suffering – Page 2 – Mama Needs Coffee

Catholic Spirituality, Easter, feast days, liturgical living, motherhood, Suffering

A Cross of Splinters

March 27, 2018

I was going to double down on Lent this week.

I had big plans, flush with grace from surviving Palm Sunday’s armed liturgy, sweating with the exertion of having spent 90 minutes sit-stand-and kneeling + slapping palm ‘swords’ out of my toddlers’ (and not-so-toddler-sized kids’, ahem) fists.

My prayer after communion went something like:

I could have done a better job at Lent, Lord. I’m sorry. I’m going to really mean it this week. For one week – Holy Week – surely I can be the best version of my Lenten self.

Amen.

I imagine God, at this point, winking at St. Peter (or maybe St. John Paul II, in my case) leaning over and mouthing “hold my beer” whilst rolling up His spotless sleeves and queuing up a mighty fine lineup of golden opportunities for me to make good on my offer to finish Lent with a bang.

You know when you pray for patience and your internet goes out for 4 days? Or something along those lines. Well, 2 days into Holy Week and I’m feeling preeeetty divinely spoiled by the myriad opportunities to unite my own pathetic sufferings to Christ.

God knows what I can handle. He knows that for all my spiritual bravado, I’m notorious for crumbling under the slightest pressure. I think (I hope?) He finds it endearing. Kind of the way I enjoy Luke’s efforts to help me “clean” using a stolen bottle of Windex.

So instead of cancer and car accidents, He sends croup and power outages that cut off humidifiers and sound machines at 2 and 4 and 5 am. A barfing cat and a dwindling bank account and a broken espresso machine and a computer battery that will no longer hold a charge on its own the very same week the charging cable crapped out.

And if I manage to check myself before I launch into an internal temper tantrum over the very foremost of first world problems (my espresso machine is broken. Privilege level: platinum), I can recognize that God is throwing me a big ‘ol softball here.

But piled up all together? Man, even these teeny splinters of problems – when there are enough of them – can feel like they add up to the weight of a cross.

And I’m notorious for trying to carry it by myself.

He has been reminding me this week with every waking child, every mediocre cup of french press, and every sibling fight broken up whilst the Hunger Games of spring break unfolds in my living room – that I don’t have to. That I can’t.

That nothing that I plan on offering up is anywhere near as effective as the things that I have to accept from Him, willingly – if not always joyfully – as His will over my own.

I wanted to give up snacking between meals. But I’m a quasi-nursing mom, and it turns out instead He wanted me to give up grumbling about night wakings.

I planned to read my Bible every morning over a cup of coffee. He taps me on the arm in the form of a needy 2-year-old and asks over and over again that I read Brown Bear, Brown Bear without snapping as my tepid infusion of caffeine cools on the counter between trips through the microwave.

I wanted to get back in shape by doing a specific postpartum exercise program every night before bed. Instead I’ve been working on not erupting into apocalyptic rage when bedtime stretches into the 9 o’clock hour because there are now more than twice as many needs as parents and why does everyone want to be touched at the precise time of day that I most want to run away screaming if one more person puts so much as a finger on my still inflated and decidedly-not-toned body?

The irony is not lost on me that my feeble attempts to prayerfully meditate on Jesus’ agony in the garden are interrupted by screams for cough drops, cuddles, an extra blanket, and a back rub when I JUST WANT TO BE ALONE FOR A MINUTE, GUYS.

I want to run away from my state in life in order to offer a sacrifice of my own design to the Lord.

But He just wants my actual heart. The best laid plans of mice and moms often go awry…

My Lent has been a disaster. At least it has from my point of view.

And it is tempting to project that failure over the remainder of Holy Week and assume that somebody is going to barf during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, and that Easter will be “ruined” because the only kid who hasn’t yet caught the respiratory virus going through the house will wake up hacking at midnight on Good Friday.And that may well happen.

What I imagine God is wondering, though, is whether I will respond with my predictable temper tantrum over my perfect plans going awry by, um, life with actual human children, or whether I will cheerfully shoulder my little pile of splinters with a fiat more pathetic than anything the world has thus far known.

“I cannot do great things, but I can do small things without complaining about them” – #thingsStThereseneversaid

I hope that I can remember even 3 hours after hitting “publish” on this piece that what He really wants from me this Holy Week is my exhausted, frustrated, and fickle heart. That when I’m tempted to scream in frustration during dinner prep I can instead put my head down on the counter and pray a silent (or heck, VERY AUDIBLE) Hail Mary as I beg for the strength to love my children well, stir the mac and cheese, and to accept the actual crosses – small though they may be – that He has put in my path for this season.

See you on the other side.

About Me, advent, birth story, Catholic Spirituality, pregnancy, Suffering

Am I not she who is your mother?

December 12, 2017

I will never forget my labor with Genevieve, thus far my only daughter (though that title may be ceded in mere weeks now.) Partly because it was drawn out over 3 agonizingly long days of prodromal labor – not hideously painful, but hugely exhausting – and partly because she was the only baby whose sex we found out ahead of time, so we knew “who” we were waiting on in a more personal way.

I remember feeling very connected to Our Lady being pregnant with Evie during the Advent season, and with an estimated due date of Christmas Day, I allowed my imagination to carry me along on the long journey towards Bethlehem, comforting myself with the notion that even if I were averaging 4 hours of sleep each night with contractions coming almost unrelentingly (but non-productively) around the clock for days on end, at least I wasn’t on a donkey.

The evening of December 12th, 2013, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, found me once again hunched over the bathroom counter in pain, timing contractions that both I and my iPhone app knew were not going to amount to a pattern worthy of hospital admission. Dave knocked on the bathroom door, having returned from a late night grocery run, and handed me a beautiful bouquet of roses.

They were wrapped in cellophane and still bearing the store logo, but there on the crinkly plastic was an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the very same image supernaturally imposed on St. Juan Diego’s tilma on the hill at Teypeyac more than 500 years ago.

The roses eventually found their way to water. As I was balling up the wrappings and clippings to toss out, I impulsively grabbed some kitchen scissors and cut the image of Our Lady out of the plastic, fashioning a little 8 inch high icon of crinkly plastic which I taped to the bathroom mirror.

I spent a lot of time looking to Mary over the next 72 hours, bracing my hands on either side of the sink and looking into her delicate brown face. I reminded myself in between the waves of seemingly inefficient and interminable contractions that she too was a mother, that she too had done this. I fixed my eyes on the black sash draped around her waist, whose imagery symbolizes pregnancy.

That’s right, Mary is actually pregnant in the image seared into the fibers of Juan Diego’s tilma.

