A Glance Is Not Enough

The ladies of Velvet Ashes are talking grief this week. Join us?

So grief. If you have read here at all, you're probably pretty aware that grief is a topic near, if not dear, to my heart. It tends to creep its way into my reflecting, my writing, my experiences. It makes me vulnerable and I often feel a little embarrassed that it plays such a huge part in my story. 

As a matter of fact, I wasn't going to write this week. I was going to slide an old post on grief in to the link up and join the conversation and declare myself grieving but all good. Which I mostly am right now.

But that's the thing about grief. I've said it a million times. Grief is a fickle, unpredictable friend. She rips you open to make a space for herself in your soul without asking your permission. She shouts so loud at times the rest of your life goes mute. Sometimes she prefers to play hide and seek, lurking in the dark corners and keeping you on edge for the moment she jumps out and startles you. Sometimes she just thumps a constant beat in your heart that irritates you until anger rises and spills out. And it often seems grief spends her days scraping you from the inside out with sand paper. Leaving you raw and sensitive to touch and feeling way too vulnerable for your own comfort.

We live grief in stages, that is well-documented. But I don't think we talk often enough about the difference between acute grief, the expected grief that follows an obvious loss, and chronic grief, the grief that builds up over a lifetime of losses, both great and small. The grief that is the lasting pain after a tragedy, the grief that is the cumulative pain of our brokenness, failed expectations, silent hurts and hard good-byes.

I feel like I have lived dogged by grief for a very long time now, her always at my heels, jumping and nipping at me. I have had great losses. The most profound being the tragic death of my son. But there have also been four miscarriages, the loss of my father, of my mother-in-law, and my older brother. Countless aunts and uncles who were big players in my story.

There have been job losses and financial failures and a life that has often not looked like the one I dreamed I'd live. There have been lots of hard goodbyes and friendships strained and wrong things said.

And they all add up to a burden of chronic grief that would easily threaten to turn from a dog at my heels to a wolf that would devour me if I let it. But I cannot let it. Because I believe the pain of the cross and the darkness of death are only gateways to the triumph of the resurrection and the crown of glory. And I must bear them until they are dissolved into eternity. An eternity where pain and death and sadness are lost in glory and every tear is wiped away.

But the question I am asking myself today is do I live like I believe that? 

I read a blog post totally unrelated to grief today, but the point at the end will not let me go. The blogger (I followed at tweet I cannot seem to backtrack, sadly) asked at the end of his post, "Are we only glancing at heaven while we live with our eyes on this world?"

And I can't stop asking it of myself. Because, friends, in this life of grief, whatever yours may be, there is one thing of which I am sure. A glance is not enough.

We will never bear this burden well, never find grace and tender mercy in the ache of grief, never find our footing and get back up when the cross drags us down with it, if we are only glancing at eternity when the skies darken with gloom or when we have a question to ask.

We have to live with eyes on eternity eternally. We have to adore God to find Easter in the clang of the nails. Adore. Is it even possible to glance at someone adoringly? No. Adoration is about absorption. We are wrapped up in someone when we adore. We are taken. We gaze, not glance.

We have to keep our gaze on eternity and long for heaven if we are to make it out of the grief of this world with grace still on our side and headed to something better. And even on my pretty good, I'm mostly all right day, I do so long to be headed for something better.

We are committed to spending an hour a day gazing on God's presence in the Blessed Sacrament in silent adoration. I admit I have faltered in being convinced this is a necessary commitment. Often regarding it as a worthwhile discipline, which it definitely is, but stopping short of giving myself over to it as necessary.

But as I turned this question around today, I felt a certainty rise within me. A glance is not enough. It is necessary to gaze upon the Lord, with our eyes fixed on heaven. We will not escape the scrape of grief in this life. But we can live through it, redeeming it with grace, growing through the pain. We can find the sacred space between here and heaven in the embrace.

But to do so, we must keep our eyes fixed on eternity. A glance is not enough.

© 2014 Berit Watkin, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Help Them Do a Little Good This Summer

It’s summer time and the living is easy. Well. if you’re a mom that is probably not exactly true. But at the very least, the slower routines of summer can offer us time to really invest in our kids and be intentional about the way we spend our time with them.

