Nature Will Always Win

Many years ago, I went to a talk given by an elderly and very esteemed and holy priest. I eagerly anticipated absorbing all his wisdom. He started his talk by declaring that ‘nature always wins’ and went on to give examples of how we as Christians get that wrong sometimes. It was a good lecture, but I felt disappointed, precisely because I was one of those Christians ‘getting it wrong sometimes.’ Why didn’t he speak about how we should expect miracles and then tell us wonderful stories of how God overcomes our nature? Instead, he gave us a science lesson, and it wasn’t fanciful or fun.

I’ve thought of his declaration so many times over the years and have become grateful that I was there to indeed hear his wisdom. God works within our nature and not despite it. If we want to see His signs and wonders, we can usually open our eyes to ordinary things in front of us that bear His mark.

Lately, I’ve been in a season of failure and struggle. I am not crushing life; I am not on top of the world. Yes, I have too much to do and too little time to do it. Doesn’t everyone? But that’s probably always been true. 

So what’s the difference between crushing life and being crushed by life?

Discipline! It’s a dirty word and I do try to ignore it, but that never seems to work out well. It’s a form of self-inflicted suffering, and who wants to do that? It can be a sacrifice or a fast; it can be trying to form a new habit or break a bad habit. It is choosing to do the thing that is best, when doing the thing that is good enough or just OK is a lot easier.

I can reason away the need for discipline quite readily. ‘I’m already suffering enough and God does not desire that we suffer; God desires abundance for us.’ But herein lies the tricky little deception that creeps in. Discipline is precisely the way to the abundance that God desires for us.

Discipline is the way to crush life. I know this truth deep down, but still in my humanity I choose to lie to myself sometimes. 

I’d rather be comfortable and seek the path of least resistance than choose discipline all the time. The problem is that each time I choose to do the thing that is not the greatest good for myself, I sow disappointment and even disgust in my soul. I do not sow hope, joy, peace, and freedom. We have a powerful enemy luring us to comfort, but we have a more powerful God calling us to discipline, if only we cooperate. It is through our discipline that He can work miracles through our nature! He designed our human nature and even participates in it and yes, of course it does—and should—always win. We are not victims to it, but rather victors when we exercise control of things we can control and detach from the outcomes and things we cannot control. God wins and we win with Him, when we reach for the greatest good we can.

The more we practice disciplines, the more God can work in our nature and grow us in virtue. This is the path to freedom and it’s worth fighting for, even if it’s the last thing you feel like doing! It’s important to remember that the sacrifices we take on and endure have merit in their own right, regardless of the outcome. Intentionality, sacrifice, and embracing discomfort in each and every moment produces great fruit in our soul. 

We live in the land of comforts and I admit I’m sometimes the first in line to find my rest and seek to work smarter not harder. I have to challenge myself, particularly in the seasons of suffering, to put my head down, work harder, and persist.

“ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Heb 12:11

The Road to Victory

God is always writing new chapters. We aren’t meant to stay in one place and I think that’s true in joy as well as suffering. And yet we belong to both always.

Funny thing how God brings us to victory through our suffering even though when we are in the midst of it, we can’t imagine any possible way out. God always has a way out of darkness planned for us. We are an Easter people and resurrection is written in our hearts, becoming something tangible as we grapple through darkness. Victory is what we are made for. I could write words that fill the internet all about the suffering and the lessons and what God has done day in and day out and I still couldn’t give you the answer or the formula for happiness. But I do know that ultimately our JOY is found in the person of Jesus. It’s in a relationship. It’s in the Holy Trinity alive in our midst. It’s not just A truth but it’s THE truth. It is the purest and truest love that exists, which is a love that speaks in the silence, louder than any voice, that you are GOOD and created by perfection for perfect love. You and I were created for this truth and we sure do know it when we find it. The creator sees and knows the greatness in each of us because He conceived it and brought it to life in us. Given freely.