It was, at turns, comforting and confounding to think of God putting His own Mother through this – though the jury is still out on what, precisely, Mary’s physical experience of childbirth entailed. Various Church Fathers have weighed in on the matter, one the Church allows to exist shrouded in no small amount of mystery. We know that Mary physically carried the Christ child in her womb and that she mysteriously and miraculously maintained even the physical aspects of her virginity upon His birth, but beyond that, God has not chosen to reveal specific details about what birth was “like” for she who was conceived without sin.

Still, as I hunched over that sink and raised my eyes to the filmy plastic icon of the Mother of God, I took comfort in the slight swelling apparent in her midsection, wondering if she had experienced round ligament pain or pubic symphysis dysfunction or sciatica – I doubted you could ride a donkey many miles at any stage of pregnancy and escape unscathed, ergonomically speaking.

I wondered over Mary’s experience of Jesus’ tiny – and then not so tiny – kicks under her ribcage. The in-utero hiccups that rattle the whole belly, the improbable acrobatics that accompany those final few weeks of stretched-outness and can’t do this another day-ness.

When it was finally – finally – time to go to the hospital and stay at the hospital, I ducked into the bathroom and grabbed the piece of plastic off the mirror. I wanted her with me still, epidural or no.

It turns out she wanted to be with me, too. The nurse who checked me upon arrival announced a triumphant “5 cm, you’re staying!” and escorted us from triage to the delivery room, where I could have and might have wept in relief. 3 days of little sleep and contractions 15 minutes apart around the clock; I sank exhausted into the hospital bed, nodding enthusiastically that yes, I did want them to call anesthesia right away.

As I settled into a blissful and exhausted sleep, I remember the nurse commenting that she thought it would be 3 hours, maybe less. She was right, because after a brief and glorious nap, I was complete and ready to push.

Our doctor arrived a little after I’d woken from augmented reality nap time and started setting up his equipment. He paused before he gowned up, reaching into his bag and sliding out a wooden icon, which he propped against the wall opposite the foot of my bed.

I gasped in delight because it was her – a beautiful image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, larger and far more saturated than my grocery store wrapper.

I laughed and told him she’d been following me throughout labor, and he cocked his head and told me “it’s strange, but I lost my usual icon of Our Lady of Lourdes somehow at my last birth, so this is her replacement. And it’s actually the first time I’ve brought this new one along.”

And so mine was to be the first birth attended by this particular image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I’ve since delivered one more child under her watchful maternal gaze, and I look forward to her presence in my hospital room this go round, too.

It is comforting to have a God who is not unfamiliar with our human condition. And it reflects such careful attention to detail and such compassion that He would entrust us with a mother who is herself intimately acquainted with the seasons and stages of our lives as women.

There is a beautiful quote from Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego, her “smallest son,” which resonates deeply with me as being applicable to any hardship or physical suffering we might endure in this life, but perhaps most particularly, in facing birth:

“Listen, and let it penetrate your heart … do not fear any illness or vexation, any anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother?”

Because I am afraid.

I do fear the pain, and the anxiety of past memories and experiences of delivery can wash over me and overwhelm me at a moment’s notice if I allow them to take hold.

In these final few weeks as I prepare mentally, physically and spiritually to bring a tiny new life into the outside world, I find myself wanting to be folded more deeply into Her mantle, begging for the comfort that only a mother can offer to a small, anxious child.

Because it is coming, and it will hurt. And I will not be alone.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn, pray for us.

mental health, motherhood, PPD, pregnancy, self care, Suffering

Motherhood + mental illness

September 13, 2017

This is a tough subject to write on, but it’s probably in my top 5 most-emailed about questions/comments, so I know it’s one people are hungry to read about.

There is a frustrating level of stigma and shame which still surrounds mental illness: the way we talk about it on a cultural level, the image of ourselves we present to the world, the words we choose to use when discussing things like medication and therapy, and a whole host of other factors.

Last month a story surfaced about Pope Francis having seen a psychoanalyst for six months during his early priesthood, and the chatter online was pretty evenly split between “good for him for being so open and modeling good mental health” and “was it okay for him to have admitted that?” (with a dash of “aha, I knew he was nuts!” thrown in just because it wouldn’t be the internet without trolls.)

I’ve been really open online about my own struggle with depression and anxiety – especially the postpartum variety – because I think one of the most important things we can do for people with mental illness is invite them into polite society, so to speak, and jettison the antiquated notion that mental illness is somehow shameful, scandalous, and necessarily furtive.

Having now been on and off (but mostly on) antidepressants for more than half my life, I can honestly say I don’t care whether someone thinks less of me for needing them, or whether they believe that depression and anxiety are even real conditions.

You might have great success using an essential oil before bed to calm your anxious nerves, and that’s fantastic! I also like a drop of lavender on my wrist and pillowcase at night, but it doesn’t stop me from popping an SSRI before bed, and nope, I don’t believe that I could easily handle things “naturally” if I just took the time to read up on it. (Because I’ve tried all the things and dabbled in all the naturopathy. Not opposed! But also not sufficient, at least in my case.)

The truth is, mental illness, much like physical illness, is both unique to the individual and also excruciatingly uniform. How depression feels in my brain might be worlds apart from how it feels in someone else’s, but the outward effects are drearily similar: dark thoughts, exhaustion, flashes of inappropriate anger and bouts of crippling sadness and despair.

I frequently hear from women with questions about NFP, and about safely combining pregnancy + drugs. The answer to many of the NFP questions is heartbreakingly obvious: “Is avoiding pregnancy because of mental illness a grave reason?”

YES. Yes. I want to shout from the rooftops “YES! And I am so, so sorry if there is nobody in your life who understands that or is willing to validate that for you.”

Nobody blinks an eye if a woman staring down chemo decides to step off the baby train for 18-24 months. But a mom struggling with a crippling mood disorder gets a raised eyebrow for wondering, in the depths of her suffering and with symptoms raging out of control, if maybe she’s actually “done” having children.

It’s okay to not be okay.

It’s okay to be suffering and searching for answers and not totally sure when – or if – you’re going to come up for air.

Now, this is the part of this essay that gets (more) intensely personal, so bear with me. (My virtual living room, my prerogative.)

I am currently 6 months pregnant with baby number 5. I have had crippling postpartum depression and/or anxiety with all but one of my children, and have been on antidepressants for either all or part of each of those pregnancies, including the current internal resident.

I have fielded many, many questions over the years about the safety and wisdom of using medication while pregnant and breastfeeding, and will preface this with the same answer I give to everyone who has ever asked: it is an intensely personal decision, and one that only you can make for yourself, your baby, and your family.

(And before someone @’s me with the “aha, your body your choice!” zinger of a gotcha, let’s be clear that making a decision to treat un underlying medical condition is worlds apart from killing your baby for any reason. For further nuance pls google “intention and moral objective.”)