One glance at Pinterest and you would see that the pressure for a mom to create summer fun is heating up. It seems the world is demanding a certain level of summer perfection from us moms. And insisting that it is what our kids most need to be happy.

Can I ask you to take a deep breath for just a minute while I gently let you off the hook? 

Read the rest over at CatholicMom.com.

3 Things the World Cup Has Taught Me About Raising Boys

So, I'm going to admit that I am kind of a fair weather soccer fan. Or at least I used to be. We have always been a football (not futbol) family. I am an avid (sometimes rabid) watcher of NCAA and NFL football. My boys played football. I was a crazy football mom. But, that, friends, was life in 'Murica.

Costa Rica has been turning us. Slowly. Until now. I do believe what started out as a bit half-hearted has been fully converted by this World Cup and Costa Rica's historic performance. And the ensuing mania in our right-now country which we have enjoyed immensely.

But as I have been watching these matches (see that, using proper lingo and all) closely, I have learned a thing or two. Or three. They have nothing to do with soccer. They are lessons from the men on the field. And they are showing me a thing or two about how to raise little men.

Here are three take-aways on raising boys I have learned from the watching the first round of World Cup play:

From the players: If something is worth doing, it is worth doing with excellence. Appearance is a key aspect of excellence. You guys, these men are not playing a game out there. They are sacrificing life and limb in the pursuit of excellence. They have form. They have technique. They have heart. They have training. They have teamwork. All things any mom of boys would easily list as key aspects of character that must be formed in boys for them to become men of honor and know success. But they have other things too, these men of excellence. They have hair. And tattoos. And neon cleats. And these things are important. Apparently. whether you choose to sport long Latin curls, mounds of blonde dread locks, or a shiny bald noggin has something to do with the way you are perceived by team mates, coaches, and opponents. Apparently too, the brightness of shoes affects ow hard and how accurate you can kick the ball. Or at least how hard you think you can kick the ball. For a long time, my house was filled boys who saw underwear and cowboy boots as high fashion. Who liked to run each other's buzz cuts for fun. Suddenly, these boy-men are very concerned about brands of shoes and hair gel and who is going to cut their hair and whether that person is capable of making their bangs flip just right. They each have a favored color scheme and style. I forget whose is whose. I can't keep up with brands of gel and the preferred scent of Axe body spray. And I was kind of blowing them off with a "what does it all matter, you're boys" attitude. Until World Cup. Now I know it matters. Very much. I am not quite sure what it is these boy-men will pursue excellence at, but I know it will matter that they appear to already be excellent at it. To them and to the people around them. We might not be rushing out to buy neon cleats just yet, but I will be a bit more cheerful about restocking the hair gel and Axe supply now.

From the coaches: Just because you have to wear a suit to work, it doesn't mean you can't be passionate about what you do. You guys, soccer coaches wear suits. On the field. During the game. And they jump and scream and sometimes spit in them. Their ties stick to their sweaty necks and threaten to strangle them. They squat and I fear for what we might all end up seeing with a little deeper bend. But they do their jobs. And they do them with passion. We tend to treat men's careers sometimes like the thing they must do to keep their families from starving to death. The thing that they really hate and so morosely and tragically to keep the light bill paid. The suits they don heroically while they sacrifice their souls for the greater good. This is not my hope for my sons. I want them to be able to support a family, sure. But I also want them to find a means to do it that, while it might require sacrifice (as all good things do), they can love, be passionate about, and be comfortable with. I want their suits to be a sign of pride in the role they play, not a prison sentence. They might not become soccer coaches, but they can certainly get excited enough about whatever it is they are doing that they sweat a little, their cheeks flush and their ties get a little befuddled. As a matter of fact, I think it might be time to practice a little tie tying style around these parts.

From the referees: Boys fight a lot. It doesn't always require your intervention. Boys are competitive. They want to win. At everything. They express themselves physically. They push. They shove. They grab shirts. They break the rules of the game and, sometimes, the rules of common human decency. Sometimes, they can shock with their ability to forget all you have ever taught them about decency. Sometimes, they bite. Often, the counter attack to these ferocious advances is dramatic and involves much flailing, rolling on the ground and fake tears. Sometimes, they try to divert your attention from your wrong by waving their arms wildly while they look askance at you waiting for you to do something. You are not required to intervene. If you stare back stoically, or better yet, just keep running and going about your business, 8 times out of 10, they will miraculously rise from their injuries unscathed and get back in the game. Also, consistency is optional. When you choose to enter the fray and enforce the rules is completely up to you. And everyone respects that. Even if they get in your face and try to tell you otherwise. Also, if you have sons, get yourself some little yellow cards. They apparently have magical powers that stop fighting boys in their tracks. And I think from this point forward in this house, we shall resolve penalties by lining up the offenders and allowing the injured to kick a ball straight at them as hard as possible. Maybe we will need those neon cleats after all.

