trying

I am trying harder now to be more patient with my children. One way I'm trying to do this is to say a Hail Mary before I start screaming. It's a lot like counting to 10, but it takes a little longer and it's actual prayer (multitasking-yes!). I figure Mary was Jesus' mom, and while she and Jesus were sinless and probably didn't really drive each other crazy, she's probably witnessed some crazy in Nazareth. And in the roughly 2000 years since her Assumption, she's witnessed a lot of crazy--from the vantage point of heaven, of course. So, I'm asking her intercession while I try not to yell at my kids all day long.

Sometimes the prayer is audible, sometimes not, but the kids know what I'm doing and I wonder what they're thinking when they see me do this. I don't want them to associate the Hail Mary with me being fed up. They have asked me "what are you doing," as they watch me moving my lips, eyes raised to heaven. I tell them I'm asking Mary to pray for me.

This leads me to wonder of you know any moms who don't yell. I know one, but I guess I could be acquainted with more and just not know it. She's really sweet. I have seen her with her family and with other peoples' kids and I have never heard her even raise her voice above an "inside voice" tone. I don't know how she does it, especially since she has more than 10 kids of her own. Yes, you read that right. And I have never in 7 years of knowing her heard her raise her voice. There is an air about her. It's peace. She radiates peace.

I'm not sure what I radiate, but it's not peace. I think I radiate agitation. I radiate bad juju.

Actually, I do think I know how she does it. I'm pretty sure she prays more than me. She's definitely one of the holiest people I know. She seems to have put all of her life in the Lord's hands, and she is confident in His Providence.

This is my problem. I try to do too much. I pay good lip service to "Leaving it up to God," "His Will be done!" But I find myself trying to control things and then getting frustrated by the things I have no control over. Like the weather canceling or postponing events I've organized for Church. Dang, I can't make the blizzard either show up or avoid us. And I can't even rejoice in the time off.

Which brings me back to Mary. There she was, a 14 year old girl, and this angel shows up and tells her that God wants her to bear His Son. And after she gets over being confused ("How can this be? I don't know man."), she tells the angel, "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." And she probably never thought, "Boy, what's Joseph going to think? What are all the women in town going to think about me?" She probably just knew God would take care of it. She was that humble.

I read this today and it kind of jumped out at me. Maybe it will hit you, too:

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body (2 Cor. 4:8-10).

Let it be done to me according to your word.

welcome

To anyone who might possibly have clicked over here from this post at CMR, a very warm welcome. I am not nearly as shrill as the Ash Wednesday post below and that email make me sound.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try and get some content up here. Right after I make dinner for my husband and kids.

Oh, and here is a link to an article about how what you do over the internet is never really private.

Especially if you email an Archbold.

Can we talk?

I mean, I know it's probably not good, what I'm about to say, but, well, that never stopped me before.

What's up with people and ashes?

We must have had thousands of people come through our church today for ashes since it's Ash Wednesday. If I wasn't taking a CCD class to Mass tonight, I would never have gone to Mass. I hate Ash Wednesday.

Hate is a strong word. And I don't have a problem with the day. I think it's great, actually. What I dislike is people coming in the church door for ashes and then not coming back until next Ash Wednesday.

Is it because we're giving something away?

Well, guess what, folks? We give Jesus away at every Mass. And He's way better than ashes.

The Baby Gianna Story

Matthew and Patrick Archbold at Creative Minority Report are running a series about baby Gianna. The first part is quite compelling...

Rebecca didn’t keep the appointment at the Planned Parenthood clinic that Friday. And finally Rebecca told Jessica that she chose to keep the baby. “We all breathed a sigh of relief,” she said. “It had been such a long process but she made a decision for life.”

But the relief would be short lived. When Rebecca's boyfriend learned of her decision he repeatedly and savagely kicked her in the stomach. While examining her, hospital doctors said they saw something alarming in the baby. There was no amniotic fluid which would likely cause the baby's lungs to not develop properly.

Please go read the whole thing, and go back every day this week for further installments of this story.

Turn, turn, turn...

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

There is a boy in my 7th grade CCD class, whom I will call T. (not his real initial). T. has a medical condition that causes him a great deal of suffering. I didn't know about it until 2 weeks ago. I mean, it's on my class list next to his name, but I have to confess that I hadn't paid too much attention to it since the beginning of the year and T. had never exhibited outward signs of his condition.

Last night, I got the chance to talk to T.'s mom. We'd distributed report cards in the last week of January and had parent-teacher conferences and she wasn't able to make it. (Her family's been having a tough time right now, so they can really use all of our prayers.) Here is part of our 20-minute conversation:

T's mom: A few weeks ago, I don't know what you were talking about, but T. came home and said something to me...
Me: Oh, gosh, it could have been anything...we've been talking about a lot of stuff in class lately that's got some of the kids talking in school outside of our class time...
TM: Yeah... I don't know what it was, but he came home and he said to me, "I know why God let me have [this medical condition]. It's so I can show other people who have it that you can have it and be ok. That's what God wants me to do, to show other people with [it] that I'm OK and they can be OK too."
Me: Oh, wow.
TM: So I don't know what you said...
Me: I don't know either, but it was the Holy Spirit. Praise God. That's just so beautiful. Praise God for that.

On further reflection, I know what we were talking about in class. A week or two before Christmas, we were talking about why God lets bad stuff happen. It's the eternal question, isn't it? Why did God let 9/11 happen? Why hurricanes and earthquakes? Why doesn't he just put his hand down and stop it?

I was frank: I don't have all of the answers. I know that we all have a great gift from God: free will, and God does not interfere with that. But, I firmly believe what I told them next: even though bad, terrible things happen, God works immense good out of the results of those bad things.

I told the kids that I have lost three babies, two to miscarriage and one to an ectopic pregnancy, where I had internal bleeding and had emergency surgery. And I don't know right now what good came from those miscarriages. I do know that if those babies had been born, I probably would not have my younger two kids right now. But I know that I have three children in heaven who pray for me and I know that God will bring much good out of that suffering my family endured.

And T. was listening. And the Spirit moved him, at the age of 13, to do some REALLY deep thinking.

It's not easy to tell with teens when they are listening to you. They act too cool for you and what you have to say. But I am starting to figure out that they are listening ALL THE TIME and that the Holy Spirit moves them when we least expect it.

But all things happen in His time, don't they?

What I have learned is that I have to be open, to witness, and to try not to get in the way of the Holy Spirit doing His thing.

Praise, to you, Lord. Thank you for letting me be T.'s teacher. Thank you for letting me be in their lives this year. And please keep me out of your way.