"Stealing" Money from My Husband's Paycheck

When Jon and I were newlyweds, we both worked. In our joint checkbook register, we titled the two regular deposits each month as "Jon's paycheck" and "Abby's paycheck." After I became a stay-at-home Mom, it was very hard to break down the label of "Jon's paycheck" in my mind.

For example, here is a stupid example of how sin begets sin. Whenever Jon had to "sacrifice" something fun for the benefit of our new babies, I used to do the child support calculation that I still had memorized in my head from my old work of advising divorcing clients. "How sad," I'd think. "The kids and I take 100% of Jon's paycheck. If he'd divorce me he'd only have to pay X amount to his family each month and he'd get to pocket the rest." (Because that's the unformed spiritual mess I was in my late twenties. Beer, travel, and ski pass money were still more exciting expenses than our new fixed expenses of laundry soap and teething crackers.)

By the time I officially checked "retired" on all three of my State Attorney license agreements, I no longer felt guilty about having "our" single paycheck pay for my contact lenses, or my dentist bills, or my winter coat.

However, I still felt really, really guilty about "stealing" money from my husband's paycheck to pay for my private student loans. For our ten year marriage, that cost has floated between $250 to $300. I've constantly been tempted to get quick fixes to take care of "my" debt.

Over time, God has really healed my heart on this issue. Our God is an awesome God. He can do anything. He could have sent a long-lost uncle to pay off my entire student loan debt the moment I decided to follow his call into the land of stay-at-home motherhood. But he chose something more beautiful!

Month by month, my husband has been the one who has happily paid the price the stupid financial mistakes I made before our marriage. (And believe me, those pricey, not-really-needed, private loans WERE a mistake). I went from feeling defensive and embarrassed, to feeling honored.

Every day, my husband tells me that he's so happy that I'm a stay-at-home wife. Then each month, he underlines those words with action. He cheerfully mails a hefty portion of "our" paycheck to "our" student loans.

I affectionately call Jon, "my starter husband for Jesus." Jon is preparing my heart on earth for a spiritual marriage to Jesus in heaven.

What I've learned from coming into my sacramental marriage deeply in debt-
emotional debt,
spiritual debt, &
financial debt-

is that a loving spouse, just like Jesus, will happily pay the price for all the mistakes that I made before we met.

Our old student loans are small potatoes next to the current reality of a beautiful marriage and a happy family life.

I've got the financial balance sheet to prove it.

Living in the Land of Little Rain, part 2

I finally started working on the financial aid applications for Tessy's medical bills. For some unexplained reason our portion of her hospital bills so far is almost $8,000.00. That's about $2,000 more than out expected "yearly out of pocket maximum" for our health insurance plan, and well over what we can pay upfront if we cash out our IRA.

We've been here before. Financially nervous. Not freaked out and drowning in debt (that would be our life in 2005 when we were totally unemployed with two children and living in Jon's parents house), but "uncomfortable."

Jon calls this our "20% in the red rule". God gives us a firm 80% each month for our family's expenses and the rest of our "extra" needs we sort of handle on a wing and a prayer.

I didn't know where the extra $2,000 was going to come from in our budget through if we ended up needing to pay the full amount. (Medicaid send us an official denial. Individual hospital determinations are still in the works.) So I started calling all of our Student Loan Creditors to see if there was any wiggle room in 2011.

The lady from a call center in India told me something so shocking, I dropped my jaw, the phone, and I almost dropped Baby Tess. "You have 16 more months of forbearance time on that loan Miss. . ."

Remember the prophet Elijah and how he granted a poor widow a jar of oil and that never ran out in the midst of a famine?

I've got the 21 Century equivalent, a Sallie Mae student loan forbearance on a gigantic law school loan debt that never runs out. It's been ELEVEN years and I have never, ever paid a dime on my student loans. Oh, I've paid blood money to the pesky private loans companies--but never on the main, gigantic loan.

Legally dodging my loan payments were "normal" for the first four years. Every student gets a 6 month deferment to find a job. I chose a low-paying job helping the poor, so I qualified for an extra deferment where the Federal Government paid the interest on my loans for another 2 to 3 years.

Then when I was expecting my first baby in 2003, my husband and I took out matching Federal Consolidation loans. We were both working at the time. We were surprised to find out that the "new" loan came with 4 "extra" years of forbearance time, which we immediately put to good use.

We were converted Catholics who used the "four year grace window" to scrambled to find a sane work/life balance for our new family. In four years we had 3 more pregnancies, we moved 4 times to 4 separate states, we started a new business, we lost a business, and finally found my artistic husband a steady job in Washington D.C. that almost supports a family of six.