P.S. If you have not been following my friend Elizabeth's son Michael's coverage of the Cup at USA Today, you are really missing out on half the fun. We will charm you and maybe even make you a bonafide soccer fan.

Letters to Emma (and Her Friends): On Crucifying Missionaries

Oh Sweet Emma,

Just a few short days and you will be back in my mountains with me! You have worked so hard and waited long to get back and I am so, so proud of your whole team. You have claimed the identity of missionary and made it part of your daily lives, not just a once a year adventure. You have formed yourselves and studied and learned and taken charge of the work you will do here in an exemplary way. You are bringing us back our beloved Friars to bolster us and inspire us and bring us joy. Gift, I tell you, Emma, you are gift.

And because you are so and I hold your heart so dear, and you are almost here, I am going to share with you today the very best piece of advice anyone has ever given me about being a good missionary. It was this: " Crucify the imaginary missionary in your head." Stay with me here, I am going to make this make sense.

Emma, in our planning and preparing, and especially in these days as you pack and its becomes real that you are on your way back, I bet you are building big dreams and high hopes. I want you to dream and hope big, sweet girl, because I am utterly certain that our great big God has a great big plan for your time here.

But, you and me, Emma, we have a little issue with dreaming big. When we hope high, we build the foundation on expectations. And our expectations are high. We expect big things of God. We expect big things of others. We expect even bigger things of ourselves.

We are good at vision. I am sure by now you have imagined in great detail the smiling faces of children, the sound of your voice ringing out in a little mountain chapel, the sun shining as you walk dirt roads, misty mountain mornings with your Bible and your journal and a new song rising in your heart.

Of course you have. Which of us girls with the spark inside wouldn't have?

There's only one itty bitty problem with those dreams, Emma. We spark girls, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves with our expectations. We tend to shoulder the responsibility for making them a reality.

And, Emma, don't be discouraged when I say this hard, true thing. It won't be like you imagined, this trip. It will be real, and so, so good. But it won't measure up to your expectations. You won't measure up to your expectations.

It's going to rain when you most wanted the sun to shine. You are going to get here and feel sad, alone, sick, or, worst of all, nothing. Your voice is going to crack and the prayers aren't going to come. People are going to care more about soccer than what you put your heart into planning. Maybe. Or maybe it will be something else all together that sullies your perfect dreams and pretty imaginings for this trip. But something will, dear one. It is the one thing you can count on.

And you are reading right now and I know what you are thinking. "I know that already. I am good. God is in control. It will be what He wants it to be." And you are right.

Because those expectations are just the tip of the iceberg, Em. The thing that happens next is the destructive force that takes down so many good ones. One that has almost steam rolled me right off my little missionary mountain more than once. It is this.

All of sudden, as expectations crash and you adapt and you make way for God to move, there will be a moment when the mission may not be what you dreamed it to be and you will be okay with that. But a worse thing will happen. You will find yourself not being the missionary you dreamed of being. 

You will be irritable and angry when you know you should be peaceful and kind. You will want to be peaceful and kind, and you will not be able to will yourself to do it. You will want out. Away from the very people you most dreamed of enjoying this experience with. The spotlight will shine on you and you will hate how you look in its glare. The pressure you have built up in your hoping and dreaming will boil hot inside you.

And you will be angry. Not at God. Not at everyone else. Not at the world. (Although they all might get caught in the crossfires.) But at yourself. At the missionary you thought you would be who, for some reason, decided not to show up when you most needed her. You will find it hard to accept that the adaptable, sweet, healthy, fun dream Emma stayed at home and this stranger you never met in you dreams came along instead. And she's not a very fun traveling companion.