Now, if your husband, parents, spiritual director, etc, think you should be treating your mental illness with medication and/or professional counseling, take that advice seriously as you make a decision. And when you decide, consider that the common good of your family is the criteria–if you don’t like being on anti-depressants or hate the thought of being vulnerable with a stranger, but your kids need a mom who is able to make dinner, the just thing to do might be to suck it up for their sake.

Mental illness is at once intensely personal and painfully corporate. And for whatever reason, it can often present a bigger target for speculation and strong opinions than most physical illnesses do. This is helpful to keep in mind when someone is confiding in you about their condition, because it can be more tempting with mental illness to offer advice and recommendations perhaps not rooted in good science and best medical practices, but in internet-derived research and personal anecdotes.

For example “I cut out gluten and now I don’t need Prozac anymore so you probably don’t either” or “Using essential oils completely cleared up my anxiety and you really should try something natural before you put toxic drugs into your body!”

True though those two statements may be for the person making them, that does not grant them a blanket status of efficacy when applied to other people’s conditions.

One person might well be able to get their blood sugar under control through diet alone, and another may need an insulin pump for life.

Every body – and brain – is different, and I personally thank God that we have multiple choice options when it comes to mental health. My life would have been very, very different 100 years ago, and not a day goes by that I am not grateful for the privilege of living in a first world country with access to life-changing medication.

A large part of that gratitude stems from the fact that because these medications do exist, and because I have found different options that my body responds well to, I am able to continue to be open to life.

I would not have been able to continue having children without SSRIs. I say that without a hint of hyperbole or a smidgeon of exaggeration. The ability of my brain to apply this class of drug to my particular chemical makeup and smooth out the rough edges is nothing short of miraculous, and life on these meds versus life off of them is very, very different.

I’ve found at the tender age of 34 the perfect combination of diet, medication, therapy, prayer, and supplements that makes things pretty darn good. For now.

It’s a tricky thing when hormones are involved (and, increasingly, as science is demonstrating, inflammation) because they’re designed to fluctuate. So what works one month (or maybe even one part of the month) might not work as well 2 weeks later.

Pregnancy is generally a time of smoothed-outness for me, emotionally speaking. I can get by with a low dose of an SSRI (Zoloft is my doctor’s preferred pregnancy prescription and is working well for me this time) a low dose of LDN (low dose naltrexone, addresses inflammation and my autoimmune thyroid disease), a desiccated thyroid medication, progesterone supplementation, and a strictly (and I do mean strictly) gluten free diet.

I’ve also found – not that this is a biggie during pregnancy, but other times, womp womp – that I can no longer tolerate most kinds of alcohol. Single tear. Beer’s off the table for obvious reasons, but sadly, in my advancing middle age, so is wine of every color and variety. Cider is similarly catastrophic.

Over the years I’ve engaged in a fair amount of cognitive behavioral therapy, healing prayer and deliverance, naturopathic supplementation, regular exercise, and chiropractic care. All of these things have helped tremendously. But for me, at least while I’m in my childbearing years, they haven’t been sufficient.

And that’s okay.

I’m okay with being “not okay,” and with needing a little extra help to get through these demanding investment years of building a family.

Of course I worry about possible adverse side effects from the medicine, just like I worry about the 5 weeks I was too nauseous to choke down my prenatal vitamins, the hormones and chemicals in my tap water, the other drivers on the road with me, the bacteria in the swimming pool, and any potential unknown genetic time bombs lurking within my DNA.

But ultimately, this baby’s health and his or her safety – as is also the case for my other children – is beyond my control. When I send them off to school each morning, it’s a trust exercise in best decisions made weighed against possible adverse outcomes.

I could breastfeed each little angel for 2 full years, avoid every vaccine or vaccinate to a full schedule, feed them an exclusively organic diet, avoid all inflammatory food groups, restrict all devices emitting harmful electromagnetic pulses, and still end up with a 4-year-old with a brain tumor one day.

But the essence of parenting is making the best possible decisions possible for all parties involved, using the information at hand, a well-formed conscience, and a dash of common sense.

And the essence of motherhood is making a sincere gift of self without annihilating one’s self in the process. A shattered, broken down mother is not nearly so beneficial to her children as a sane, whole one. And to the extent that we can take care of ourselves in order to give the most to our families, we should.

I am a better mom when I’m on medication. And I feel no shame over that. What I do feel shame for are the months and months I’ve stubbornly tried to go it alone, gritting my teeth and yelling (so much yelling), refusing to do the thing that could help because it wasn’t natural, it wasn’t ideal, and it wasn’t what I wanted.

But sometimes it’s not about what I want. Most of the time, turns out, according to this motherhood gig.

I hope if you’re reading this and are struggling with mental illness yourself, you find a little respite here. I hope you’ll find that after reading this you feel more able to bring your fears to someone and ask for help shouldering the burden.

Because you are not alone in your illness, and you needn’t suffer alone. And a psychological cross needn’t also be a death sentence for one’s fertility.

Other women are out there making similarly brave and difficult choices: they’re called mothers. And I want to invite them into the conversation to share their stories.

(I invite you over to the blog’s Facebook page to join the discussion and share your own experience there.)

Culture of Death, euthanasia, Parenting, Pro Life, Suffering

Charlie Gard: martyr of the culture of death

July 28, 2017

Sorry, is that language too strong for you?

It must be the pregnancy hormones rendering me a raging, maternal she-bear grieved over the state-sanctioned murder of an innocent child.

But, but, he was going to die anyway. Extraordinary means! The Cathechism says! Etc. Etc. Etc.

True. All true. And yet, his parents wanted to pursue further treatment. His mother and his father, the two human beings who, entrusted by the God with whom they co-created a child with an immortal soul, were tasked with the immense, universe-altering task of making decisions on his behalf.

It’s called parenting.

And when the state steps over the bounds of parental interests – nay, tramples upon them – insisting that government knows best what is best for its citizens, (particularly when government is footing the medical bills as is the case with the socialized NHS) then we should all of us, no matter our religions or our socioeconomic statuses or our nationalities, be alarmed.

Charlie Gard was a victim of the the most heinous sort of public power struggle: a child whose humanity was reduced to a legal case and an avalanche of global publicity. And no man, not the President of the United States or the Pope himself, could do a thing to turn the tide in little Charlie’s favor once the momentum was surging against him.

The British courts and the Great Ormond Street Hospital, convinced of their own magnanimity and virtue, ruled again and again against the wishes of Charlie’s parents, frustrating at every turn their attempts to seek a second option, to try experimental treatments, to spend privately-raised funds to secure care for their child not available in their home country.

To no avail.