In the back of my mind, I always thought I had to go back to work to pay back the monthly payments on my law school debt. Most of my friends don't know, but I stuffed my first 3 pregnancies so close together because I thought I'd only be home a short time.

After my miscarriage, I started to realize that God wanted me to be a stay-at-home mother full-time and forever. I got really scared. There was a period of about 18 months in my early Carmelite journey when I had this note on my prayer alter; "Jesus if you want me to be a full-time servant for you, I cost $109,092.78!" (That was the amount of my unpaid Student Loan Debt at the time).

In 2007, Jon started paying on his Sallie Mae loan as agreed.

It's 2011, and I still haven't started paying mine.

We are a husband and wife with matching Sallie Mae Consolidated Loan terms. We file joint tax returns as proof of our identical financial circumstances. When Jon calls to ask for extra forbearance time, the lady from India says "I'm sorry Mr. Benjamin, you have exhausted all of your forbearance time. You may receive more only if you become unemployed."

Abby, "Mrs. I'm Completely Unemployed For Jesus" calls, and it's "Oh, don't worry about it Mrs. Benjamin, you still have 16 more months left."

As a unpaid, stay-at-home Mom, I somehow got the forbearance pot that has never gone empty.

In 2007, I was told I had 12 extra months left. More forbearance time appeared for no reason in 2008 and 2009. In 2010, I suddenly had 24 extra months left. In 2011, I've got 16 more months left. 24 - 12 does NOT equal 16!

Then the Indian call-center lady, continued to make my day. (If my next daughter is named Preema, you'll know why!) Starting in April 2011, my entire student loan payment will effectively disappear. Sallie Mae changed the rules and now considers the educational loan debt of husband and wives together, instead of separately. We will pay the same amount on two grad school debts that would have owed with one.

After my last pesky private school loan is payed off in 2012, I will no longer be a stay-at-home wife with a gigantic inverse dowry for her husband. (A girl who brings large debt into her marriage.) I'll just turn into the regular wife that clips grocery store coupons for profit, rather than sadly sending out gigantic chunks of her family's income to her student loan debts.

Considering the circumstances, I think that we'll somehow be okay with Tessy's medical bills this year.* God has very surprising ways to bless poor families that depend upon his providence to care for "extra" sick babies placed in their midst.


******
*For you Math whizzes out there I know that an extra forbearance time isn't technically free as I still have to pay the accrued interest on my loans. However, my interest rate is so low that it's practically free. Considering the price of hiring a babysitter for Baby Tess, and paying Catholic School fees for her three older siblings, my "interest" penalty for stay-at-home motherhood is nothing.

Life in a Carmelite Marriage

For many years, I've been trying to write out my conversion story. Lately, my husband's started telling me "you don't need to write about how we became a Catholics. You need to write about our current life as Catholics, because its CRAZY!"

So I'm starting a new little series called "Life in a Carmelite Marriage."

Today, I'm writing about our Carmelite take on Thomas Jefferson.

Mr. TJ is pretty big around my town. There's a grand monument to him in Washington D.C. and his ideals get thrown around frequently in Congress and the McLaughlin Group and the University of Virginia Debate Halls.

In our American History-centric house, we recently praised Mr. TJ as the mastermind behind the Lewis and Clark Expedition. (Jon and I saw a fantastic National Geographic Documentary on this on Instant Downloads from Netflix!)

We talked about this documentary for days, and then I causally mentioned that as a kid, I kept my Dad's copy of Thomas Jefferson's rewritten New Testament on my bedside table and read it during one dull Sunday. I mentioned this in causal conversation to say a) it's weird that we had this book available in our house and b) can you believe the junk I read on the Sabbath before becoming Catholic.

My husband was horrified.

"Thomas Jefferson rewrote the New Testament?"

"Yeah, he just consolidated all the Gospels into one narrative and he left out all of the miracles," I answered.

"He left out the miracles!!!!" Jon turned a different shade of white. "Who could do such a thing? How could he get it published?"

"Well, honey. Many of the founding fathers were Deists. It was sort of a popular thing back then. . ."

"But the Hubris!" Jon continued in total shock. "I mean, you could write the worse drivel about the Devil being great, but to rewrite the GOSPELS, without the MIRACLES?? We have GOT to pray for this man. How long is that going to get him in purgatory?" Jon finished.

Then there was a dreadful intake of breath. ". . .if he makes it that far!"