If you fuel that beast, Emma, pretty soon you will be quite certain you should not be here at all. Quite certain you were completely silly and ignorant to think you ever could have had a missionary calling in the first place. Quite sure that there is no way God could want to use you in your ugliness and your brokenness. And even a little unsure whether He could possibly love a person who does this over and over again no matter how hard she works to shore herself up against it.

And then you will want out. You will be tempted to want to give up, give in and go home. And that would be an awful place to find yourself. Ask me how I know, Emma, ask me how I know.

This is when that odd little piece of advice starts to make sense. Don't try to leave behind the imperfect, broken Emma when you are packing, dear girl. God loves that girl. The real Emma. With all her gifts and glitches and messes and misses and missionary dreams. That's the girl He wants to use.

The other one? The imaginary perfect missionary Emma? Go ahead and leave her behind. As a matter of fact, in order to make sure she doesn't sneak her way in (she's a creeper, that one), go ahead and take that advice I offered at the beginning. Crucify her.

Pin all your hopes and dreams and perfectionist tendencies and expectations and pressures to the cross, Emma. And leave them there. In the suffering, triumphant arms of Jesus. Hand your Savior complex over to the real Savior and come with empty hands, ready to receive.

That, dear one, is the way to be the very best missionary you can be. That is the girl I want to hug hard and tight upon her arrival and spend the week with. So pack her up and get her ready. We are waiting, me and Him.

FMF: Release

It comes creeping, slow and quiet at first. I think I should probably recognize it by now but I usually don't at the outset. It seems a small thing: a little pang, a sudden desire.

Coke becomes a need on a hectic afternoon. Snickers bars seems an all too irresistible reward for the trials and sacrifices of this life I live.

Just small things.

Suddenly, I find myself not able to shut my eyes at night and re-reading social media feeds like they might suddenly bear earth-shattering news. Watching my inbox like a hawk for bold black print. Waiting for just one more little red number.

Just a little more.

Then I am spending an hour filling a virtual shopping cart with pretty things I cannot have and cursing at my closet the next morning. I am cringing at my figure in the mirror and thinking it would all be well if I picked up new earrings or had a little time to myself or splurged on a pedicure.

If I got something more than I already have.

If I just consumed more.

And suddenly a not-so-bad need for the warm embrace of something familiar, something comforting, something soothing has bred and warped into the compulsion to consume, to fill.

And I am begging for release from its grips and cursing the weeds that have grown from the very seeds I planted and watered in my own soul.

Release me, Lord. Release from this hunger. Release me from the need. Release me from the want, from the discontent and the not enough and the do I even matter at all. Release me.

And I have to look at it face on and call it once again what it really is: the ugly straying of my wild and wandering heart.

I struggle free once again from its bonds and tether myself back to Him. The only One in whose embrace I am full, and warm, and comfortable and fully known.

Released and free. In His grasp.

Linking up at this week's FMF party.

Let Us Long (and Keep Trying)

You know that person in your church who refuses to stop being a newcomer, no matter how long it has been? The one you've been kind and warm and welcoming to over and over again? The one you've invited to bible study and to coffee and who still feels stiff and distant and like a foreigner and a sojourner in your community? The one you've probably been frustrated with for her refusal to just fit in and feel at home already?

I get her.

I've been going to Mass in Spanish for nearly three years. I understand the readings and the homily now. I can rattle the responses smoothly across my tongue and keep up with everyone else. I know when they kneel and when they stand (it's different).

I am no longer new at this.

I walk into our church and it is familiar. People smile and hug us. They ask how we have been. We know them. They have had us for coffee or shaken our hands in the streets or sold us our tomatoes.

I am not a stranger here.

But I am a foreigner. And it still feels foreign to me. And despite all that I said above, I still struggle to feel part of the community of the Church. I feel lost and lonely in our crowded Church on a Sunday. And I long for the place that feels like home.

I long for friends who know my story, my history. Not only familiar faces in the pews, but the faces of people who KNOW me. I long for the songs I like to sing and the smell of my favorite incense and the way "they" do it.

I long for the Church that felt like home. Even though it was never actually home and hasn't been for a long time. 

And I don't mean that I am not grateful for all the ways people have tried to welcome and include us and make us feel as home. I am. I so am. But I don't. I don't feel at home yet and I don't know when I will. And I need them to be patient with me.