I also know that in order to claim Victory we must respond. It requires that in the darkest, hardest moments, when we can’t possibly see a way out for ourselves, we pause in all our humanness to say ‘I am here Lord and I am listening. I know you are with me and have a plan for this even though I don’t. I don’t understand but I Trust you. I don’t like it but I surrender. If it must be, then YOU be greater in my heart, mind, body and soul.’ And when we try, maybe for the hundredth time, but don’t feel consoled, we must hold the line and keep firmly fixed on waiting and abiding, trusting that Victory is near. In fact VICTORY is already within. But oh, the places we must go before we see it, grasp at it, and trust it.

My heart cries even as it cries out in Joy. I know in fact now what Anna was only just discovering 10 years ago when she found this quote. “You are loved more than you will ever know by someone who died to know you” (Romans 5:8).

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The Greatest Truth

I remember vividly in great detail the day my sweet little 3 year-old Mikey was diagnosed with a rare and fatal brain tumor. I was 7 months pregnant with our 7th child and taking Mikey, 18 month-old Andrew, and my giant belly to the pediatrician to check out why his eye was strangely turning in. We had noticed it more and more frequently in the previous few weeks and were growing increasingly alarmed. The events that unfolded that day happened at both lightning speed and agonizing slowness all at once. From pediatrician, to eye specialist, to ER, we faced scan after scan, and test after test. Bill came to the hospital after work, so I could go home and take care of the kids, and the waiting felt endless as I tried to keep busy. I got the kids to bed at 8:00 and paced. At 9:00, I paced some more. At 10:00, I looked at the clock for the thousandth time and paced some more again. Finally, the phone rang at 10:30 and, gently, Bill delivered the news that there was a mass growing squarely in the middle of Mikey’s brain stem. Initial consults by everyone at the hospital that night were grim. My response in that moment was to say, please bring my baby back home as quickly as he possibly could. Finally, blessedly, I heard the garage door open and waddled down the stairs as fast as I could. I reached the bottom and looked down the long hallway just as the door was opening and my little boy burst in. I took a few steps toward him before lowering myself to the ground to brace for impact. And then the moment I had been waiting for all day, the effect of which lives in my soul still – his little body was in my arms giving and receiving so much love that there aren’t words to describe it.

There were a lot of things that were true that night: disease, heartache, pain, suffering, and death on the horizon, but the greatest truth was that breathtaking exchange of pure love. Nothing could touch that.

I may not have understood it then, but anytime we ever get to partake in such an exchange of love, it is a reflection of the incredible love our Father in heaven has for each of us. It is always the greatest truth.

Mikey died 9 months later and so began my own path to growing in deep relationship with God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and our Blessed Mother. I so often think of that moment of embrace, mother and child, and I live it still, as the child in the embrace of my Father.

Several years after that fateful day, we once again received a calI that will live in stark detail for all of my days. Afterwards, I remember standing by the ER bedside of our oldest daughter Anna in the wee hours of the morning after the crash, my beautiful first-born baby still and lifeless. I often think of it as my moment on the precipice; it was my moment of greatest choosing. Before me lay the reality of crushing devastation and incomprehensible pain. I could see no human way out of all that. But the divine voice was my greatest reality in that moment. It was a voice speaking truth, “I put before you life and death, choose life.” It was the person of Jesus saying, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world.” It was the Spirit whispering in my soul, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” It was my Blessed Mother helping me weep, ‘into your hands, Lord, I commend her spirit.’

God who is Love itself was my GREATEST truth in those moments. He was my first and only choice.

It’s a challenge sometimes in the day- to-day struggles, to look past the difficult realities that often seem to attack from every side, in order to bring into focus something greater. But it is precisely in these moments, we should remember who’s waiting at the end of that hall, on His knees, arms outstretched and waiting.

HE is the greatest truth.

