Preparing my heart for Easter

This has been one of those seasons where time has moved both incredibly slow and yet faster than I can imagine.   I honestly am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that Sunday is Easter.   Tonight we are on the eve of the Triduum, a time that I typically enjoy above all others because I am reminded of how great, loving, and mighty God is.  There is nothing more majestic than the feeling I get every. single. Easter. morning.  There is always something about the sunshine on Easter Sunday that surpasses all other days.

My heart feels so unprepared.  I thought this would be a lent that would prepare me better than most years.  Oh how mistaken I was.  

The saying that you get out of something what you put into it? 

Yep, true.  

Always true.  

I guess the fact that I was handed a cross before the start of Lent doesn't mean much if I don't do anything with it to help bring me closer to Christ.  The reality?  I'm just still struggling to function with this weight on me.  

Don't get me wrong, I trust.

I trust He will give me the strength to deal with saying goodbye to my baby girl if that is His Will.

I trust that He didn't cause this, our imperfect humanness did.

I trust that while He didn't cause this, He allowed it and that I can't see all the workings of His divine plan.

I trust that my baby girl will have an impact on this world, whether she comes home with us or not.

But Trust does not equal acceptance.  

Trust does not mean that I have yet found a way to truly internalize this news that I rationally have already processed.

Trust does not mean that I have found a way to accept this cross with open arms.  Everything in me wants to run away from it screaming in complete and total denial.  However, the fact that I still have my little girl in my womb and each ultrasound continues to show the same devastating news... makes it a little hard to be in denial.

Trust also does not mean that I've done a good job at using this time of sorrow to advance my prayer life.  As much as I am relying on the graces from everyone else's prayers for me, my family, and our little girl - I am having a hard time turning myself to prayer.  

I want to, but find myself oddly resistant.

Maybe it's because when I do pray, the weight of the cross is more of a reality than I want to acknowledge (even though I know that Christ is actually carrying the majority of the weight for me).

Or maybe it's because God blesses me with the emotion that I've been keeping at bay when I pray.  The grief and sorrow that is waiting in the wings feels like it could engulf me.  I say blesses because I feel so numb most of the time that I know those feelings of grief, sorrow, even anger are part of His healing process... but I am finding it so hard to embrace those emotions I know are coming.

Or maybe it's just as simple as a meager attempt at control.  It is HARD for me to admit (and even harder to accept) that I have no control over these circumstances.  There is nothing I can do to fix it.  There is nothing I can do to change it.  I can't help her.  It's amazing how counterproductive we can be sometimes.  If I can't control anything with baby girl, I at least am "in control" of my prayer life and relationship with Christ.

Sound a bit childish?  Yeah... I know.

Back to Easter.  I sit here trying to prepare myself in a way that I didn't take an opportunity to these last few weeks. 

Holy Thursday - Christ's Last Supper and creation of the Eucharist

Good Friday - Christ's sacrifice for all of us

Easter Sunday - His GLORIOUS resurrection...

These days always impact me.  They always find a way to sink in past whatever it going on in my life and renews my love for a Lord that LOVES us this much!

I pray that is the case again this year.  I need it to be so.

I am broken.

As Christ said on the cross, the spiritual and emotional side of me cries out: "My Lord, and my God, Why have you forsaken me?"

The rational side of me knows the answer is really Christ saying to me: "My child, why have you forsaken me?"

I intend to stumble through the next few days making myself confront my resistance so that I can hopefully come before Christ on Easter morning and truly pray Psalm 118:

"This is the day the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice!"

Prayer {Monday Meditation}

Fresh on my facebook page this Monday morning was the following:

Just the reminder I need to be more faithful in my prayer life.  There are several things weighing on my heart right now and I realized this morning that I've been trying to carry them alone.

How many times do I have to do this before I learn "the yoke is easy, and the burden light" Matthew 11:30 when I trust in God and turn all things over to Him?!

Monday "randoms"

It seems about every time I feel like I'm getting in a groove with life and blogging... crazy happens!  Our house was hit with the sickies again this past week and a half. 