And let me long. For all the things mentioned above and the deeper spiritual context for them all.

And then I need them to keep trying. Because I don't mean to be stuck here and I too hope for the day it "clicks" and I suddenly blend in and feel like I belong. And you never know just which thousandth smile will do the trick.

So, if you are the one trying so hard to make those of us still sitting on the fringes of your Church feel welcome and at home here, can I ask you a huge favor?

Will you let us long for what we miss? Not hurry us into a home we are not ready to claim just yet?

But will you keep trying? And know we appreciate it and we are working on it?

Thank you.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home. (Ephesians 2: 19-22 MSG)

5 Life Lessons I Learned From My Daddy

This Father's Day, I am honoring my husband for the father that he is and celebrating some great men I know, but I am missing my own dad terribly. While he was not perfect, his memory shines in my mind with a glow around it. He brought me such joy and taught me so much about how to be a person who lives generously and brings joy to others. So while I miss him today, I will celebrate him, his legacy that lives on in his beautiful family, and the things he taught me about life.

1. Sing to people. It makes them happy. My dad sang while we cooked, while he worked, and while he went about his daily life in the grocery store, the bank. He sang on stages and made music that lives in history. But he made the world a stage where he performed to make people smile. When I went to run some errands days after his death, the bank tellers gathered around me weeping telling me how they would miss him and the songs he sang them every Friday afternoon. My dad gave me the courage to sing for joy. It's a good kind of courage to have.

2. Preparing and serving food for others is an art and a joy. Savor it. My dad loved to cook. He loved to be creative in the kitchen. He was legendary among family and friends for his signature dishes. He pretended not to want to share his kitchen with us, but we all knew he loved it. And oh how he loved to watch people enjoy his food. This attitude about food has permeated our family. It is part of who we are collectively. And I love that about us. Meal preparation for my family is a time to savor because my dad taught me how. That is a great gift.

3. You're never too old to learn something new. My dad had access to a high school library, the History Channel and EWTN for the first time in his life during his retirement years. He made liberal use of them. He read, he watched, and he learned new things. He loved the knowledge he gained and the conversations it empowered. He taught me that learning is a privilege and a joy and we should greet even the smallest opportunities to learn something new with gratitude and zeal. Learning new things is a great joy to me today and I am thankful to my dad for his example.

4. The way you present yourself matters. My dad was meticulous about the way his clothes were laundered and ironed, about the way he tucked his shirt and were his cuffs lay on his wrists. He knew that presentation mattered. Whatever job he was doing, he wanted to put his best foot forward while doing it. It used to drive me crazy at times when he commented on my clothing choices or whether I had ironed my school shirt, but with a little maturity, I can appreciate his lesson. The way you care for your appearance tells the world a lot about you and what you think of yourself. Think about the message you are sending. Make it a good one.

5. You can decide how you will be remembered. My dad had his fair share of rough seas in life. He made his mistakes. He did not grow up ideal circumstances. He fought some hard battles and lost some. But ask just about anyone and their memories are of a man full of joy, a man who loved well, a man of wisdom and faith and strength. A man who knew how to savor life and the ones he loved. And that is because, I think, somewhere along the way, he decided that is how he wanted to be remembered and he lived it. He didn't look back at the past and disqualify himself. He maximized his gifts and shared them to the fullest. And he built himself into a giant of a man whose memory lives large and full of light and life. It is a gift to know you can choose. He taught me to choose well and let the rest go. It may be the best lesson I ever learn.

Top Ten Reasons Empty Hands Are Better Tools

So it's Friday and I woke up this morning wishing I could go to ALL THE PARTIES on the internets and laughing that I would surely have to scale back my expectations. I mean how could I write one single post about hands (Five Minute Friday) that was a top ten list (The Grove at Velvet Ashes), talked about the joy of finding community (incourage link-up), and a topic that has been rumbling loud in my brain this week, how to approach short term missions with the right disposition.

But as I sipped my morning coffee and my gears  got going, I started to think about our hands. And how one of the things that can be an obstacle from us forming authentic community as well as to our approach to short term missions is thinking we have to have full hands, we have to come with something to offer more than ourselves. We need to bring a gift, a supply. a tool, an answer, a solution for our presence to be worth something.

