Many, many years ago, as I was passing through the kitchen on the way to the coffee pot, an orange Nerf gun bullet whizzed past my head. Spinning around, I spied my then 9-year-old crouched behind the counter. “Shoot!” he grinned. “I missed the little French woman.”
That boy is now a 21-year-old man and–would you believe?–that story was one of the very first posts I shared on this blog, a mere 12 & 1/2 years ago.
Still taking pictures of our food after all these years
I’m still raising sons that love their nerf guns.
I’m still a little French woman shuffling through on her way to the coffee pot.
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A dear friend reached out via email yesterday and said (bless her heart) that she missed my blogging. Which was funny, because I had thought of her that very day (!) and wondered if I HAD IT IN ME to write a long-overdue update on this website. Blogging has changed so much since that long ago post about John Michael–we have changed, meaning you & me and our society. I pulled back from blogging because I’d convinced myself that there was just too much noise on the Internet already; who needs more words to think about?
And now I have a lump in my throat, because there are many writers that I love and where would I be if they were cowards like me?
(Not that you love my writing like I love theirs, but I have been…if not a coward then really unsure of what I have to offer.)
Well, enough of such cowardice/fear/uncertainty/doubt! I’m here to say this: God is too good not to SHOUT it and my kids are too cute to not occasionally shoot their remarks into cyberspace.
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For example…
Our 6-year-old Nicholas is something else. He is our Angela (aka Camille) all over again!
Also, though, he is my baby (sob!) and is probably the last one that I will get to home school, so if I’m quiet on the blog it’s because I am soaking up these fleeting moments! I know now how incredibly FAST it goes.
Anyway, I promised you a quick cute anecdote so here it is. We are doing Marie Rippel’s All About Learning Letter Crafts, which are wonderfully cute and look like this on our wall:
We do a letter a day, more or less, and then when we’ve finished the craft, I’ll show Nicky the letter for the following day. Yesterday, as I set the “O” template on the table in front of him, Nicholas gave an evil laugh. “We meet again, Mr. O for Ox!”
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Back to that Irish blessing…
We had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day, except when it wasn’t wonderful because I was feeling lonely. Some days I get like that, when the big kids are off in their rooms doing their thing and I nearly break in two with a sense of longing. It’s hard to describe but maybe you get it? It’s why we honor the saints on their special days–what we mean when we say the COMMUNION of saints. When we receive communion, aka Our Lord in the Eucharist, we take Him into our soul in a profound way. We were made for communion; we were made to connect. Sometimes I will send a text and not get an answer right away. Then what? I’m trying to find my answers in Him; my inner peace not in “likes” but in LOVE. So yes, that is why I’ve needed to go away and heal–why I’m still very much a work-in-progress but give it all to God with great hope and trust.
Plus? I’ve got St. Patrick, St. Joseph and these great guys ↑ ↑ ↑ to see me through.
And I’ve got you. Thank you for you!
I wish you the very best of a beautiful Lent. ♥
Joseph is my patron saint from confirmation. So I’m praying his litany for your family Margaret. Age and health limits my ability to comment so have been silent.
Joseph, I am always so happy to hear from you. Thank you for your prayers. Please be assured of mine. 💕
So glad to see your post! Always enjoyed reading your posts over the years
I’m glad I checked today. Love reading your posts.
Is that your current reading stack? I, too, am reading The Reed of God (it’s my second time through). I also read (and really enjoyed) In this House of Brede – my first Rumer Godden – about a year ago.
Glad to see your post today! Yours is one of the blogs I regularly check.
The “All About Learning Letter Crafts” look so cute – might have to try them with my 3 and 7 year old girls. (If I can get motivated!)
I really like this from The Reed of God:
“Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is nothing else but waste and weariness. But it may be that God has sent us there because but for us Christ would not be there. If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worthwhile.”
God bless you and yours,
Melisa