Miraculous Mary

In the summer of 2008, my first-born son Mikey was dying. He had turned four years old in the midst of chemotherapy and radiation for his brain tumor, but we knew he would never see age five. I can’t begin to describe the roller coaster of emotions I was riding as July turned to August that summer, and my baby was slipping away. I can tell you that it was terrifying and lonely. I spent my time with him hoping and praying for an epic miracle because I just couldn’t face the writing on the wall. I knew that once I embraced that cross that I would have to see it through to Calvary. And no mother ever wants to accept that cross…

Without even thinking about it, I sought advice from our Blessed Mother. I didn’t really know her well, but I knew we shared this cross and at the very least I wouldn’t be alone in it. At the very most, I begged her to show me how to accept and abide as she herself had done. In the moments between the terrifying reality and unthinkable future, I sought her counsel and companionship. I had nowhere else to turn. My God and my Savior had yet to take His rightful place in my life and in my heart, because He had yet to reveal me to myself.
But Mary was my comfort. Though she couldn’t heal or fix or save my little one, any more than she could her own son, she was with me through it all. She walked beside me and gave me what she gave her son, the quiet, steady confidence of her trust in the Father. I learned by her example that I wouldn’t perish with each next step. Slowly I walked, one foot in front of the other, one painful step at a time, with my wise and gentle Mother at my side. She didn’t look away or run from the excruciating reality, and that gave me courage to face the impossible. Just as she stayed with Jesus until she held his dead body, I knew she wouldn’t leave me, ever.

August 19, 2008 arrived and my disbelief turned to acceptance, that with each passing moment and Mikey’s slowing breath, there would be no 11th hour miraculous healing that would save us from our ultimate cross. Mary understood that process very well.

Our family was gathered around Mikey’s hospital bed in our home that morning. In truth, I had kept vigil with him through the night, not wanting to miss a single precious moment of his last hours. He had spent his last weeks in this favorite room of our house, the sunroom, full of light and windows with peaceful and serene views of trees and landscape. It’s a space that became intimate when filled with a hospital bed, our whole family, and a million prayers sent to Heaven with hope. Even now, 12 years later, I feel the presence of those prayers like a cozy blanket, sent on behalf of my little Mikey then, and now somehow returned to me.

At about 10 o’clock that Tuesday morning, his breathing changed and slowed. The space between each breath grew longer and I think we collectively held our own breath waiting for the
next one. Until there just wasn’t a next one. Helplessly, we breathed his last with him and barely realized that it was happening. One moment he was here with us and the next moment he wasn’t. The reality slammed with full force and no matter how prepared you think you are for the moment to come, the finality of death has a way of ripping into your soul.
The room had gone silent, the only sounds being the gentle wracking sobs of our 8-year-old and the distant, yet gut-wrenching, wailing of our 7-year-old from another room. In my heart, there was peaceful silence. Mikey’s machines were turned off and there was no more pain, medications, treatments, therapies, or agonizing helplessness and worries. He was free. I sat in the rocker, where I had held him for the better part of his four years, and held him for the last time. He was off the cross and in my arms and Mary held us both.

Our last family photo with Mikey that hangs in our sunroom

Those moments were pivotal for me. Infused with the peace that passes all understanding, I was set free, too. I suddenly understood with a divine clarity that although my little Michael couldn’t come back to me, I could CHOOSE to go to him. His lifeless body brought the greatest conviction, to seek LIFE, that I have ever known. In that extraordinary moment, there was no anger or fear or even sadness, but only a gentle and peaceful assurance that my life had found its purpose and I would be in the greatest of company. How did I suddenly understand this without having a clue of where to begin? I was serenely confident that Mary would be showing me the way.

The family gradually dispersed; Bill to call the undertaker and begin arrangements, my mom to handle logistics of visitors and food and love already piling in. Bill’s mom took the younger girls from the room with the excuse of checking the mail. I guess she had also noticed the mail truck pulling up just as Mikey was taking his final breaths. Strange how life ticks on even in the moments that stand still. Notice the mothers in this scene. They might largely go unnoticed except they carried on life and meaning in the most essential ways. In those moments, and in my memories now, I know I couldn’t have survived that day without them, without the comfort of their steady presence.

Suddenly, the girls started running from the mailbox back toward the house waving a letter. I could see them from the chair in the sunroom where I sat still holding Mikey. They barreled into the room breathless with excitement and said, ‘Mom! Look what just came in the mail!’ and excitedly presented me with the full windowed envelope that clearly contained a beautiful yet sorrowful picture card of our Lady and the words “With Sympathy.” I tucked that awe-inspiring, and yet somehow expected, tender loving message into my heart where I carry it to this day. Mothers often love in miraculous ways!