Days later, as we are on the City Bus driving to Sunday Mass Jon looks at me over darling Tessy's head and says "Please don't forget to pray for Thomas Jefferson's soul to get out of purgatory!"

And so folks, another odd twist in a Carmelite family. Some school children will identify Thomas Jefferson as the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence and founded the University of Virginia. Other college students will snicker at the mention of Sally Hemings. But my kids will say "Thomas Jefferson, that's the Dead guy who my Dad is furiously lighting candles for at every Mass."

(My kids will probably volunteer this in the middle of a home-school review which is why they'll get an "unsatisfactory rating" in History, but at least their Carmelite Daddy will be proud.)

**********
Jon wants me to tell you that Mr. Jefferson referred to his revision of the New Testament. as "diamonds from a dung-hill". I'll post the description of Mr. TJ's intentions here. My spouse is in shock! "It's unbelievable. The hero of our country!" I need to go help offer up some more prayers now.

From Wikipedia "Jefferson accomplished a more limited goal in 1804 with “The Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth,” the predecessor to Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.[4] He described it in a letter to John Adams dated 13 October 1813:
“ In extracting the pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos and demiurges, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages, of pure and unsophisticated doctrines. [3]

Prayer is essential for grasping life’s meaning, says Pope | CatholicHerald.co.uk

Prayer is essential for grasping life’s meaning, says Pope | CatholicHerald.co.uk

Benedict XVI: 'Teresa of Avila shows that time spent in prayer is not lost'

God's Providence

God has richly provided for this car-less Carmelite family with excellent bicycles.

Today my husband brought home a free Trek bike for himself--a donation from a co-worker who is a biking enthusiast who had an extra racing bike gathering dust in his garage. It's beautiful, rugged, and fits my husband's six and half foot frame.

Jon thinks he can now make it home from work in under 5 minutes flat.

Thank you Mommy Mary!

Happy Candlemass!

This beautiful feast was my introduction to starting my own domestic church! If you are new to Candlemass, check out this post.

I haven't really found me sea-legs yet as a new Mama of four. In past years, I've celebrated this happy day with Early Morning Mass, a special candle blessing from our parish priest and happy feast of jelly hearts and swords (for the piercing of Mary's heart).

This morning, I got out our Holy Candle and couldn't find where I hid the kitchen matches from my inquiring kids. "I can't light it!" I told a disappointed Maria. "I can't find our matches and we don't even have some spaghetti which we usually use as a substitute."

"Mom, you can use a stick!" my 3 year old shots.

I thought she was talking about one of those bamboo sticks we used for skewers at summer BBQ's and I had no idea where she had seen one recently.

Sure enough, Maria returns from her bedroom with a 9 inch tree branch that her brother had hid under his bed.

(Because that's the kind of house I'm running here. We don't have matches. We don't have spaghetti. But we've got real tree sticks indoors!)

It took Maria and I about 12 minutes, but we did finally get the Holy Candle* light using an actual stick and my gas range on my stove. Then we pulled out the Baby Jesus from the Christmas decoration box that is still sitting in my living room waiting to returned to my bedroom closet. Maria played with the Baby Jesus in front of the candle while I read her the Scripture Passage of the "Presentation" from Luke's Gospel. We talked about how Jesus is the light of the world.

If you've got time and energy this year, Miss Alice's Candlemass Tea is a lovely treat!

During both high preparation days and low preparation days, living the liturgy is a beautiful thing!

*** The Anchoress has a beautiful reflection of Candlemass today!


*a holy candle is simply a candle that has been blessed by a priest. Every Catholic house benefits from a Holy Candle, Holy Water and Blessed Salt. The Holy Candle is really great to light whenever anyone in the family is sick or scared.

Happy St. John Bosco Feast Day!

I'm a firm believer that we don't chose Saints, the Saints choose us. One of the Saints that has recently befriended my family is St. John Bosco. He's come to the rescue for my frustration about a lack of obedience in my kids and my general lack of meekness in my own soul.

So far I'm 3 for 3 in producing extremely strong willed, spirited children.
(Jon thinks Baby Tess is more laid back, but considering that she almost died on me in infancy, I refuse to count her yet as my "easy" baby).

I love St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. I love St. Francis Cabrini. Their gentle method of loving discipline called to my heart. But they didn't quite do it for me.

Enter St. John Bosco. The Saint of Juvenile Delinquents! Surely if St. John Bosco could advocate the "preventative method" of discipline as the right one for children recently released prison, then I've got a harder time arguing that this gentle method won't work for my strong-willed brood.