The problem with full hands is this: there is only one possible evolution for the relationships we enter, whether they be with people with whom we are seeking community or brothers and sisters we go to visit at the ends of the earth. We arrive with our hands full of clothes, shoes, sports, equipment, building supplies, solutions, answers, advice, what have you, and we are burdened and encumbered by them. The only solution is to look for an empty, outstretched hand to dump them in. We dump. The person to whom we dump is now full and has to find something to do with the load, so they must turn away. We end up empty-handed, relieved of the gift we carried like a burden, and lonely.

I think the we need to learn to be comfortable approaching missions and community and relationships with empty hands. So here are my top ten reasons empty hands are better tools than full ones.

1. Two empty hands can clasp together to form a link. A link in a chain that leaves another hand free for the inviting. A chain that can stretch and grow. A chain that is stronger in its collective grasp.

2. Empty hands can cup what is poured into them, then pour it out. Cupped hands receive a different kind of gift than the ones that are dumped by burdened, full hands. Cupped hands hold something soft, flowing and sacred. Cupped hands indincate care and slowness and a pouring into.

3. Empty hands can embrace when there is no way of working out an answer. When all there is to do is sit in the hard broken, place with someone and hold them while they shake with the sorrow of it.

4. Empty hands can pat backs. Can acknowledge the contributions of another. Give affirm and uplift.

5. Empty hands can steady the ladder while someone else climbs. What a great gift to enable someone else to climb to the top while we steady the base on which she climbs.

6. Empty hands tell our stories. The wrinkles, the scars, the ring, the nails. The sun-baked glow or hard callouses. They tell our story. There is much we can learn from studying one another's hands. If only we are allowed to see them freely. It is much easier to be KNOWN with empty hands.

7. Empty hands reveal our need. When we stretch out empty hands to another, we let them know that we too are needy, we too do not have it all. We too are beggars of grace and good things.

8. Empty hands don't make the ability to work a prerequisite. Sometimes while we mean for our full hands to be a gift, we don't realize that we are saying to those to whom we offer them, if you want to walk with me, you must be able and willing to help me accomplish my goals. But what if physical, mental, spiritual health make that person unable to do so? Then we have laid a road block where we meant to build a bridge.

9. Empty hands can open doors and hold them while others walk through. Enough said.

10. Empty hands look like Jesus. Extended in blessing. Offering an embrace. Calming the seas. Stretched out on the cross. Empty-handed but with so much to offer.

My life in missions has taught me that is okay to approach thing empty-handed. That often it leads to the very best relatioships and the deepest places. Lately, I've learned to bring that to my own search for community as well. And I am so the better for it. So, friend, lay your burden down today and offer your empty hands to someone. And if you headed out on mission soon, consider what might happen if you did so empty-handed. Share your story insead of your stuff. Stretch out and offer yourself, empty and open. I promise, good things await.

Linking up at The Grove at Velvet Ashes

and Five Minute Friday: Hands

AND

(in)courage!

The Mommy Question I'm Not Asking Myself Any More

I have had a lot of conversations with some long-time mom friends lately about the challenges we are facing as we move beyond the phase of the hazy little people years and into the very different but not less challenging years of having mostly middle-sized or narly full-size people in our homes. As I have thought about this phase, one thing I have noticed about myself is that a lot of things I once put a lot of priority are on are just not that important any more. Things I once spent a lot of time trying to get just right haven't turned out to be the key things to raising healthy kids with whom I have a healthy relationship. I am shifting a bit in the way  think about raising kids in general, in homeschooling and in passing on our Catholic faith to our kids.

There are some questions I used to stress and pore over that I now think were either the wrong questions to ask or that I was asking them seeking the wrong answer. I'm trying to move away from placing so much emphasis on these thoughts and replacing them with questions that seem to address the real needs of bigger people trying to navigate a bigger world.

Am I being a good example to my kids?

It's not that I've stopped trying to be a good example to my kids. It's that what I used to think that meant is changing a lot as my kids get older. I used to think being a good example meant showing my kids what it looked to pursue holiness. And by that I meant that I was kind and nice and gentle and didn't say curse words out loud when people cut me off in traffic or I dropped a heavy object on my feet. It meant I didn't let them see me fight with their dad or get mad at other people. It meant I always looked happy to go to church, didn't get distracted in Mass and never let them see me wasting time on the computer or my own pursuits. A good example equalled some imaginary perfect mom that my kids have never and will never have. Because of that, I spent an awful lot of time beating myself up and feeling like a bad mom.