How did I walk through those following days of preparation for his burial with Joy in my soul and Trust that all would be well? They were agonizing days full of a billion tears after all.

On top of the mercy and grace that was showered upon me from heaven, our Blessed Mother walked beside me, and Mother knows best.

The card she sent in the most important moments of my life

Note the copyright 2008

My Divine Mercy Miracle

By Karen Pullano Edited by Nancy Impelizzieri

One of the stories I love to share when I give talks is the miracle of my own salvation during Divine Mercy weekend in 2008. Of course in the usual way the Lord works, it was a miracle that began taking place long before I noticed. The seeds for it were planted at my baptism; by those who taught me the faith; and by my mother who brought me to the grace of the sacraments throughout my childhood. Much later, the Lord made manifest this work He began in me by way of a tremendous agony in my life. For that, I am eternally grateful.

When Mikey was diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor at the age of three, I refused to accept that he might actually die. My faith in God was shallow at best, but I had faith enough to turn to him in my terror and sorrows. I was terrified of losing my son, and sorrowful day in and day out for all that he had to endure. His childhood was being stolen away and all my dreams for his life and health were increasingly crushed throughout the months of treatment.

As time went on we kept hoping for healing and recovery, but what I didn’t realize for a long time was that as that possibility diminished, my hope in the eternal was growing. We are an Easter people and hope is written on our hearts from the beginning. That hope of course has the face and name of Jesus, but I didn’t understand that then.

Mikey suffered through many rounds of intense chemotherapy after his brain surgery was unsuccessful. Imagine our extreme disappointment when again and again we were told that it wasn’t working. The tumor continued to grow despite the worst poison this world had to give it. After two months of rigorous treatment, the doctors decided to stop. It was the briefest and longest two months of my entire life, as my baby’s life hung in the balance. I used to hug him so tight that I imagined there was no possible way the cancer could survive the squeezing. And in brief moments of pure love and prayer, hope in the eternal was growing. The rest of the time it was ignored as we continued to look to the doctors and the world for the cure that surely must come.

I remember receiving one particular card in the mail that contained a pivotal scripture for me. From Jeremiah 29:11 it read, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you declares the Lord. Plans for your welfare and not for woe. Plans to give you a future and a hope.” Upon reading this, I was filled with the Lord and the Holy Spirit, though I couldn’t recognize Him at the time. I knew beyond a doubt that the promise was true. I knew the Lord would be faithful and do exactly as He said, giving both Mikey and me a future and a hope. Naturally, I took it to mean that Mikey would be healed. I had no room in my mother’s heart for any other possibility.

So, facing the end of treatment options in March of that year, we brought our first-born son (the 5th of seven children) home from the hospital, to rest and heal from treatment and love him as much as we could while continuing to seek the instrument of his grand miraculous healing. We enjoyed Easter at home together as a family, and hope rose as never before. A new day, the Lord’s day, that He made for us to rejoice and be glad in, had sprung up along with the daffodils in the yard and the buds on the trees promising new life everywhere we looked. That very Easter night, the doctors called and said he should have another chance at treatment since they had detected some response. I knew it! The Lord had promised after all. We eagerly took Mikey back to the hospital that Easter Monday for more toxic chemotherapy. It was a rigorous and near deadly cocktail in and of itself, but it was our only hope.

As was the routine, Bill and I took turns staying with him around the clock throughout that week. On Friday, at about 3 o’clock, I relieved Bill so he could come home to shower and rest. I couldn’t wait to be with my baby even though I knew it would be heartbreaking to be so helpless in the face of his suffering. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and he was sitting up in a chair smiling and talking! Bill felt good about leaving him for a short time and it filled my heart to have some time with this little boy, treasure of my heart. He chattered away telling me his big plans to get Daddy’s keys and drive home in the truck, and play with Andrew and take care of his new baby sister Laura. As he spoke, there was a gleam of life and joy in his little face. (It was years later that I recognized the significance of the 3:00 hour of mercy, and how God showed His great mercy to us on that Friday, in that hour.)