This passage from the Divine Office is made me cry when I first read it last week. It's a far, far off goal--but I'm committed to making it a reality with Christ's help.

(Reading from Divine Office Jan 31, from a letter by St. John Bosco, priest)

"My sons, in my long experience very often I had to be convinced of this great truth. It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him. Yes, indeed, it is more fitting to be persistent in punishing our own impatience and pride than to correct the boys. We must be firm but kind, and be patient with them. . .

See that no one finds you motivated by impetuosity or willfulness. It is difficult to keep clam when administering punishment, but this must be done if we are to keep ourselves from showing off our authority or spilling out our anger. . .

They are our sons, and so in correcting their mistakes we must lay aside all anger and restrain it so firmly that it is extinguished entirely.

There must be no hostility in our minds, no contempt in our eyes, no insult on our lips. We must use mercy for the present and have hope for the future, as is fitting for real fathers who are eager for real correction and improvement.

In serious matters it is better to beg God humbly than to send forth a flood of words that will only offend the listeners and have no effect on those who are guilty."

St. John Bosco, pray for us!

Poor in Spirit = Openness to God

Blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of God is theirs – Who are the poor in spirit? They are those who, by God’s grace, shun anything that would deprived of the joy of being totally dependent on God. Now, all of us are dependent on God, we just don’t know it. The poor in spirit are those who delight in the experience of dependence on God.Those in the flesh strongly resist any such sense of dependence or lack of control. As such they acquire wealth, power, and resources to create the illusion that they are in control. But they are not and ultimately their whole system will fail. It is a recipe for frustration and unhappiness.

From the Archdiocesis of Washington D.C. Blog

TimeLapse March for LIFE DC 2011

Why He Puts Me Under Water

Friday afternoon was a rough time in the Benjamin household. When my husband came home from work and I said "I feel like I'm underwater."

I often feel "underwater" as a new Mama of a newborn plus 3 older kids. I'm not drowning. I'm not sinking to the bottom of the pool with anxiety or depression.

I'm in the "uncomfortable" part of new motherhood. I'm a few inches below the water surface of my life, lacking a comfortable pace, missing some important breaths, feeling tired and sore in my mind and my body.

Later that night, I wasn't even praying exactly, but a comforting image came to mind.

My husband often rides over broken glass in the city streets and ends up with a flat tire on his bicycle. The cracks are so small, he can't see them. Jon only knows the cracks must be there because the result on his bicycle wheel.

Jon's got a funny trick to fix a flat tire.

Jon will fill up our kitchen sink with about ten inches of water. Then he places sections of the tire underwater and squeezes. When a tiny stream of bubbles emerge, he marks the place. Then he dries the wheel, takes out his patch kit and glues new rubber onto the broken places.

When I'm living my life "right"--open to life, detaching from the world, working hard at my vocation and I still feel "underwater", I'm tempted to blame God. "I'm doing everything you ask me to do, why don't I feel better while I'm doing it?"

That bicycle metaphor made me feel better.

I'm underwater right now, so that God can put fix the hidden holes of sin that are giving me a flat tire. Submerge, squeeze, patch. Submerge, squeeze, patch.

Submerged in the demands of motherhood, find the hidden bubbles of sin, say an act of contrition.

Submerge, sin, confession.

Easiest way to find the hidden holes on a bicycle tire, or the weak spots in a human soul.

2011 March For Life

God bless everyone who stood outside in the cold weather yesterday to March for Life!

Prayer Changes Hearts, Prayer Saves Lives

Please join me in prayer and fasting for the overturn of Roe v. Wade this weekend.

(And when you see the angry girls waving their "It's my body, It's my right!" signs at you during the March for Life on Monday--love them, smile at them, pray for them. I used to be one of those pro-choice girls. Change is possible!)

From How I Became Pro-Life

"I remember so clearly when that all changed. It was a Saturday morning in July. I was fooling around on my husband’s computer and I found this great pro-life site that had real pictures and descriptions of each of the stages of fetal development. We were eight weeks in, and the baby’s heart had just started beating. I remember jumping around and telling my husband “the heart has started, the heart has started!”

We went for a walk downtown to celebrate. I remember so clearly, the bright sunshine, and the feel of my husband’s hand and the rough slope of the sidewalk and this electric feeling that there was a baby’s heartbeat inside of me. A heart beat that would go on her whole life, and it had just begun inside of me!

Then my next thought, "But she’s still a chicken! She’s in that chicken stage of embryonic development, so she’s not really a baby yet."