• Karen came down with a stomach bug early on the morning of the 12th... we had a quiet weekend quarantining ourselves so we didn't spread our germs.  By monday she was getting back to her normal self.  
• Early Thursday morning, miss Megan fell victim for a second time this fall!  Poor girl got hit really hard this time - she was throwing up every hour to hour and a half for almost 18 hours... that's tough on a little body.  She's still not back to herself yet.  It worries me, but I've talked to her doctor a couple of different times and he says not to worry, just give her time... thankfully that's one thing this Mommy does have... time!

• Lauren also had an episode of throwing up on Thursday morning and then spiked a temperature.  By Friday it was running 102 but she had no other symptoms of a stomach bug so I took her in to her doctor so I didn't have to stress about her over the weekend.  They took a urine sample to rule out another bladder infection.  Unfortunately, what they could see under the microscope was inconclusive, so we had to wait for the culture results to come back to know for sure.  The result came back today... the verdict??  another bladder infection. :(  Insert a huge frowny face here!!  
• Because this is her second infection and she's under a year old, they have to rule out VUR - which is the same condition that Megan had.  We are scheduled for a VCUG on the 29th.  That is a test where they put dye into her bladder and then take x-rays to see if the dye refluxes to her kidneys... It doesn't hurt them but really isn't fun - they have to be immobilized for the x-rays, and as any parent knows, that doesn't elicit fun reactions from kids.

• I felt crummy all weekend, whether my body was fighting the stomach bug or it was just the power of suggestion from taking care of three sick kids... who knows.  I'm thankful to be feeling more like myself today!!

So, I'm not intending this post as a complaint, just a catch-up as to where I've been and why I'm finding it hard to write.  I was updating a friend last night as to my family's status, and her response was: "This too shall pass.  I know a family that needs prayers, will you suffer for them?" ... it was an important reminder to me of one of the things I find so beautiful about my Catholic faith... that there is an intrinsic value in suffering and that God provides an avenue for grace in each suffering, no matter how small, if we but offer it up.  Thanks for the reminder - J.J.!!

There are also some really positive things happening in life right now too, which I hope to share - maybe tomorrow in a Tuesday Top 10!!

Meditation for Wordless Wednesday

I came across the quote below while praying at Adoration this morning. It really gave me pause as I think we all so often tend to pray for God to change something - ourselves, some circumstance, the world, etc...  and I think I need to let it marinate, resonate, percolate in my brain today.

I do not ask you, Jesus, to change what is to be.

Rather, in whatever there is to be,

let me find Your will,

Your holiness,

and Your opportunity for me to grow.

Fr. Benedict Groeschel

Prayer life

In my post about goals, one of the main ones was about my prayer life.  Being that it is Lent, I've been pondering ALOT about this and mostly about my "failure" to meet it.  I intend every day to set aside a few minutes to pray the Rosary (or even a decade) with my girls (even if they play while I say it), or read all or part of the Liturgy of the Hours, or get up early to make it to daily Mass just once in a week, or ... the list goes on

I know I've got those five, ten, or fifteen minutes because hey... I'm having that time to write about it here, right?!

What I'm realizing is two things... First, as a Mom, most of the time you can't "intend" to do something. You just have to do it... does that make sense?  By the time you think about it and plan to do it, the moment and time that you were given for doing it is passed.  I need to get better at seizing those five minutes to say hello to God when they are presented to me.

The second thing I realize was articulated well to me in a post I read today titled "Pray like a Mom, not a Nun" ... "The thing is, my life doesn’t allow for me to pray Liturgy of the Hours every day, say a rosary on a whim, attend daily Mass or spend an hour in adoration every day.  That doesn’t make me less of a follower of Christ.  No, I actually think knowing my limitations and finding God throughout the day allows me to be the kind of Mom he envisions.  I like to say my prayer life is organic.  It changes every day, depending upon where I’m called as a Mom."

So here's my new goal for this Tuesday.  To first and foremost doing a better job of finding God throughout my day and secondly to seizing those moments (not just intending to seize those moments) He does give me to sit down and turn my whole mind and heart to Him, if even only for one minute.

Lauren - 3 months