Embrace the Inconveniences

I was in a "try not to drown" mode all winter! After a fall and winter that had been filled to the brim with constant illnesses and a major health crisis for my oldest daughter that was finally starting to resolve, to say I was tired and burned out was a complete understatement. 

In February, my parents had invited us on a family vacation that I had spent the last year planning out all the details for. And there were lots of details! It was a Disney vacation that included the majority of my family. We even had a bonus "just like family" member. (It was my daughter-in-law's sister who is also one of my daughter Ellie's closest friends.) In all, we travelled with 18 people, including my autistic young adult son, three 2-year-old grandsons, my 8-month-old granddaughter and 5-month-old grandson. 

While I was hoping and praying that this trip would allow for at least some snippets of rest and recharge, I knew that overall, it was going to be very busy. Trying to create a schedule which met the needs of babies, toddlers, teens, young adults, young families, and my senior citizen parents (who will not like being labeled as such(!) and who thankfully are very mobile, active and act much younger than their actual age) took lots of creativity, thought, and many adjustments!

I boarded the plane feeling anxious and emotionally depleted but resolved to focus on staying in the present moment, so I didn't miss out on the joys ahead of us. I was also focused on being flexible for any "hiccups" that travelling with a large group of people would most likely bring. 

I pulled out my rosary beads as the plane pulled away from the gate. (Flying is not my favorite!) As I started praying, I felt God say in my heart, "Embrace the inconveniences". And my first thought was, "Oh.no!" I didn't have long to ponder, though, because moments later our plane stopped as we approached the runway, the engine shut off, and the pilot informed us that we were being delayed at least 30 minutes because of too much air traffic on the East Coast.

After 30 minutes of helping to distract one of the 2-year-olds and listening to another family's toddler completely lose it the entire time ... I felt so bad for that poor mom! ... the engines started and 10 minutes later it was our turn on the runway. The flight went great, I had handled the delay with patience, and I was tentatively hopeful that maybe we had got the "inconvenience" out of the way! 

I have to admit that the warning and direction God gave me came in handy. We landed in Florida to rain and chilly weather, but I was able to embrace that inconvenience and just be grateful to be on vacation. The next day brought more and heavier rain, but we made the best of it. Each time an inconvenience popped up, I tried to embrace it. At the same time, I felt like I was bargaining with God, "That's enough inconveniences now, right?" And, yet every.single.day we faced some pretty sizable challenges that kept me from just slipping into the carefree vacation mindset I so desperately felt I needed.  

Over the course of the next week, one son's family came down with pinkeye, my 5-month-old grandson came down with croup in the middle of the night and needed an early morning ER visit, my dad got sick and missed out on 3 park days, one of the 2-year-olds needed an urgent care visit for an ear infection, my special needs son developed an awful stye, and my dad went into AFIB for part of a day. Even though it t didn't rain again, the temperature was too cool to enjoy the pool except on one afternoon. That was really disappointing since it's always one of my favorite parts of a trip to Florida in February. 

I was trying so hard to "embrace the inconveniences", offer things up, and stay positive despite all the challenges. I did well until the second to last day of our trip when there was just one too many frustrations and my overwhelm spilled over and I snapped at two of my adult kids, then cried because I lost my patience. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to not beat myself up over one bad moment. 

I cried in the bathroom the morning we flew out on what would have been a perfect pool day. While there were certainly many joyful moments during the trip, overall, it had been disappointing and not what I had hoped. It's also hard when you spend so long planning and looking forward to something and it isn't what you hoped it would be. (And my expectations were honestly pretty low to start with because of the amount of littles in our group!) Maybe you can relate? Life often throws unfortunate details into our well formed plans.

There was something my heart felt it desperately needed that it just didn't get. It wasn't about the weather or the illnesses. It was the exhaustion and lack of peace in my heart. I needed rest...a deep soul rest that probably wasn't possible to get on that vacation even if it had gone perfectly.

Sometimes the good that God brings out of hard situations is a deeper understanding of our own hearts. It can become apparent that we have to address the needs that we've been putting off for too long that quick fixes or emotional "bandaids" aren't going to manage anymore. I realized that I had to address my deep need for rest because it was affecting my daily life. Shortly after the vacation, God opened the door for a silent women's retreat that He gave me the courage to walk through. Silence with Him away from the many, many responsibilities of home life was the CPR my soul needed.

If you find yourself in a place of burnout and emotional need, take that seriously. Ask God to show you how He wants to address how you're feeling. Open up to your husband and/or a good friend. Consider speaking to a Catholic therapist or spiritual director. It's important to care for our hearts in order to better care for our families. We can't give what we don't have. 

It's so hard to get three busy boys to look at the camera and say "cheese"!
Thankfully, Xavier was all in!

It's a little easier with two!

My parents with sweet baby Claire

Every trip someone needs a pic with a Viking helmet!
Luke was happy to oblige! 

Sweet baby Charlie!

Claire adores her Pupa.
(The feeling is mutual!)

Happy Charlie

 

My favorite Disney princess!

Faithful Saint Joseph

For the last several weeks I've been praying and thinking about the Third Sorrow of Mary, the loss of the child Jesus for three days, as part of a larger writing project that I'm working on. It's the last of Mary's Sorrows that St. Joseph is a part of and his presence within Mary's suffering is worth diving into a little deeper. 

What really stood out for me in this particular sorrow were the faithfulness and trust of Mary and Joseph that weaves throughout the Gospel story. When I picture the scene in my head, Mary, Joseph and Jesus have just finished celebrating Passover in Jerusalem with all of their relatives and friends and had started the long 91 mile trek back to Nazareth. It was a multiple day journey where men and women traveled in separate caravans. Because of Jesus' age at the time, it would have been appropriate for him to travel with either group. When they finally stop for the night, I can imagine Mary seeking out Joseph. Can you imagine their eyes meeting in the crowd of family and friends and the smile they shared at being reunited? Maybe they gave each other a short embrace as Mary asked, looking around expectantly, "Where's Jesus?" I can also feel the anxiety that they both might have felt as Joseph answered, "I thought He was with you?"