Then I realized with this all over clarity which somehow sort of hit my whole body at once, rather than just my brain, all chicken embryos are babies. Why should this baby be different? Why are we celebrating the start of this baby's heartbeat just because of a few external factors of her mother? I was white, married and had a graduate degree. As a poverty law attorney, I’d dedicated my life to fight for equality for people who didn’t look like me. I’d helped poor women get food stamps and housing and a decent education. Yet if one of my clients was unmarried, younger, with less education, she wasn’t supposed to be celebrating her baby starting a heartbeat. This was supposed to be a “problem” she should be busy getting rid of.

So that started me on the road to becoming an obedient Catholic, one with a capital “C.”"

Read the whole thing here.

Our Lady's Strength

"Resist anything that leads to moodiness. Our prayer each day should be, "Let the joy of the Lord be my strength." Cheerfulness and joy were Our Lady's strength. This made her a willing handmaid of God. Only joy could have given her the strength to go in haste over the hills of Judea to her cousin Elizabeth, there to do the work of a handmaid. If we are to be true handmaids of the Lord, then we too, each day, must go cheerfully in haste over the hills of difficulties." Mother Teresa: Her Essential Wisdom, pg 74.

"Joy is very infectious. We will never know just how much good a simple smile can do. Be faithful in little things. Smile at one another. We must live beautifully." pg. 75

Another Thoughtful Facebook Update

from my Carmelite buddy, Father Dan . . .

‎"Maybe the greatest threat to the Church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality, that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms." -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan (2007)

Update on Losing Friends

I'm still collecting interesting comments on my "Losing Friends" post. Here's an update.

Thank you for your kind comments and prayers. Since that time I've spoken to all the "lost friends" in person. I've had a calm and peaceful heart during each of those interactions. Since y'all know my normal fiery St. Jerome like temper-- that was one more example of God carrying me over a rough patch.

Some of my old friendships have changed dramatically--but each one for the best. (I'm probably the most clueless Catholic Mama in the Northern Hemisphere, but just in case there is another "Abigail" in the NICU please remember this following story. Be gentle with yourself!)

I had really intense feelings about the "abandonment" I felt by Tessy's intended Godparents during her NICU stay. I'd either sob hysterically after each interaction ended or tell Jon that I felt like punching someone in the nose. I thought that my feelings weren't "normal" and weren't Christian.

I was ashamed of feeling that way. I asked people to please pray for what I assumed were "Devil attacks" that were trying to pit me against Tessy's Godmother. I felt like obviously Tessy's Mom and her future Godmother should be on the same page at all times during her health crisis. I brought up this sin against charity at every confession.

Six weeks after Tess was home safe and sound from the NICU, Jon and I made the final decision not to have any additional baptism services in the Church. (It took so long because I'd agree with my husband that Baby Tessy's emergency baptism was perfect just the way God planned. Then fifteen minutes later, I'd see the new, never worn baptismal garment intended for Tess hanging in our closet and burst into tears.) As a part of that process, we also decided to let the "temporary" godparent arrangement of Sister Kathy stand.

Once we finished the awkward task of uninviting the couple we originally intended to be Tessy's Godparents, every single trace of ill-will immediately left my soul. It was so dramatic. It felt like someone switched on a light switch to my heart.

Suddenly everything was totally fine. I felt "not everyone has the ability to handle an emotional visit to the sick" or "its understandable that people didn't want to bond with Tess until they were sure that she'd make it." Once we acted to protect Tessy's future spiritual well-being, all my anger and disappointment against the prospective Godparents left. Forgiveness came much more easily to me.

I'm sharing this humiliating story because I think one of the graces of the NICU is that it's an intense hothouse that brings a lot of uncomfortable and hidden feelings to the surface. Things that might have taken me 3 years to process, suddenly became super clear in a matter of three weeks.

The intensity of the NICU burnt out some friendships in my life. I've "lost friends" no question.

But now, three months later I'm not crushed. I'm not still hurting.

I think of the NICU as a sort of forest fire that ravaged through my family. All the underbrush of superficiality and fakeness got burned away. The true friendships still stand like Lebanese ceders in my life. They are tall and luminuous.

Then in the clearing -- there are all of these new saplings that start growing in the cleared soil. New friends, who are founded in a more pure soil of mutual faith and greater honesty.

And Baby Tess is home! And her smile makes me love the world again.