I haven't given up on trying to be a good example to my kids. But my definition of what that means has changed quite a bit. I know that most of all my kids need me to be myself and be okay with who I am. And the truth is, I am not a naturally gentle person. Thoughtful, kind? Yes. Gentle, not so much. And I curse. And dance. And sometimes find getting ready for church to be my Waterloo. And get annoyed in church and I get distracted in Mass and sometimes it's too darn hard to pay attention in Spanish any more so I zone out. And their dad and me? We are passionate and verbal. And we have lots of heated discussions. And as an adult human person with her own needs and dreams and desires, I have things I enjoy pursuing outside of these kids. Some of them involve being on the computer. And I'm learning that none of that makes me wholly a good example or a bad mom. (Okay, I should probably curse way less. I admit it.) Because they are essentially the wrong questions to ask. Instead, when I think about being a good example to my boys, I am asking myself these things instead:

• Am I letting my kids see me maintain relationships? Do my kids know what it takes to stay connected to someone even as life transitions to a new phase? Do they see me articulate my needs and feelings to others? Do they see me respond to the needs of my friends? Do they see me disagree with people, get angry. and work through the mess? Do they see me get it wrong and apologize? Have they seen me work my way through the pain of losing a friend?
• Insert with their dad in the place of friends above. Add do they know what the sacrament of marriage means to me and their dad? Do they know that quitting is not an option for us? Do they see us share affection in front of them often? Do they see us work together as a team often? Do they see us pull away from them to spend time together often? Do they see me set aside my own pursuits when the needs or desires of their dad take priority?
• Do my kids see me doing the same with them? Connecting, finding joy, saying yes as often as I can to their messes and mess-ups and cray chaos? Do I apologize AND confess my sin to them when I have wronged them? Do I make reparation in some healthy way? Do they see me set aside all other things for them, collectively and individually, when duty or just the stuff of life demands it? And sometimes when it doesn't but I just want them to know that they are special and they are loved fiercely.
• Do my kids see me pursuing things I enjoy? Seizing opportunities to educate myself further, use my gifts, take on new challenges, step out of my comfort zone? Do my kids know that I have dreams and passions of my own?Could they identify them? 
• And do they see me living out my relationship with God? Do they see me seeking out God throughout the day? Do they see me working my through spiritual struggles? Giving real, authentic thanks in all things? Expressing fears and doubts and seeking answers? Confessing my sins, being honest about my falls and getting up and starting over again?
• Am I showing my kids what it looks like to live as sinner who is redeemed by Christ? As a Catholic who relies on the grace of the sacraments? As human who loves imperfectly but keeps trying?

Now, I realize that's an awful lot of questions to replace just one. But I think that's the heart and the hard of this phase in life. The simple, surface question and answer will not serve me well with kids who see through the facade. I have to dig deep, ask big, hard questions and live the answers authentically in front of these growing people. If I had to, however, take all that stuff up there and create one new question for myself, I think this would sum it up:

Am I living a life in which my kids see me try to love God with all my heart, mind and soul and love my neighbor as myself? And do they know that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am loved and redeemed no matter how many time I get that right or wrong? 

P.S. I'll try to curse less too.

When Word Trends Collide

I am so happy to be posting over One Word 365 today. If you don't know what this community is all about, take a look here. Want to know more about my journey with my one word in 2014, check out the KNOWN tag.

Two popular words I see floating around blogging communities a lot this year are “authentic” and “intentional”. Authenticity is lauded in comments sections in every corner of the internets. From admitting to having days as a mother that you can’t wait until bedtime to revealing your struggles with anxiety and depression to breaking the silence that you don’t know how to cook pasta, people rise up and cheer you on for being so authentic.

Likewise, there are so many advisors and pundits out there in the blogosphere telling us all to slow down and think about how we are living, parenting, eating, praying, loving. To be intentional about what we do and why we do it in every realm of life imaginable.

I like these two words. I really do. I like how they sound and I like what they mean. I try to live them. But I find that more often than not, either my authenticity ends up bulldozing right over my intentionality or my intentionality makes me feel less than authentic....Read the rest here.