I was pregnant with my third baby, but still not a child in my arms. Five weeks of carrying this precious soul and holding onto a thread of hope that perhaps this would be the one.
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Holding our 9-month old daughter who weighed less than thirteen pounds, I prayed that God would send us to the right doctors. I prayed for her healing and placed her on the altar with Isaac, hoping for a resurrection. I had to trust that God would bring us through whatever happened, although my heart ached for her to be healed. She was His daughter too, after all.
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Growing up, I was the youngest of four girls and I was always the one who had a doll in my arms with a bottle, a blanket and anything else that I thought my baby needed. All my dreams of growing up were of being a mom. It was all I ever wanted: to get married, start a family and be a stay-at-home mom.
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Dear Sister,
I have lots of kids. Some of them are called my “big kids” and some of them are called my kids. My kids are my three beautiful children, Joseph Nicholas (5) Hannah Kateri (3) and Benjamin Francis (5 months). My “big kids” are the countless teens that walk through the doors of my parish in a town in New Hampshire. I am a wife, a mom and a youth minister.
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When I was pregnant with my fourth child, God blessed me with an opportunity to go on a retreat where I first heard the message that we all have an individual call from God – a vocation – that is the path to our holiness. For some, it is a call to the single life, for others it is the call to marriage and motherhood – for all, it is a call to sanctify our lives and offer up our days as a prayer to our Heavenly Father.
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Savoring these moments with my children doesn’t mean letting those goals go. It has meant that they take on a different character. The beauty of this is that, although the dreams I had for myself were big and exciting, they were still somehow less than what God is doing with my heart. What he is doing with me now is more wild and untamed than the conventional way I could have imagined my life unfolding. Is this strange to say about a life of domesticity?
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But what I do know is that each day of juggle and wonder and struggle and worry is stretching me to the shape of God’s intentions. His plan for me is so much greater than any “ideal” story I tell myself in my head or compare against someone else’s. And though I’m currently struggling with “balancing it all” as a working, Catholic mother, I know in the end my story is pushing me toward my ultimate salvation.
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But with every small victory—the occasional moments when I am able to practice gentleness with my 4-year-old, despite how mad I am that he just pushed his little brother down the steps—a change takes place in me. My capacity for gentleness grows. I had no idea how much virtue I lacked in the realms of gentleness, self-control, and patience. Motherhood moved my focus from an external sense of stability and social validation to a much deeper internal need for God’s grace and guidance—inevitably helping me rely more on God’s fatherhood.
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If you’ve lost a child, I need you to know that you’re not alone. Our grief has woven together and we’ve found ourselves a part of this club that no one ever wanted to join. And it sucks, it’s okay to say that. It’s awful and messy and frustrating and ugly — but we’re here together, we’re not alone.
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The love I first felt pulling my son out of my womb, bringing him to my breast, singing him to sleep, it had been a mere taste of this heavenly love.
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I want to share a snippet of this journey of overcoming self-doubt and embracing my role as an artist with you. I also want to encourage other women to recognize in themselves their creative capacity, and explore how spiritual and physical motherhood reflect the role of the Creator in the deepest way.
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In times when I can’t find God, I need only search for love. ...Anytime I feel love, or don’t feel love at all, but choose love with my will, God is there in that moment.
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When I found out I was pregnant, I was ecstatic, however the realization that I didn’t know “how” to be a mother slowly set in.
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"But before she becomes a wife and mother, friend and sister, she is first a daughter... Everything she does stems from the truth that she is a daughter unconditionally loved and utterly delighted in."
“A mothers heart with no children. Oh how I long for the day. As the months passed and our desires only grew stronger I started to feel lost. I thought this was my purpose? I thought I had everything figured out in this part of my life.”
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“Is your life filled with unexpected twists and turns? Have you faced uncertainty in times of hardship when things did not go as planned? My dearest sister, I know this story too well.”
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I grew up believing I was born to be a Mother. It was not a question or a wonder; it was something I was certain of. But the things I arrive at 46 years old, both with and without, surprising me.
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While taking a year off of her work as the co-founder and creative director of Verily Magazine to focus on motherhood, Janet Easter was confronted with a great unknown: who she is without work.
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Dear Sister, 'There’s nothing wrong with you. You are God’s beloved daughter.' The words hit me like a brick in my chest. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
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"My Dear Sister, as the world turns the corner and steps into a New Year, it is a time-honored tradition to think about new beginnings. I don’t know about you but I find this to be somewhat challenging at times, especially if you.."
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