I guess my take-away lesson is that every single one of us will suffer bone-crushing loneliness during the great trials of our life. It's human nature to flee from sad situations. That happens so that we can relearn that God alone is our friend. And He will send us friends-- not a new visitor for every single lonely night in the NICU, but enough visitors so that we don't feel like total freaks while we stand vigil next to our sick baby's crib side.

Everyone will always get some shepards to come and adore their little newborn--Even in the NICU. Every baby has Wisemen who bring her presents and love from afar.

Thank you all for praying for me and Baby Tess.

What Scripture Passage Helped You Through A Rough Time?

Yesterday, I chatted with another Carmelite Mom whose darling baby Joey is a fellow "Dr. Bear Kid" (read National Children's Hospital Patient) with Baby Tess. Kate told me that she had a post in mind to write about the Scripture passages that came to mind to help her during Joey's many, many heart surgeries. (Can't wait to read it, Kate!)

Then I just read Danya's wonderful comment about how a specific Scripture passage helped her trust during the difficult days of an adoption procedure.

Same thing happened to me many times during Tessy's illness!

So my basic question for all of you readers is this.

We know that Jesus is the WORD of God. What if he manifests himself to us in times of trouble as a specific Scripture passage? In other words, in time of doubt I could picture Jesus giving me a warm hug when I close my eyes to pray in the surgery waiting room of Children's Hospital. If I'm also open to the Holy Spirit, however, my warm "hug" could also be suddenly remembering a specific Scripture passage that helps me maintain trust in the Lord during a scary situation.

Jesus is the "The Way, The Truth and The Life". Scripture then isn't some "generic" good for you advice from the Bible that we Christians get an A+ for memorizing. Scripture is more like specific trail head markers for our individual path up to heaven.

When you are in real trouble, the Scripture that you've heard years before in church or in the Divine Office, can sort of rise up in the forefront of your mind, smack you in the head, and lead you out of danger and onto the path perfect safety.

Does that experience resonate with anyone else?

If that is the case "meditating on the Word, day and night" isn't this impossible standard for the Monks on Mount Carmel. Reading Sacred Scripture often is also important for us basic, normal Catholics as we stumble through this amazing, unpredictible faith journey called "Life".

Homework: Write a post about "What Scripture Passage Helped You Through A Rough Patch" and link in the comments so we can all marvel at the beauty and wisdom of God!

Leaving the Land of Rivers for the Land of Little Rain

"After Abraham arrives in Haran, God suddenly speaks to him, saying, "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you." This is remarkable request on God's part. He asks Abraham to leave everything that he knows but doesn't even tell Abraham where he is going.

So what does God promise in return? He promises that if Abraham goes on this journey, then he will give him what Abraham most wants; a child. What's more, he promises to make Abraham a "great nation" and to bless all the families of the earth through him. THis is one of the most important moments of human history: God offers Abraham the chance to be his partner.

. . . "What is remarkable about what Abraham did is that he leaves the land of rivers, the land of water, Mesopotamia. In the Promised Land-down in Israel, where God tells Abraham to go-there are no rivers. There is little rain. But Abraham no longer needs the water. He has God.The message is clear; If we believe in God, we will be rewarded."

Feiler, Bruce, "Walking the Bible" pgs 38-39.

In this book, a Jewish author decides to tour the importance places of the Old Testament on foot. His reflections are unique and memorable.

The image of Abraham leaving "a land of rivers for a land with little rain" really touched me.

In my faith journey I've left the "known" for the unknown land with little rain in so many things-- my embrace of poverty, homeschooling, stay at home motherhood, and Catholicism in general.

The more I'm willing to let go of the typical American dream of a big career, nice cars, solid retirement accounts, and plenty of "me time" --the more I'm following God into the Promised Land. It's a little scary out here, but I know for certain in the marrow of my bones that the One True God is holding my hand.

Father Abraham, pray for us! Help us to better model you!

Met with the Personal Trainer Last night

Our gym membership came with a free "smart start" session with a personal trainer. I was so tired after a rough day with Miss Tess that I came inches from staying home last night. I'm so glad I went.

First, God assigned me the only English Major in the gym as our personal trainer.

Second, our new buddy Colin crafted a gentle routine for Jon and my life-long "better health" goal on the elliptical machine, the rowing machine and easy abdominal work-out including "the superman" and

Planks!

No push-ups. No sit-ups. No crunches.

An ab routine that I can easily do at home with my best friend to fight post-baby belly flab until I'm 82.

No Snow Days for Daddy

The only downside of having a husband who can walk to work . . .

is that when the rest of the city is shut down because of icy roads, our Daddy still can't take a snow day. :-(