A short time later, the nurses came to get Mikey for a quick procedure. We made the arduous journey down the hall with all his paraphernalia, got through the procedure just fine, and made the slow move back to his room again. Along the way back, out of the blue, he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Instantly there was mayhem. Nurses were running and yelling for doctors and the blue light in the hall was flashing and screeching. Our hospital neighbors all stood in their doorways watching the commotion and I numbly but hurriedly followed the stretcher as we made our way to the elevator and down to the pediatric ICU. Mikey was whisked through the giant double doors and a team descended on him at which point I was stopped by his doctor. Despite the roaring in my ears, I heard her ask if I wanted him to be resuscitated, but somehow the question made no sense. Nothing made sense in those moments. I was expecting a miracle of healing, after all I had been praying so much more, and surely the Lord was pleased with me. But most importantly, He promised! So I answered with the only possible answer I could give and despite her loving protest, I begged her to save his life!

With shaking hands, I called Bill and tried to explain the unexplainable. I called the rest of the family and repeated the doctor’s thoughts, that the tumor in the middle of his brain stem had simply grown enough to shut down his life center. One minute he’s here and the next he’s just… not.

I remember watching Bill arrive. Perhaps he seemed unhurried and at ease to the casual observer. I saw the defeat of a Dad who couldn’t save his son, but more importantly I saw the humble confidence of a son who trusts in his Father. He stood firmly beside me in that trust when the doctor finally returned with the news. Armed with brain scans, she explained that, as they had feared, Mikey was brain dead and being kept alive by the machines. She showed us the scans with the white areas of dead tissue and explained that our next step would be removing the ventilator and saying our goodbyes, not necessarily in that order.

I remember feeling nothing and everything. I remarked to no one in particular that I would never be able to eat again. It felt like my insides just twisted up and died, not that it really mattered. But most of all, I felt such complete disbelief. If Mikey died, then God wasn’t really who He said He was to me. The God I thought I knew lied and let me down. If Mikey died, then my Hope did, too. That was the source of my despair as I stood at his ICU bedside and the priest arrived to give last rites. He led us in the Our Father just as Anna was arriving.

The kids had been scattered at their various activities with family members and had filtered in as soon as they could. Anna was the last to arrive before we could say our goodbyes as a family. The doctors encouraged us to talk to Mikey in case somewhere between life and death he could hear us. So we did and nonsensically I said, ‘Mikey, Anna’s here now, do you want to see her?’ And all of us gathered there, in that moment, saw the slightest nod of his head. His doctor urgently told me to ask again and when I did, his little eyelids fluttered open. There was mayhem as the doctors scrambled to their large screen with the images of his dead brain still visible to us all. They couldn’t make the pieces fit, but I could! This was more like it. Hope unfurled it’s glorious wings. The priest happily joked that he was no longer needed there and led us in a few more prayers before he was on his way. Mikey was not showing signs of breathing on his own, but he was awake and responding and definitely alive!

The night for me was spent keeping a vigil of sorts. How could I sleep when the excitement of what the Lord was doing was palpable within me? I didn’t understand it all, but I was filled with a ‘knowing’ that He is God and we are not. I saw His power and majesty and understood this God of mine in a whole different way. He alone is the Lord of life and death. He is mighty to save and to heal, if it is His will. He has plans in mind far greater than what we can see or conceive. I felt His love and His Favor and was giddy with excitement about this incredible miracle. I knew He wouldn’t take my little Michael away from me. Not yet.

I spent Saturday in a feeling of incredible relief and thanksgiving. I was intimately connected with my Lord in my newfound space of trust, even as the doctors continued to look grim. Mikey still had a massive tumor filling his brain stem and was intubated in the ICU, but I was celebrating! And by evening, he was showing hopeful signs of being able to breathe on his own.

Our family took turns at his bedside, two at a time per ICU regulations, throughout that day and night and it was decided that on Sunday they would try to remove the tube. We made a plan to come to the hospital early and go to Mass in the chapel and then gather together by his bedside for the removal just in case it didn’t go well. Once again, I was so excited at what my newfound Lord and friend was about to do that I wasn’t able to sleep.

I was so sure of the total miracle He would finish in restoring Michael that I was unaware of another miracle He was bringing about in my very own soul.