Charlie Gard, baptized earlier this week into the Catholic Church, went home to be with Jesus today. His innocent soul in a state of grace, we can be confident of his intimate proximity now to the sacred heart of Jesus and to the sorrowful heart of Mary. May his parents feel the comfort of knowing that they fought the good fight, and that they brought their child to the font of eternal life by baptizing him into Christ’s Church and surrendering him into heaven’s embrace as he passed from this life.

And may they find, through the powerful intercession of their little son, now whole and free from suffering, the grace to forgive his tormentors and executioners here on earth.

Charlie Gard, pray for us.

(*Comments are closed because I won’t spend my weekend arguing with people about how this particular baby is better off dead.)

Abortion, Bioethics, Catholic Spirituality, Catholics Do What?, Culture of Death, euthanasia, guest post, Parenting, Pro Life, Suffering

On Charlie Gard

July 7, 2017

(I’m honored to introduce today’s guest author: JD Flynn. He is a husband, a father, a canon lawyer, and a great friend.)

In the middle of the night, when she was just six days old, our daughter Pia went into cardiac arrest. Twice. Pia was in the hospital already, and so doctors and nurses rushed into the room and saved her life. Twice. It was terrifying, and we were powerless. Pia is alive because of the Providence of God, and the medical care she received.

There are, doubtlessly, some people who might have asked if saving Pia’s life was the right thing to do. Pia has trisomy-21, the chromosomal defect known as Down syndrome. And the day before her heart stopped pumping blood, Pia had been diagnosed with a rare and untreatable kind of cancer. We didn’t know whether it would run its course, develop into something worse, or end her life. We accepted this prognosis, and we knew that her diagnosis would lead to suffering.

There are, I’m sure, some people who might have thought that a disabled girl facing a battle with cancer would have no meaningful, worthwhile, or comfortable life. People with Down syndrome are aborted at staggeringly high rates, in part because of a false compassion that believes their sometimes-difficult lives are not worth living. Three years ago, some ethicists began suggesting that aborting children with Down syndrome is a morally virtuous—and ethically normative—thing to do. And the euthanasia of sick and suffering children—children facing battles like cancer—is also becoming acceptable in many parts of the world.

I shudder to think it, but there are doubtlessly people who thought that a sick and disabled little girl, like our daughter, would have been better off dying that night. That her suffering wasn’t worth it.

But doctors saved Pia’s life anyway, because saving lives is what medicine is all about. Pia has Medicaid: the government paid for her treatment because supporting families in need is what government is supposed to be about.

Today she’s four. She has endured a lot of suffering. But she is also the most joyful person I’ve ever met. And we, Pia’s parents, don’t see “Down syndrome” when we look at her. We don’t see “cancer.” We see our daughter. We see a person, not a calculation. We can’t help that: we’re her parents. We would have done anything possible to make sure she lived through that terrible night.

Charlie Gard’s situation is not the same as Pia’s. Charlie Gard will almost certainly die, and soon. But I can imagine what his parents might be feeling right now. They don’t see Charlie as a media sensation, the center of an international debate over human and family rights. They don’t see him as a tragic medical phenomenon. They don’t see him as the sum of a dispassionate calculation of suffering, usefulness, and “quality of life.”

Charlie Gard’s parents see their little boy. They see his mother’s nose, and his father’s eyes. They see a baby they just love to be with. They see, maybe, a gift from God. And they’re hoping that someone—some doctor or scientist– will rush into the room, and save Charlie’s life. They’re willing to do anything—to go the ends of the earth—to try to help their little boy.

The treatment Charlie’s parents hoped to try had very little chance of success. But they wanted to try. Not to become culture-warriors or advocates for parental rights. Just to save their little boy.

The court did not support Charlie’s parents because, in the words of Charlie Camosy, they “do not think Charlie’s life is a benefit to him. They think it is in his best interest to die.”

Charlie Gard’s parents are not allowed to try, because powerful people think that the life of a seriously disabled boy is not worth living.

Pope St. John Paul II wrote that the culture of death is “a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of ‘conspiracy against life.’ is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States.”

Charlie Gard is the victim of a “conspiracy against life.”

Doctors, governments, and courts which can look at parents like Charlie’s, and judge that they must give up the fight—that dying is in the best interests of their suffering little boy—have lost their humanity. They’ve forgotten, or rejected, that even difficult lives are gifts worth protecting, supporting, and saving. A case like Charlie’s reveals the inhumanity, the callousness, and the dictatorship of the culture of death.

Charlie Gard will likely die soon, and we’ll move on to some other media sensation. Some other tragedy will show up in our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We’ll read think pieces about something else. But Charlie’s parents won’t move on. They’ll mourn their son, whom they know in a way that no one else does, and whom they love in a way that all of us should understand. And they’ll wonder why, as their son lay dying, no one rushed in to help them try to save his life.

(Find more of JD Flynn’s writing here.)

Charlie Gard. Photo: Facebook, Charlie Gard’s Fight.

Catholic Spirituality, pregnancy, reality check, Suffering

In which there is no hope

June 21, 2017

“The Russians have a saying: ‘The only whole heart is a broken heart.’ And I think what they mean is that when our presumptions about ourselves, about what life means, our aspirations for self-satisfaction, our concepts of success—whatever those may be—are shattered, whenever we experience defeat, defeat, radical defeat, in which there is no hope: THAT is the moment of potential beginnings of the real. We are called to go deeper and farther. This is our Lord Jesus on the cross. This is the genesis of the power of Christianity. The power of Christianity begins in absolute weakness. Weakness. Weakness on the cross. The defeat of everything. This is a story. This is a very big story.”

—Michael O’Brien, talk given on 12 June 2017 at Loyola New Orleans

I read the above quote from one of my all time favorite authors (get on it Christy, your book report is due soon) and that line in particular jumped out: “in which there is no hope.”

I fall for the magical thinking version of Christianity again and again. That because I’m praying and because I’m trying life is going to come up roses. And if I’m oblivious enough to, um, pretty much all of salvation history, I can usually work myself into a pretty good pout when things do not, in fact, go according to (my) plan, are not clipping along at an efficient and satisfying pace.

But then I remember that God let His own mother give birth in a stable. That all of his best friends were brutally murdered, save the one who maybe died alone on a desert island. And I am struck anew by the radical otherworldly nature of the God I claim to know.

I don’t know Him all that well, after all.

I’ve been returning to this Mother Teresa quote lately, that “God does not call us to be successful. God calls us to be faithful.” It’s haunting me, and it seems applicable in nearly every situation I can conjure up.

This summer feels impossible. My oldest kids are old enough to be somewhat autonomous and yet also old enough to know that mommy lying on the couch for much of the day and smearing peanut butter on tortillas for sustenance is no way to live. I want to be joyful and present and available and grateful, but more days than not I am selfish and self pitying and nauseous and oh so sick of piling little bodies into car seats for yet another house showing.