What followed next was not a "blame game". There wasn't any bickering between Mary and Joseph, blaming the other about who should have been in charge or who should have noticed Jesus wasn't there. Even in their worry, Mary and Joseph just focused on the next right thing, which was to search among their friends and family for Jesus. As the asked each person, hearing "I haven't seen him" over and over again must have been heart wrenching.

With anxiety in their hearts, Mary and Joseph did the next right thing and started the long trek back to Jerusalem, where they did not find Jesus right away. I can imagine all of the silent pleas leaving both Mary and Joseph's hearts asking God to protect Jesus and for assistance to find him safe and unharmed as they leaned on each other for support. They were the Holy Family, and they were not spared from grief and worry. 

When they find Jesus, Mary speaks for both herself and Joseph and is honest with their feelings. "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously."(Luke 2:48) Mary and Joseph don't sweep their feelings under a rug, nor do they completely freak out from their fear. They don't threaten to ground Jesus for the next 10 years. Instead, they honestly ask why this happened and wait for His answer, which was " How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"(Luke 2:49) Verse 50 says that "They did not understand the saying which he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart." 

Mary and Joseph show us how to walk through really difficult and traumatic circumstances by relying on God's grace. Even when the fear they suffered was resolved without understanding why it happened, they both continued to do the next right thing; which for their family to return to Nazareth together. Mary and Joseph didn't close their hearts off. They didn't fall into self-sufficiency or self protection to try and shield their hearts from further fear or pain. Mary and Joseph leaned into God and trusted Him to reveal His truth in His timing to their hearts.

How can we use this example given to us by Mary and Joseph? How can we search for Jesus and staying faithful in our own lives? How can we trust God even when we don't understand why we are on a painful path we can't make sense of?

This Gospel story has been such a consolation for me lately. Seeing Mary and Joseph's example of faithfulness in a time of great anxiety and the faithfulness they showed is so encouraging and inspiring. When you're going through a hard time it helps so much to know you aren't alone. Others have gone through hard times too, suffered well and made it through. Like Mary and Joseph, we will find Jesus again. Even if we don't understand why we were on a particular path, we have Mary's example of what to do: we can keep things "in our heart" and allow God to help us to process everything with Him and in His time. 

Let's ask St. Joseph to intercede for us and send us consolation and endurance where we find ourselves searching for Jesus in our own lives. Saint Joseph, pray for us! 

The Other Side of Christmas

The tree is down. Decorations are put away. Our lives slid back into a "normal" school routine. But instead of the usual mix of emotions that bubble up this time of year-sadness that this special time has ended and, at the same moment, relief to be back into a familiar routine- I find myself in a different place entirely. 

Advent started for me in a focused and reflective way. The last blog post that I wrote early in December, (but didn't post until the week before Christmas to coincide with its release on Catholicmom.com), represented the way I felt for the first half of Advent. (By the time I actually posted the blog, I was in a different emotional place entirely! I even struggled with the idea of actually sharing it.) By mid-December, my Advent had taken a sharp right turn from the road towards a newborn baby in a stable in Bethlehem, barreled down a bumpy, dirt road, and crashed into a barren desert that felt and appeared to be Lent! 

The night of Gaudete Sunday was the beginning of an emotional tornado that began with Kate coming down with the flu that kept her out of school the entire week and sick for her birthday and continued with a medical procedure that went horribly wrong for Sarah. This tornado lasted through most of Christmas vacation as other family members succumbed to the flu, Peter struggled in his program, and Kate came down with pneumonia. Caring for normal illness and having to cancel or postpone family holiday plans was disappointing. Adding to that the worry for an adult child traumatically harmed through a medical procedure and trying to help her husband care for her and find the additional medical help she needed was incredibly difficult and heart wrenching. 

And it was Christmas!!! It was important to me as a mom to make it as nice as it could be for the kids that lived with us and whoever was brave enough to visit, despite all the difficult circumstances we were dealing with. Although my list was simplified daily because we were in 'survival mode', I still received the Grace, and maybe some white knuckling, to pull off a much simplified version of my original Christmas plans. The stress and exhaustion took it's toll on me though, and Christmas night I spiked a fever that kept me couch bound for several days and low energy for even more. Not one of the projects that I had been planning to tackle when I had extended time during my "week off" between Christmas and New Year's ever happened!

Every day of the week leading up to Christmas through New Year's Eve felt like our life was a series of dumpster fires and I never knew each day which one I was going to need to run to and use my very inadequate fire extinguisher to try to calm the flames.

I'm still completely emotionally discombobulated and feel like I'm walking in a cloud of confusion trying to figure out exactly how I got here and trying to make sense of it all. I haven't gotten any great insight or even peace about everything. I'm just working hard on trying to calm my sensory system, focus on self care when I can, and slowly emerge out of survival mode. 

I guess in sharing this Advent misadventure, I'm hoping that anyone that had their own difficult Advent and Christmas season won't feel so alone. If you didn't jump into this new year with a list of resolutions and hope for the months ahead, that's ok. Sometimes, life is really hard and just getting through the day is a pretty big accomplishment! Sometimes we just need some TLC and a little more time to recover emotionally before we are ready to move forward. 

My entry into 2024 is a lot slower and more cautious than usual. It's just where I'm at. If you find yourself in a similar place, just know that it's ok. Sometimes life is all about baby steps. Maybe we can find encouragement in one of my favorite movie quotes from the movie Elizabethtown; 

"All forward progress counts!"