“Just pray about it” my mother said with a sigh. I can’t recall exactly what we were talking about as I rested on her bed, my forearm draped over my eyes which were probably wet from crying. I was somewhere between the ages of 14 and 17, in those most precarious teenage years, and I certainly did not appreciate my mom’s tendency to turn everything toward prayer. In fact, I’m sure I let her know just exactly how much I didn’t like her prayer advice a time or two. And I’m sure I was probably not kind in sharing my opinion. Oh, the ways we think we know everything as…
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On a sunny Wednesday afternoon earlier this year, I was in my office chipping away at a list of to-dos when a message popped up on my phone. It was from a sweet woman at my parish. She was asking if I’d be willing to join a ministry that needed additional help. “Pray about it and let me know. We’d love to have you join us!” she wrote. I put my phone down and sighed. I paused for a moment and noticed a tightness in my chest as my brain started to move just a little bit faster. I want to say yes but can I really add another thing…
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I sat quietly in my living room, embers glowing softly in the fireplace, as I felt a familiar pain begin to flicker in my heart. The kind of pain that wells up from somewhere deep inside and burns in places I didn’t realize had nerves – a throbbing heartache. My husband had gone to work, my workday was done, and an open evening lay ahead. There, in the dim light of the lamps and the fireplace, snuggled up in my favorite spot, I felt utterly lonely – a familiar feeling, a recurring experience in my life. “Why do I feel so lonely” I wondered. I’ve known the burning heartache of…
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“Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” – St. Padre Pio Raise your hand if you’ve felt hopeless at some point in your life. I can’t see you as you’re reading this blogpost (thank goodness, right?!) but I’m going to dare to guess you probably raised your hand. Hopelessness is something that can feel painfully lonely but is not unique to any of us. Even lives full of great joy can be riddled by hopelessness. For some, hopelessness and despair are frequent and expected visitors. For others, hopelessness drops by unexpectedly like the occasional October blizzard. No matter on which end of the spectrum you find yourself, I want you to know…
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In a little white house with a red door and blue shutters a little girl snuggles in her bed and, by the light of a pink lamp, finds patterns in the popcorn ceiling above her bunk. Anxieties about school, tornadoes, friends, and the possibility that Cruella de Vil could be real bounces around her head until her eyes grow heavy. And she worries herself to sleep. 20 years later, in another white house on the other side of town, a woman tosses anxiously in her bed. Anxieties about pandemics, politics, futures, past mistakes and the unknown bounce around her head – a pinball game of worry. Just as the ocean…
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“Well, have you prayed about it?” my mother asks as she gently rubs her thumb over my eyebrow. My long blonde hair rests in little nests on the pillows on my parents’ bed as I lay on my back staring intently at the ceiling. With the utterance of her question, I feel my teenage eyes start to roll and I can hear my frustration sizzle against the cool blue sheets. “Why do you always say that?” I snap. “That doesn’t help me at all. I don’t know what to do and now you’re just telling me to pray!?” I can feel the words sting my lips as they leave my…