Every time we submit an offer on a house that gets rejected, I feel it like a physical wound. Like God is turning His face away intentionally, blind to our needs and indifferent to my pain and rising panic. As I watch my waistline slowly expand with the surprising miracle of another new life, I mentally calculate how many weeks pregnant I’d be if this house goes under contract. Now this one. Now this one. The weeks whittle away towards an imaginary deadline and I panic, imagining the worst case scenario of living in my in-laws basement, of our generous friends coming back Stateside and needing their house back asap. Of the median sold home price in the Denver metro area rising another 10 percent between June and July, like it did from May to June.

I have very little trust in God right now. In the most melodramatic and hormonally fueled overstatement, I actually feel completely abandoned by Him.

So faith right now is an intellectual exercise. And don’t think for a moment I’m not ashamed that it is the mere removal of material comforts that has me here. I am ashamed. My kids are healthy, my husband is wonderful, we’ve been given a beautiful new soul to care for, and we have the most supportive and loving family and friends anyone could hope for. And I’m utterly undone by the relatively minor detail of not being able to find somewhere to live.

And it’s this: there is no room at the inn, and Christmas is coming sooner or later.

I’m clinging to the premise that when there is no hope, where there is only weakness, Jesus is getting ready to break through.

I don’t know what you’re dealing with right now in your life. Maybe a hurting relationship, a hard diagnosis, some sort of seemingly impossible situation. Dare we believe that in these moments of dark hopelessness, however objectively challenging or actually fluffy they be, the One who is hope is standing on the other side, ready to storm the breach?

I can’t say enough how embarrassing it is to find myself here. Not because I’m smarter or should know better, but because it is revealing to me how weak and self centered my faith is, and it’s humiliating.

It’s humiliating to admit that I see God as a kind of benign genie who grants wishes based on performance. It’s humiliating to think of Christians being martyred for their faith 6,000 miles away while I cry into my decaf over real estate. It’s humiliating to realize that I’m actually not willing to drink this cup, Lord. Because it isn’t the one I ordered.

I don’t have a neat takeaway for any of this, just that it’s raw a hard and stupid all at the same time, and I’m sure it’s the pregnancy hormones and the heat and good old fashioned human weakness, but it’s embarrassing just the same.

I don’t trust you, Lord. And in spite of my treachery, You never let go. You are silent but you haven’t withdrawn your protection. I can’t feel you but I can see proof of your provision all around.

Whatever you’re facing this summer, know that you’re not alone, and that there are no perfect Christians walking around with unshakable confidence convicting their souls at all times. Reading through St. Faustina’s diary the past few months has demonstrated that to me in spades. If Jesus literally appears to you after communion and you’ve still got trust issues, then Houston, we have a problem. And we might actually be the problem: fallen, fallible human hearts afraid to trust and prone to fickle faltering.

Oh well, He loves us just the same. St. Peter, St. Faustina, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Joseph, and you and me. If He is the constant sun, I am the toddler screwing my eyes shut and crying because it’s dark.

God, please open my eyes.

The gorgeous patio from our AirBnB in Ventura. (Hello, remember that trip to California last month? Love, God.)

Catholic Spirituality, prayer, social media, Suffering

Drowning in plain sight

March 30, 2017

I was texting with a friend yesterday and was honored to be trusted with a little piece of her story, a little glimpse of the heavy burden she is carrying right now. As our brief exchange came to a close, I told her something I want to tell you all, and it’s that I think a lot of people are drowning a little in plain sight right now.

After I’d moved on with my day, the exchange stuck in my head because from the outside, I’d had no real idea of the burden she was carrying. Social media contributes to that phenomenon, no doubt, but so does the typically frantic pace and kind of insular tendency of modern life, and maybe it’s always been that way and what do I know anyway, a barely-qualifies Millenial with a bunch of kids running around her house and too much time spent inside her own head.

But I do know this, and it’s that everyone I know – to a fault, every single person – is struggling with something, is fighting some great battle.

Maybe it isn’t appropriate to share every detail with every person you bump into, whether virtually or in vivo, but maybe it is appropriate and necessary to share more than we do. We can’t all be “fine” all the time. I actually hate the social nicety more than I can adequately express in words.

Earlier this month my “grandfather” died. He was not my grandfather by blood or relation, but by relationship. And as I stood in line at a grocery store later that night I was crying, and I was mentally chastising myself for crying because it’s so embarrassing to cry in public, and get a grip and pay for this kombucha and get the hell out to your car. And also because grief is weird and it comes in waves, crashing down at inconvenient moments in the produce section and then ebbing back, leaving you red eyed and congested and inexplicably weird for the requisitely surface level social exchange you are summoned to have with this perfect stranger handing you a receipt.

“How is your night going?”

“Fine. Yours?”

Eyes red and nose visibly running. We both knew I was lying, but what was there to be done about it? I couldn’t ask this total stranger to carry my burden, besides, he could just as likely drop it as pick it up.

You’re not allowed to feel things very deeply or very authentically in this culture.

And if you do, you’re a little weird. A little inconvenient. Too intense. And sure, there are people who are safe and less safe to be vulnerable with, but I’ve always struggled with being vulnerable with even the safest people, and in even the most intimate relationships, because here’s the thing: when you express vulnerability, you are expressing a need that you have to someone, revealing an imperfection that is humiliating in some degree. And pride revolts, sickened by the thought of appearing needy or flawed or frail.

I have found, particularly in this past year as our family has walked through some major challenges, many of which revolve around me and my particular set of wounds in need of tending, that it is precisely in revealing the frailty and the neediness that the generous offers of strength, of prayers, and of support are offered in return.

When we let people see our grossness, our inconvenience, our mess, we invite them in to do something about it, whether through prayer, compassion and accompaniment, or material support. And those are all ways that we are called to live out our Christian identities, to be Christ to a hurting world awash in pain.

So whose idea is it then that we hide our scars from each other, putting on a brave, blank face and stuffing down the pain?

Probably not God’s.

I have seen firsthand this past year that in offering my friends, my siblings, and most especially my dear husband the opportunity to come into my pain and accompany me in bearing the crushing weight of my cross, they are manifesting Christ to me.

And all the times I’ve railed against Him in pain or in searing alone-ness, begging Him to reveal the path, alleviate the suffering…almost to a fault, those have been the moments when I am clutching my pain tightly to my chest, refusing to offer even a sliver of it to anyone else, to some member of His body who could very well be the incarnate answer to that desperate prayer I am flinging heavenward.

My pride and my preoccupation with not being “a burden” to anyone keeps me from hearing His answer, from feeling the merciful touch of His providence through the arms and words of other people. And apart from leaving me marooned in my pain and navel gazing into my seemingly intractable problems, it robs people of the chance to live out the Gospel.