It would be years before I would understand what the Lord spoke in my heart that Sunday morning when we arrived for Mass. The priest announced that it was Divine Mercy Sunday and I was floored. It was a somewhat new celebration in the church calendar and I had honestly never heard of it before. But on this day, with that announcement, suddenly it was everything. On Friday, in the Lord’s divine providence and mercy, He had restored my Mikey to life in the greatest show of a miracle that could neither be ignored nor denied and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops. After Mass we headed for the ICU. I was ready for His incredible mercy to be made manifest. We entered Mikey’s room not knowing the procedure was done and that adorable little face greeted us with a beaming smile and words to the effect of ‘let’s go’. It was finished. My little boy who died on Friday, was resurrected on Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday. We could bring him home. And I didn’t know it, but that wasn’t the Lord’s greatest work that weekend.

Although the next months were filled with disease, we had tremendous hope of a total miracle of healing. The Lord had already proved that He could and would, and it was impossible for me to accept the mere reality of impending death. Without realizing it, my hope that had been in doctors, medicine, and treatments, had gradually shifted to hope in the divine and eternal. It was July when the Lord gave me my first glimpse of this.

I was desperate to take my family and escape from reality. In a crazy move, our entourage of 12 boarded a plane bound for the magical world of Disney. Mikey’s wish was to see Mickey Mouse and though he was wheelchair bound and declining rapidly, to the Mouse we went. The plane took off up through the scant clouds and a great peace descended upon my soul as I looked out over the vastness of the earth below. The Spirit breathed truth and life into my prayer, “Lord you have created all this, you have us too in the palm of your hand.” I flew right into His heart that day and barely realized it.

As July turned to August I could feel that Michael’s time was short. My ultimate cross was looming and instinctively I took refuge in Mary’s heart. She had walked this road before me and I begged her to show me how. So gently did she take my hand and guide me, that I didn’t realize she had.

August 19th my sweet baby, my first-born son, the little prince of our hearts, breathed his last and Mary was with me. There was anguish and there was tremendous peace. Instinctively, I knew that he had to go to the Father in order for the Spirit to come, even as I grieved and hated it. He couldn’t come back to me, but I knew Mary would show me how to go to him. Suddenly I wanted nothing more in my life than to find the way. And so I began.

The miracle of that Divine Easter weekend of mercy had little to do with saving Mikey’s life and everything to do with saving my own.

The Master has need of it

By His stripes we are healed. By our own stripes, the world around us can be healed, too. But what makes our suffering into a stripe that heals others?

Love is what brought Jesus to the gruesome torture and suffering of the cross. Love for each of us, but more importantly, love for the Father and love for His perfect will. The Master had need of Jesus to bring about the salvation of the world, and He has need of us, too. Each of us in our own suffering can help bring about the salvation of souls when we love the will of the Father more than our own. We heal each other when we love others in our suffering more than we love ourselves. I trust in Him wholeheartedly that the loss of my children is being used in his perfect and holy master plan of salvation for others. And so I choose, as often as I can, not to focus on my own pain and suffering, but on the glory of what He will do with that pain and suffering when I unite it with His. He brings about the incredible and the miraculous in hearts and souls.

https://images.app.goo.gl/XKxgrbTkh6B9hzSBA

I recently listened to Bishop Robert Barron’s Stations of the Cross reflections (The stations of the Cross with Bishop Barron). At the fifth station, he parallels Simon being pressed into service to carry the cross, with the donkey being pressed into service to bear Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. In both Luke (19:31) and Matthew (21:3), a servant is told to go and untie the donkey and told, if questioned to simply respond, ‘the Master has need of it.’ It struck me! The Master also has need of you and me, especially in these days of uncertainty and fear that we are walking through.

The Master has need of each of us in the same way Jesus needed that donkey on His triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, and needed Simon on the road to Calvary. We are all equipped in some way for these days we are now in, but maybe not in the way we think. Of course all of our gifts, talents, and riches can glorify God when we allow ourselves to be pressed into His service. But it is the crosses we bear, the sufferings we endure with faith, and the wounds we bravely face, that, when suffered with great Love of God, become the stripes that can heal. My suffering is actually my greatest blessing.

