This blogpost was originally written for Women at Well and was published on their blog in April of 2022.
I’ve been putting this blogpost off all week. Not that I normally get my blogposts done too far ahead of the deadline…but this blogpost feels especially procrastinated… and especially taxing. Here I sit, on Sunday evening, in the stillness of my office. The dim light of the lamp on my bookcase illuminates the room, and my dog is softly snoring on her bed behind me. I’ve been staring at my laptop for the better part of 45 minutes. Type, type, type. Hold the backspace key. Type again. Backspace again. Words have been fluttering around my head all week and I’ve been intensely ruminating since my husband left for work at 3:30 this afternoon. Yet, none of the words seem like the right ones to say.
This Easter season, Women at the Well is focusing on joy. Specifically, joy in motherhood. Wow – it stings to type those words. My heart feels like it’s going to ache right out of my chest. It’s as if I can hear those three words, “joy in motherhood,” echoing in the emptiness of my womb. You see, I yearn to be a mother, but I am not. I long to hold a baby, my baby, in my arms. I want so deeply and so badly to welcome the gift of children into the world and grow our little family, our little domestic church. I want to witness my husband be the exceptional father I know he will be. I want to raise good humans with him and love them like God loves me. I want to introduce our children to the beauty of our Catholic faith – watch them get baptized, and teach them how to pray, and ease their fears before their First Reconciliation, and help them understand the wonder of their First Eucharist… and so on. I yearn to be a mother for all these reasons and countless more.
The causes are multifaceted and more than I feel capable of sharing at this time, but parenthood has not yet been a part of God’s plan for my little family. So, when I found out the focus of our blog for the Easter season, I must admit, I was heartbroken. I had no idea how I was going to write about a topic that causes such soreness in my heart, let alone take it from an angle of joy. Anticipating the pain of thinking about joy in motherhood head-on, I tried to write around it. Prior to writing the words that you’re now reading, I tried developing at least five alternative Easter joy related topics for this blogpost, none of which took shape – no matter how many times I typed and retyped. Each time I leaned back in my chair, exhaling in exasperated prayer imploring God to clue me in on what I was supposed to say this week, He led me back to a blank page and a whispering in my heart. I knew I couldn’t write around the topic of joy in motherhood because God was calling me to write through it.
And just like that, it all made sense. Each time I resisted; God led me back to a topic that pierces my heart and feels utterly sensitive for a purpose. For this is what Easter is all about—knowing that God journeys with us through the “lents” of our lives guiding us toward an Easter more glorious than we could imagine. Even when we feel enveloped by the darkness of the tomb, in Easter, God has shown that the stone can be rolled away. Even when we feel despaired by the defeat (like Good Friday) or abandoned completely (like Holy Saturday) God promises us the joy of an Easter to come. Even when we spend years deeply longing for a joy yet to be, even when we fear a perpetual season of suffering, Jesus’ resurrection gives us one thing that can never be taken away: hope.
In the Easter season, we celebrate that Christ, our hope itself, once thought to be dead and lost forever, has arisen. What joy it is to know that we have hope! Even amid the things in our lives which cause us great pain, we have the comfort of hope in a risen Lord. A Lord who defeated death and gave us the gift of eternal life. A Lord who could have very well left us to struggle on our own, forever distant and disconnected from our God, but instead made himself truly and ever present in the Eucharist, that we may be filled with every grace and blessing we need to walk through life – even and especially the painful parts.
St. Catherine of Siena, whose feast day is on April 29th, said:
“We are of such value to God that he came to live among us… and to guide us home. He will go to any length to seek us, even to being lifted high upon the cross to draw us back to himself. We can only respond by loving God for his love.”
This quotation sparks in me both consolation and perplexity. What a wonder that God finds me so valuable that he’d be willing to die for me to draw me back to himself. What a comfort that God will go to any length to seek me – the me who questions Him and His timing daily. What a treasure to receive the confidence of hope in a God who conquered death and who will continue to guide me home. And what a valiant and beautiful act to choose to love God rather than be embittered by the suffering of this earthly life. St. Catherine of Siena was no stranger to suffering in her life, especially toward the end of it, but her steadfast love of God and prevailing trust in Him continue to inspire and draw souls closer to Him to this day.
Dear Sister in Christ if you’re out there reading this and you feel like your “easter” has not come… like for you, Lent didn’t end a week ago… and you’re still stumbling through a season of suffering: you are not alone. God is seeking you, even here in the struggle. Whatever the source of that sore spot in your heart, I encourage you to lean into the love and hope of God. Sometimes, celebrating the joy of Easter looks like mustering all the hope you hold inside, barely clinging on to the God who loves you so intensely that He gave everything for you.
Therefore, this Easter season:
- Take heart.
- Receive the Holy Eucharist – in which we encounter the immense love of Jesus and receive the sustenance to carry on.
- Treasure the powerful gift of Easter hope and the love of a God who will never stop seeking you – and who will journey with you through every pain, every longing, every sorrow, and every joy.
May the hope of Easter be tangible in your life this season. May you know God’s immense and immeasurable love for you today, and always.
How can you return God’s act of loving you by loving Him more deeply this Easter season?
Note from the Author: This blog post was originally written for Women at the Well and was published on their blog in April of 2022. Women at the Well is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and empowering Catholic women to grow in Faith + Community. Women at the Well has been such a blessing in my life. Check them out at Women at the Well to find out how you can bring Women at the Well to your parish!