Because if there are no beggars to shelter, no naked to clothe, no hungry to nourish, then this thing we call Christianity is all a rather dry academic exercise in theoretical virtue and tidy maxims for happy living.

Sometimes I am the beggar. Most of the time, it feels like, lately.

And I need to beg, to have my friends drop my mat in through the roof, carry me down to the pool, yell for Jesus to turn around and come back into town, to do something miraculous, to intervene.

And that miracle might well come through another person, who might be perfectly willing to take all your kids for the afternoon to give you break, who might spend hours and hundreds of dollars helping you stage your house to sell, who might spend 10 minutes during the insanity of the dinnertime crunch to hide in her bathroom with her phone and listen to you cry, who might book a flight to come see you, or send some love through amazon that is shaped like earrings, but you know it’s actually a hug.

I hope if you’re carrying something heavy today you have someone you can trust to put a shoulder under the load with you. Whether it’s an addiction to pornography, a spouse with a drug problem, an unplanned pregnancy, a mental health crisis, a job loss, a searing grief, some kind of spiritual bondage, or a hopeless medial diagnosis.

Everyone is struggling with something.

Let’s not struggle alone.

And let’s be bold in receiving one another’s burdens. Let’s be radically countercultural in our willingness to encounter, to lean in, to put down whatever it is that we are presently engrossed with and be eternally present, in that moment of neediness, to the beggar in the doorway.

We are all beggars. We are all broken. And you are not alone.

(A special shout out to my team of prayer warriors who have carried me so tirelessly this year, and who are just a text message away, always willing to take up arms when my pride gives way long enough to tap out a quick SOS. K, E, M, and S, you know who you are.)

Catholic Spirituality, deliverance, guest post, mental health, PPD, Suffering

Two Hearts for Healing counseling (and a special giveaway)

March 3, 2017

Today I’m honored to have my beautiful friend Karen share a little bit about the incredible work she is doing in the world of counseling and mental health. Karen and I have been dear friends since our FUS days, where we lived in a literal (former) crackhouse and, fun fact, her older brother, Fr. Bryan, witnessed our marriage. (Technically theologically incorrect to say he “married” us, so. #theologynerd.)

I pray that Karen’s words will be a gift to you all, and that you are able to take advantage of the generous giveaway she has offered to 20 of my awesome readers.

Hello to Jenny’s amazing readers! My name is Karen, and I am so honored to have the opportunity to share with you all some of what God has been putting on my heart. I am a licensed professional counselor by trade, but to put it more simply, I am someone who just has a burning desire to see people healed and living the abundant life Jesus promised to give us (John 10:10). But before I jump into that, I wanted to just give you a little background about how I know Jenny. 🙂

Jenny and I have known each other now for about 10 years. We first met when I was lucky enough to be her housemate while I was getting my MA in counseling at Franciscan University of Steubenville. Immediately, we connected and understood each other because we both had similar less-than-pious undergrad experiences and were longing for that deeper encounter with God that Franciscan seemed to provide. Together we began a journey of faith and healing where our hearts and lives were completely transformed by the grace of God, and a life-long friendship was formed. We continue that journey together today, and that is honestly what brings me to write to you here.

God has given me a burning desire to bring healing in the lives of His children. For about as long as I can remember, I knew I wanted to be a counselor, but to completely honest, once I finished my Masters degree and began the actual work of counseling, I became very discouraged.

Despite all my desire, efforts and training, I was not seeing much real or lasting transformation or healing happening in the lives of my clients. And what I came to realize after working for a few years in a community-based practice, was that not many of my colleagues were seeing much dramatic transformation – or even really even expecting it to happen – either.

The predominant expectation was just that symptoms could be “managed” well with counseling and medication. The problem was, I didn’t sign up to be a counselor in order to lead my clients to a life of “symptom management”. Of course, I see the great value in learning coping skills and how to manage the emotional crises that are intrinsically part of the human experience, but deep in my heart, I knew that God had more to offer his children. Since modern psychology has pretty much divorced itself from God, it’s not surprising that healing wasn’t happening when the Author of all healing had been removed from the equation.

I decided to take a break from full-time counseling after having my first child in 2009. While I did take on a few part-time counseling jobs, none of the work really resonated in my soul because it still seemed to be more-or-less “symptom management,” but then in 2013, everything changed…

It was during this time that God allowed me to experience first-hand, for the first time, what so many of my clients had struggled with. Shortly after giving birth to my third child, I had my first major battle with depression. It was a very strange experience for me of being “on the other side,” but it is exactly what led me to the work I am doing today.

Through my own experience, God led me to uncover the root causes of what I was feeling, and by the grace of God I received profound healing and transformation. As I was facing my own struggle with self-worth, failure, rejection and abandonment, I was filled with this certain knowledge that God had the answer to these struggles, and that He truly wanted to heal me. Through prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I was introduced to a “new world” of counseling, led by the Holy Spirit, where the head meets the heart and deep healing truly happens. I found a lasting freedom, rooted in Christ, and now I am on a mission now to share it with others.

I want to take a moment to elaborate here on one of the main things that sets this kind of Christ-centered, Holy Spirit-led counseling apart from the secular counseling experience. One of my biggest obstacles as a counselor in the past was that my clients typically had a huge disconnect between their heads and their hearts. Modern psychology talks on and on about the connections between one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. You hear endless talk about how you need to change your thoughts in order to change your, feelings and then change your behaviors, and that is absolutely true. The reason many people are depressed and anxious is because they have anxious and depressed thoughts and beliefs, and IF you are able to help them change those anxious and depressed thoughts, they will feel better and make better decisions about their behavior.

But (and this is a big but), how does one “talk themselves into” believing the truth?

My clients would always confess that they knew intellectually that all the negative things they were believing about themselves were probably not true, but they didn’t know how to change those beliefs in their hearts.

No amount of positive self-talk about how wonderful and beautiful and special and worthy they were seemed able to penetrate their hearts and “take root” so that they could walk in true, lasting freedom.

This, my friends, is what I believe is the absolute work of the Holy Spirit. I (and any other counselor for that matter) can talk until I am blue-in-the face about the truth of someone’s identity, but only the Divine Counselor can actually make that truth take root in the heart, and it usually happens when God leads that person to the root wound where that lie about their identity first took hold.

This is the difference between what man can do and what God can do… Only God can read the heart and speak to its depths in a way that brings real and lasting change. And this is what God is allowing me to lead others to through my practice. He has SO MUCH MORE for us than we can even imagine (Eph 3:20).

I want to say quickly here too that I am not at all disregarding the reality that there is a physiological component at work when it comes to mental health struggles. Science has proven that the neurotransmitters in our brains – like serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine – all play a major roll in mood and emotions. I have witnessed the profound ways that medication has helped my clients, so I the last thing I want is for this to come off as a dismissal of the crucial advances of science in this area in the past 50 years. I definitely advocate for the use of medication when it is needed and helpful.