I can’t begin to know how my crosses, small in comparison to His own, serve Him, but I do know how THE cross has served me. It has healed me and made me whole. It has given me freedom and taught me deep and abiding love. If my stripes, united to Him, can do that for His beloved children, then I don’t have nearly enough of them.

The Master has need of me. And you.

“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His stripes you are healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

7 Years

In these past 7 years, I’ve come to understand my suffering is a gift. A gift not exactly given to me by God, but allowed by God so that He might shower me with so many other amazing gifts and graces. In the rawness of my grief, when Mikey died 12 years ago and when Anna died 7 years ago, God taught me that when you are clawing at air and think you have lost too much to survive, He is there. And He is enough.

He’s proved His love for me constantly, always keeping every promise. He’s been by my side in the darkest valleys and to the top of the hills.

We’ve walked through fire together and I would follow Him anywhere. Even to the cross. After all, that’s where He did His best work. And where I do mine. Mostly because that’s where I meet Him, the one who is Love and Mercy itself. There is no fear at the cross with Jesus, only looking forward to resurrection. Where then can fear live, if the worst case is the cross with our Savior? It’s not death that stings, so much as the fear of death. And the fear of death does not compare to the fear of living without the One who loves me above all else. If that were possible, then everything would sting!

Today I am reminded of all that we have lost in our beautiful and vibrant Anna. I am of course mourning once again all her ‘lasts’ and the really empty space in our family. All the what-ifs and should-haves can bring such great sorrow, but I consider them all a gift because I know they will bring me face to face with the cross. It’s so hard to see the one we love in such agony. He waits there for me anyway. Alone the grief is heavy, but together the sorrow is transformed. I am His and He is mine. He is enough.

These memories are joy but are also a painful and sorrowful cross

This is the Cross that heals and redeems

What Finally Matters

On this day five years ago I had no idea it would be our final hours with her. Tomorrow I will celebrate, with great hope, her birth into new life. But today I remember her and celebrate her in this life. Of course, I face all the questions that I can’t help but raise. Why didn’t I squeeze her hard before she left and say a proper goodbye? Why didn’t I drop everything to tell her how much she was loved. Again. Why didn’t I call her before I went to bed? I didn’t because… life. That’s just how it goes sometimes. But the real question that burns as I ponder what finally matters is, “Did I show her Christ?” Did I lead her there enough? If not what was I waiting for? Could it ever even be enough? When she came to her moment and stood before HIM in the wee hours of this night, did she know Him as her own? Did I love in such a way that her choice was as plain as day? If I failed in this then I have utterly failed and all I can do is trust that where I fell short is where God’s mercy abounds.

“Therefore keep watch. For we know not the day nor the hour” Mt 25:13

Love and Sacrifice

Our family grew by one again this past Christmas. It’s taken me this long to catch my breath and write about it, but here she is.  Meet Pepper − a little 4-pound ball of playful enjoyment! She’s filling up all kinds of empty little spaces in this family. If you are thinking that I’m the very definition of crazy, I won’t argue. This chubby, happy baby and this precocious 3 year-old

Olivia Grace

Leah Denise

are enough to keep me running and hopping, not to mention the rest of the gang.  I’ve been resisting a puppy for over 20 years now, so why suddenly did I dive in? And yes, I squeezed my eyes shut tight and dove− just went for it before I could think about it too much and change my mind!

There are lots of reasons why it isn’t and has never been a good idea for us to take on a puppy. Trust me, I’m still going over some of them in my head… BUT there is one very good and simple reason why I did it. Love. Not just my love for my children and certainly not because I have a particular affinity for dogs (though she IS really growing on me), but to teach them the truest kind of love. Nothing teaches this love like the sacrifice required to care for babies and puppies! I want my children to have hearts filled to overflowing with Love. There’s so much I can’t give them or protect them from. Much of what we can give them is just stuff that’s filling them up, but leaving them empty. Sadly, our kids are such victims of technology today. Victims because they are learning that their acceptance and worth depend on the number of likes they get on a photo or post. The instant reactions and interactions come more from the feelings of the moment than from reason, deep thought, or the care that is necessary to foster personal relationships. In short, our collective young are trading empty accolades for actual love and have no idea! We have become a society that rarely recognizes what Love actually is and I include myself in that condemnation. I have enough work, enough people to take care of, enough responsibility, and practically zero time for myself. Why in the World would I even consider adding a puppy to this already packed and crazy schedule? And yet, can there be enough love?

