Weekly Wildflowers #21
Everything is Grace, 3 Quick Takes, When Prayer Feels like a Struggle
I’m sitting at my writing desk mid-morning with about a thousand different thoughts floating through my head. At times I struggle to get them all written down, and the ideas are fleeting but every now and then, one lingers long enough to take root.
Today is one of those moments. I had an excellent conversation with a big platformed Catholic on the topic of special needs in the Catholic Church, how to navigate such a path, how I’ve managed as a mother and homeschooler in light of all the extras that come with a child with special needs, etc. He asked to interview me based on the last article I published on the topic, you can read it here.
It was a wonderful conversation and spurred on some additional topics we’ll be working on together down the road. I can’t wait to share it all with you!
Still, he asked a question at the end that got me thinking and I wanted to start this week’s post on that note: Grace. He asked if there was any final words of wisdom I could offer his audience: Everything is grace.
We need to truly offer ourselves the same grace and mercy the Lord has offered us, to forgive ourselves for messing up, for not being perfect, for not achieving everything, every single day. The more we offer ourselves grace to be human and to rely on the the Lord, the better our days will go, the gentler we’ll be with our children, to easier hard moments will be.
Grace. Everything is grace.
AMDG,
Mandy
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3 Quick Takes
We wrapped up our 5th year of homeschooling this past Tuesday. If you had asked me if I thought we’d be 5 years into this homeschool journey I would have laughed. You see we tried it, back when my nearly 14 yr old was 6. It was a bit of a disaster. I wanted to homeschool, but I wasn’t confident, and the people I thought I should listen to were directly negative about the idea. I started to tell myself that maybe I couldn’t do this thing I felt called to in my heart. Add in some undiagnosed behavior issues (now thankfully resolved) and it was a recipe for unnecessary difficulty. We enrolled our school aged kids into the local Catholic school to provide much needed relief and give us time to sort through some of the chaos. However, I’m so thankful we gave homeschooling another shot. Not only has it been a completely different experience but I can’t tell you the number of times in the last 5 years that a doctor seeing my oldest has told me we were doing the right thing homeschooling all 3 of our kids. Or a random adult at a store, or a person at church or a neighbor. It’s been a complete turn around. And I feel more confident because I’ve learned the only opinions that matters in my children’s schooling is my husband’s and mine. That’s such a hard lesson when you’re young. So if you have thought about homeschooling, pray about it, reflect on if you have the right supports in your life, and maybe give it a go. If you want to read more about my homeschooling journey, you can check it out here.
Speaking of education, Joe and I had the chance to sit in on a fundraiser for a new Catholic Hybrid School that has started in our area. The vision is so exciting and we are thrilled to be a part of it going forward. The school is classically based, and will meet 2 days a week. The goal is to bring a fundamentally Catholic and classical education to the area for homeschoolers. It is such a need. The enrollment for next year is tripling. A board member at the school and speaker at the event, Jared Staudt, gave a beautiful talk on why Catholic education is so necessary today in a world that has become secularized. How Catholic Education is sacramental in nature and “flows from the incarnation ‘The Word became flesh’ (Jn 1:14). The Word (the Logos) is the Truth itself, the one spoken forth by the Father in eternity and through whom all that is made come into being.” It was such a refreshing evening, and a large room filled with like-minded parents and educators made it all the sweeter. If you’d like to read more about this in particular, you can read one of Jared’s books Words Made Flesh: The Sacramental Mission of Catholic Education. Here is a list of his other books.
Digital Digest: This week has been an improvement over last week, though admittedly I am still on my phone more to read articles on Substack or to follow along with a few trusted sources about our new pope. Even so, the next area I need to work on for my screen habits is around bedtime. Lately I’ve been hoping back on to check out a few things and then the next thing I know I’m hoping over to IG or FB or even Substack notes to see the latest. Being in-the-know isn’t the problem, but the time of day is, so my plan to remove my phone charger from the room so it charges elsewhere at night and I’m less tempted to use that wind-down time scrolling, and instead connecting with my husband. I’ll let you know how the next week goes!
Quote of the Week
“You don’t know how to pray? Put yourself in the presence of God, and as soon as you have said ‘Lord, I don’t know how to pray!’ you can be sure you’ve already begun.”
- St. Josemaria Escriva
Devotional Corner
Prayer is challenging, overwhelming even, and yet it is the lifeblood of our faith. It is what sustains us through our days, helps conform our hearts and minds to Christ, reminds us we are living and breathing in the Body of Christ and that the Church is so much more than what we could ever imagine here on earth and in heaven.
Prayer can also have us bashing our heads against a wall, wondering if we are even doing it right or if God even hears us after the 110th time of praying the same prayer. In a world filled with instant gratification, we can be tempted to approach prayer like some sort of slot machine - put in a request and maybe something will come out. Or maybe not and if not, maybe it isn’t really worth doing again.
The word “Pray” has changed over the centuries too, which can add to the confusion. Putting on my language arts hat for a minute, “Pray” is a transitive verb that means “Entreat; Implore” an example being “Pray tell me.” It can also be an intransitive verb, “to address God” such as “Let us pray.”
Catholics still use it as a transitive verb (when we pray to the saints) as well as intransitive (pray to God), which causes confusion among our non-Catholic brethren who tend to use it as only an intransitive verb. So if you ever get asked, now you know!
When we pray, we are choosing to be vulnerable. To open ourselves up fully, and be seen for everything we are, in the deepest recesses of our hearts. When we approach prayer more as a conversation and less as what we can get out of it, something beautiful begins to happen - our walls fall down. We invite in this radical Love on fire for our soul. Pouring itself out in Grace and Truth. Washing over us with Peace and Consolation.
Prayer has very little to do with “right” or “wrong” but more to do with our heart, our mind, and our soul being laid before the Lord and bidding Him come. Every single time we choose to pray, whether it is for a minute or an hour, we are choosing God and He wastes nothing.
You can never walk away from prayer unchanged, unheard, and unloved.
I want to invite you add even just 5 minutes of prayer into your day with no expectations of answers or noticeable change. Just 5 minutes of inviting God into your life as it is that very moment, with you, as you are. No putting on airs, striving, or pretense.
Just you and Him.
Do you have a family patron saint this year?
I really enjoyed seeing this spread! So in the spirit of honesty, our family has never picked a patron saint. So we fall squarely in the “What a great idea! We should!” I don’t know why, but it honestly never was on our radar until I was speaking with a friend the other week and it got me thinking. SO I’m thrilled so see that so many of you actually do this and my family is just the odd ball out.
Anyway, here is this week’s poll!