My main point, however, is to make the case for the Author of all healing, the Divine Counselor, who truly knows the causes for our heartache, and who I believe truly wants to bring healing and freedom to EVERY mental health struggle we face. I have a very hard time believing that our loving Father determined that any person would struggle with something like depression or anxiety for a lifetime. I believe these struggles are permitted in our lives to help point the way to the wound that needs be healed, in the same way that the pain in our leg points to the broken bone that needs be reset.

Without the pain focused in a certain place, we wouldn’t know where or how something needed to be healed.

I believe with all my heart that God wants ALL of His children to walk in freedom. Every one of us.

So many people are walking around in prisons of fear, sadness, and shame; and when they look around at someone else who doesn’t seem to have those struggles (hello, curse of social media!), they believe a LIE that God just doesn’t have a plan for their happiness.

It’s as if people believe that God has a good and joy-filled life for some people, and a difficult and miserable existence for others. But this is not the truth. He wants to grant the gift of his joy and peace to all of his children (John 14:27; 15:11), but the effects of sin in our world have stolen this gift from so many people today.

But the GOOD NEWS is that Jesus died on the cross to grant us the restoration and freedom that we so deeply long for! In the next life, yes, but also in this life.

He longs to grant us this healing so that we can become WHOLE – the person He had in mind for us to be when He first created us – before sin took hold and wreaked havoc in our lives.

It is the pursuit of this WHOLENESS that is the key to the truly HOLY life that we are each called to lead.

So, my prayer for you is that if you find yourself struggling in a certain area of your life, whether or not that carries a clinical diagnosis (maybe you struggle with anger or self-worth or any number of other issues), I pray that instead of beating yourself up about your struggles, you instead turn to God and ask him to shed light on those areas in need of healing in your heart so that you can continue to persevere in JOY and PEACE on the path of sanctity.

Peace I leave with you, My own peace I give to you; a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid. John 14:27

Karen has generously offered a free 30 minute introductory virtual counseling session (via Skype, FaceTime, or by phone) to the first 20 readers who contact her at [email protected] and mention this post.

Connect with Karen on Facebook and visit her online at www.twoheartscounselingandhealing.com.

Catholic Spirituality, Culture of Death, Family Life, mental health, Parenting, politics, sin, Suffering

As a parent, you have one job

December 16, 2016

(I mean, aside from the obvious keep them alive/fed/clothed and try your hardest to get them to Heaven part. Does that go without saying?)

I had someone make the following bold statement to me earlier this year, and it rocked me to my core:

your primary job as parents is to provide and secure the peace in your home.

You know who I thought about when I reflected on that statement? I thought about the dad from “Life is Beautiful.” I thought about his heroic, self-sacrificing and odds-defying performance to erect a brave and shining barrier of innocence over his little boy in the midst of unimaginable horror. As the world literally crumbled around him, his father shielded him as best he could not only from physical harm (and over this realm he had very little control, truly) but perhaps even more critically in their circumstances, from emotional harm.

I feel like we modern parents tend to kind of do the opposite. Whether it’s because many of us were ourselves exposed to pain or danger or brokenness in our family of origin, or because we watched so many of our friends go through hell as kids, many of our generation of parents seem to be questing after some vague sense of authenticity or relatability with their own offspring that is going over, frankly, like a lead balloon.

On the one hand I can understand the earnest desire to be open and honest and reliable with our children, but on the other hand, my kids are going to learn soon enough about the heartache, the danger, and the sin in this world, and it actually isn’t my job to sit them down and tutor them in it.

Because the world is a cruel place. Kids get sick and die. They get abused. Their families fall apart and bombs fall on their cities and their friend’s dads leave their friend’s moms, and vice versa.

But they needn’t know every excruciating detail.

In fact, if and to whatever extent we can possibly spare them the details, I believe it is our sacred duty as parents.

Right now bombs are falling on children the same ages as mine in Aleppo. As Christians, we need to fall on our knees and pray for those affected, and give material aid to reputable organizations (highly recommend the Catholic Near East Welfare Society) who can deliver food and medicine and shelter on the ground. But my kids, at ages 1,3,4, and 6, do not need any details about the tragic circumstances in Syria. They should not be watching the bodycounts scroll by on the news, or listen to me listening to NPR within earshot.

It is essential, in fact, that I shield them from the horror of war and human cruelty as much as possible during their formative years.

Our children will absolutely learn that the world is not a perfect place. That people sin. That people hurt each other. That sometimes kids get hurt, too. But it is critical to their development into healthy, functional human beings that we don’t saddle them with that knowledge prematurely.

When my 6 year old asks why we pray for babies in mommies’ tummies to be safe, that does not open the door for a frank conversation about abortion. If he explicitly asks what abortion is (as has happened before), I deflect and say that sometimes babies get hurt, and that not everybody believes that every human being has the same rights. And then I change the topic.

(I take a similar tack with the sexual curiosity stuff, not because sex is bad in any way! But because it’s not developmentally appropriate for him nor is it necessary that he know the nitty gritty.) Allowing our children to ask questions and answering them in a way that is both honest and honoring of their developmental stage and age is a tricky line, and it’s one I’m learning to walk with some trial and error as the months and years roll by.

I had a little friend of my kids’ come to me earlier this month with a tearful story about another family’s deep pain, their disintegrating home life, and the fear this child felt about the whole situation. As I tried my best to toe the line of appropriateness with a child who is not my own, I reassured this little one that this wasn’t their burden to bear, and encouraged them to give the situation over to Jesus as much as possible and to let the grown ups handle grown up stuff. Because kids have their own work to do that is perfectly suited to being a kid.

I have no idea how effective that was, but my heart ached for the burden this child had been asked to carry, inadvertently or not. There were gruesome and salacious details in the story that could have come from a prime time drama, and this little person’s eyes were filled with tears over it.

This is not okay. And whether our kids are getting it from overhearing us having inappropriate adult conversations within earshot, or by watching programing that is explicitly not suitable for children, or even just hearing an earful from one side of a phone conversation when we think they aren’t paying attention, (they are. Ask me how I know.) we have to be so, so mindful of our duty to them.

Their innocences is our business. And maintaining that innocence requires sacrifices on our parts.

I can’t listen to whatever music I like in the car anymore. Do I still love Dave Matthews Band and Adele? Yep. But I don’t need the 4 year old asking me what does it mean to send your love to your new lover, mommy? just because I couldn’t be bothered to switch on KLove or change the CD during carpool pickup.

I can’t watch shows depicting adult themes and filled with violence and horror when they’re awake. (Should I be watching those shows, period? That’s another post for another day.)