Love requires sacrifice. Love is not easy. Love doesn’t even always feel good, believe it or not. When I’m so exhausted I can’t see straight and have to spend my entire day cleaning poop from butts and floors, I can assure you that I’m not exactly feeling the love. But when the kids run off that school bus full of excitement and anticipation, it’s not because the computer or television is waiting to tackle them with a bear hug. They come in with Joy to greet the kind of Love that has no expectation beyond simply accepting it; the kind of Love that teaches you HOW to love simply by receiving it.

When I think about my children growing up and heading out into the world on their own, there are so many things that I wonder if I’m teaching them well. Will they be good people, prepared to face the inevitable challenges of life? Will they be productive and successful? Will they be happy? Will they seek the path and the purpose that God has designed them for? I can really get caught up in all the ways I fall short. I wonder if the lasting impression I leave them with will revolve around the endless work, sleepless nights, and the stress and frenzy of trying to fit it all in. Will they even know my Joy? Because I swear I have it. Will they know my peace? Because it’s there and is rooted down deep. Will they walk away remembering the supreme frustration I expressed when the dog had her 100th accident in the house or will they hold more dear the elation I felt when she finally had a successful day going outside? Truthfully, I hope it’s both.

I’m not proud of some of my parenting moments. I often lament that I sure didn’t channel the Blessed Mother in the way I handled a certain situation or another. But I take heart from the messy stuff because what I hope my children will take away from their first-hand witness of the struggle and sacrifice is that I was committed to Love. I’m committed to loving them and teaching them love. My sacrificing, day in and day out, is the legacy I hope to leave them, because love in its purest form bears the depth of sacrifice. It is life-giving and has the ability to teach and to heal, requiring nothing in return. Love without sacrifice is a shallow thing at best. I love certain things, but wouldn’t sacrifice a whit for them. If I can leave my children one lasting example, I hope it will be this real, deep, and true kind of love. When they are grown and gone, I hope they remember the sacrifice and see the beauty in it.

And then I hope they remember their Jesus and that He did it for them first.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

LOOK UP!

Godversations is 2 years old today!

I thought I would share my very first post again. I was a different person when I wrote this but the message is rooted in Truth and will always be relevant; Listen, Trust, Obey. Thank you for your unending Love and Support in the Joys and Trials we have encountered on our journey of Faith. None of us ever walks alone and I am honored to have each one of you beside me.
I am also excited to be sharing faith on a new blog for the John Paul II Center for Women in the diocese of Syracuse. You can find it here http://jpiicenterforwomen.wordpress.com. The mission of the John Paul II Center is to promote the true dignity of Women. Check out the website for more information http://www.jpiicenterforwomen.com . The Holy Spirit is at work and I am so honored to be part of sharing Wisdom and Truth!
Okay I am publicly putting this out there – eeeek! I have started writing a book. I have no idea if it will get finished, or published, or read, but I have started one. So there ya go. Like the Godversations Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/godversations and leave me a message or shoot me an email every now and then to keep the pressure on! (Oh no, what have I done???)

Happy and Blessed Easter and I will remember all my readers especially in my prayers this Easter Season.
Love and Peace from our family to yours.

Godversations

Look Up! Look Up! Look Up! Melissa Look Up! Look Up! Hurry Look Up! Just lift your head and Look Up! Look at me. Look at me Melissa. Look at Mommy! Look at my Face! Look Up!!!

This is pretty much how bath time goes with my 2-year-old every time. I shampoo her hair and when she knows the rinsing is coming she looks down to try to shield her face and cries louder and louder, probably to be heard over my pleas, until she reaches full-out hysteria… and we’re done. I’ve tried reasoning and explaining, but my normally brilliant 2 yr old, just can’t seem to get the message.

If she would only listen to me, and trust me, and obey me, then the water would pour nicely down the back of her head and hair washing would be a non-event. Bath time would be considerably more enjoyable all…

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