the wisdom of age without actually having to age! Unfortunately, life isn't like that and we can only write from where we are today.