I shouldn’t have sensitive, nuanced conversations about world affairs and politics and war and unrest in earshot of my kindergartener, who has the right to experience the world from a disposition of curiosity and wonder. Soon enough he will know of hatred, bigotry, war, and gruesome suffering. My job is to mold his little heart and soul to be receptive to a good God Who alone can heal those division and redeem that pain. And to ensure, to the best of my ability, that he grows to become an honorable man who will do his part to create beauty and goodness in this world. A child who is robbed of a childhood, who does not have the opportunity to encounter beauty and goodness, is unlikely to grow up to be this kind of adult.

We need to be so careful and so conscientious of their environments. To the best of our abilities. What they’re watching, what they’re reading, whom they’re spending time with and what they’re listening to. And, ahem – looking into the mirror – what kinds of things their parents do or say when they’re stressed, angry, overwhelmed or in pain.

I can just as easily make a chink in their armor with a careless word or an exhausted scream of frustration and anger. And then, when it is I myself who have disturbed the peace in our home, I must kneel down at eye level and humbly ask forgiveness from the little one who depends upon me to keep this space sacred, to keep it safe.

Please hear this: This is in no way an attack on parents whose children have been exposed to violence or inadvertent abuse of any kind. We live in a broken world filled with pain, and the smallest victims are the most tragic. Our little family has not been spared from heartache.

But it is our job as mothers and as fathers to help our children to feel as safe and as secure as possible while they are small. The world outside can wait, and time will ensure that it does not, not for long.

We must take up the mantel of adulthood and respect the profound dignity of the child and the sacred charge that we grown ups have to protect them from evil.

Even if the evil is becoming the norm, all around us.

In our homes, at least, let them feel safe, insulated against the harsh elements in our own little Nazareth, growing and learning and developing all they will need to navigate adulthood. Which will come soon enough.

About Me, motherhood, Parenting, Suffering

The winnowing season

August 31, 2016

This summer has been, my recent college grad sister and I keep joking to each other, “the summer of ‘no.’”

As we trudged through these past 3 hot months shoulder to shoulder, she searching for a job and I for a home, we had ample opportunities to commiserate. She couch surfed with us a few nights most weeks, trading babysitting and extra hands on deck at dinner and bedtimes for a place to crash when she had interviews in Denver. Some evenings would find me frantically unwrapping string cheeses and pelting them at the kids as I backed out the door towards yet another showing, tossing apologies along with mozzarella.

My children were patient and flexible for the most part – remarkably so for their ages. We must have dragged them through 2 dozen houses in 6 weeks. I, however, was not so patient. Not so flexible.

As one contract and then another fell apart after unwelcome surprises during the inspection process, I would retire to my room at night and cry hot, salty tears of frustration and exhaustion into my pillow. We had already given tentative notice to our landlords and I’d been packing. I couldn’t believe we could be starting over.

Of course, you know the punchline and I should have known the punchline all along. Here I sit tapping this out on the final day of August, a breeze coming through the open sliding door from our new backyard. It was just a little over a month from the depths of despair to closing day, all told. Long enough for me to contract shingles and lay uselessly on the couch for the better part of that month, and long enough for me to fall out of the habit of social media use and much internet use at all.

And you know what?

It was glorious.

It was so glorious that I’m a little sad I’ve come back at all, because being alone with my kids and our little life and only hearing about terrible news and global goings on from my husband casually over dinner or in the homily at Mass was pretty awesome.

I found, to my everlasting surprise, that I liked being “just” a mom for a while. Blistering rash and all. And I found that when I did make my way back to the keyboard, the words didn’t flow quite the same, haven’t flowed quite the same since.

I spent the other morning lying in Evie’s rejected toddler bed – which she expresses her perpetual disdain for by regularly removing her pajama bottoms and urinating in it and then sprinting from the scene cackling like a drunken Olympian – just cuddling with the younger 3 and reading them stories. We probably spent 45 minutes just lounging around, thankfully with no urine present this day, and I CAN NOT remember the last time I’ve done something so intentionally meaningless with them. There were no orders being barked, no multitasking, no thoughts of wasted time or lost productivity. Just big, sloppy baby kisses from Luke’s enormous puppy dog mouth and endless renditions of the Bunny Rabbit Show.

And I kind of loved it.

Maybe that’s an admission that should embarrass me, that I can’t remember the last time I just messed around with them. But the truth is, I didn’t really know how.

If I hadn’t spent the bulk of last month uselessly splayed out on the couch with Netflix blazing and babies and crumbs collecting around my ankles, I doubt I’d have been able to enjoy it. I’d have been thinking about the laundry piles, the unanswered emails, the looming deadlines and requests for help, for connections, for advice, for collaboration. But that morning I just stayed where I was, physically and mentally content to remain at home.

I am sorry for the months and years I wasn’t able to be in this place with my kids, but I have no guilt.

I don’t think I was ready for full contact motherhood until recently. I think it was essential to my mental and physical health that I have some degree of separation from my kids, and I think it helped me to survive a demanding season of life.

But my parenting muscles are growing. I’m getting stronger and more able to withstand long stretches of time without the relief of going off duty, even if only mentally. And I’m so glad. Because I love my children, but also because for a while there was a sneaking suspicion, never voiced but ever present, that maybe I didn’t pick the right life, so to speak. That I should be doing motherhood better, stronger, more joyfully.

Now I can see a little more clearly that as they have grown and changed and matured, so have I. That it’s easy now to do what was impossible when I had my first baby, when I’d only recently been removed from the position of “center of the universe.” (Painfully obvious disclaimer: I’m not suggesting all non-parents are selfish. Just that I was. And am.) And it isn’t that I chose wrong when I chose marriage and motherhood, just that I said yes to an idea and to an ideal, and reality is infinitely more beautiful and more difficult.

(Oh, and for sure I don’t plan on dismissing my extraordinary mother’s helper any time soon, so please don’t misread this as a missive for why a mother must do All The Things by herself. Malarky. I may be taking more enjoyment in the “wasted timelessness” or whatever Pope Francis calls chilling on the floor with Legos, but introverts still gonna introvert. So for 8 hours a week. Just throwing that out there.)

The summer of “no” was a bummer. But it has ended up being a beautiful, necessary season of suffering and course correction that had me thanking God for the gift of shingles, for mold problems, even for sleepless nights when it was all said and done.

It is a gift to see oneself in the light of reality. And the reality that hit home for me is that this season really is fleeting, and that while more days than not are dog hard and long as hell, there’s nowhere I’d rather be, and there’s nothing more important that I could be doing.

I’ll still be writing here in this space, because writing is another thing I was made to do. But it may be with less frequency, or it may not. I’m not really sure what this fall and winter holds for our family, but I suspect that I’ll be saying a lot more no’s so that my yeses can be more whole hearted.

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