If you have the opportunity to attend a Mighty Is Her Call retreat, go. I attended one a few weeks ago, and browsing through my journal, I found that I had written the theme of the retreat: I am an anointed and beloved daughter of God. This theme is difficult for me. The retreat was
Come and be filled with gratitude and holy wonder with me—how God allows you and I to face the darkness of sin and death that we might come to know the poignancy of the blazing light of Jesus, our God of the Nativity. As a little girl, I struggled with the message of Christmas. The
Pro-life sounds so simple. We love the vibrant life around us, right? The flowers, the trees, little puppies, sweet butterflies, soft squishy babies, and all things great and small that live and breathe. God created the world and thought it was good. It seems like a no-brainer to be pro-life. Why then do so many
People thought I was crazy. I had a little girl and a little boy. Two blue-eyed, blond, curly-haired cherubs made my family complete. Why on earth would we be pregnant again? It’s hard to explain the commitment Alex and I made at our wedding, which included being open to children, in a doctor’s office full
~ When you feel like you are drowning in a sea of medical worry, you must let go of what you thought was your sturdy anchor, and learn to ride the waves. ~ Part One It was a dark evening. No one else was up, and I could hear the trees rustling with the stormy
Monday, Dave went back to work. Thank God Mom was still there. I was getting sick of waiting for the painkillers to work, so we walked my two-year old and one-year-old to the park. On the way back, right in front of my house, everything suddenly went black. It was like I had gone blind.
Years ago, after the birth of my second child, I fell into a postpartum depression. In my early twenties, having managed to leave an abusive husband, I lived with two of my sisters in a home my mom bought. Though we had a close and happy arrangement, after my baby was born, I seemed to
I met Dave a few months after returning from working as a missionary. After this work for the Church, I had a religious ideal in mind for the type of man I would marry. God had something even better than what I imagined planned for me when he brought me Dave—this guy embraced life with
I watched my two youngest daughters, in their early teens at the time, being controlled by the horror of sexual abuse which had happened to their youngest brother. To complicate the tragic incident, their brother also has Down Syndrome; and the perpetrator was one of their closest and dearest friends. After the shock, horror, and
These words from Psalm 130, Out of the Depths I Cry to You, O Lord, resonated through my soul when our world was shattered by the death of our baby son. His death shook me more than my other three earlier miscarriages because I labored for him and delivered his still body. To hold your
Eight boys—really God? You have such a sense of humor! Surprises abound in motherhood, and birthing eight boys was definitely not what this prissy, queenly, jewelry-loving, make-up-wearing, girly-girl expected. It didn’t start out this way. God blessed me first with two wonderful little girls that I had dearly hoped and prayed for (since I had
A missionary living in China called with a plea: could someone house an infant with severe cleft-palate issues for two weeks? The precious little one was being flown to Dallas to receive the intense medical intervention that he needed from a generous surgeon, and the host family had to drop out at the last minute.
This time of year always brings back memories from my childhood—a few good ones, but mostly painful ones. I didn’t have the childhood I had always wanted, not because Santa didn’t bring the gifts I had hoped for or any other trivial childhood disappointment. For me, it was suffering loneliness, abandonment, hunger, neglect, and abuse.
From the time that I was in junior high school, I knew that I only wanted to be a youth minister. When the time came, I attended Benedictine College to get my double major in theology and youth ministry studies. At a small Catholic college most girls are looking for a good Catholic husband, so
I have always found motherhood to be a mix of joys and challenges. I could gaze at any one of my newborn babies for hours, marveling at their perfection, and I have been out of my mind with frustration trying to deal with the meltdown of one child, while being hammered with the demands or
I was born in Vietnam during the final decade of the war. Concerned that the communist Vietnamese government would be oppressive, my parents made the difficult decision to leave their parents, siblings and their country to come to the United States with the hope of providing a better life and future for me. In June
After spending the first six years of our marriage planning this move, we were finally relocating to Rome permanently with our two young children. Now we were just putting the finishing touches on our dream plan, tying up loose ends, and throwing ourselves a string of going-away parties. It was two months before we were
“I was born 63 years ago in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, to first-generation American parents. My grandparents had emigrated from Poland right before the first World War and settled near relatives in Chicago. My childhood was a happy one, with many Polish Catholic traditions—my mother’s parents lived with us. I learned to speak
Nine months after my wedding day in an Episcopal Church, my husband and I were blessed with our first child. Becoming a mother and starting our family was when I first began my path towards Catholicism. They say that the child will lead them and in my case, God used my child – my motherhood-
My father was a Marine colonel. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. I grew up Catholic, but I really became serious about my faith when I came to realize both the ugliness of college life and the beauty of the Catholic faith while attending Mt. St. Mary’s University in Maryland. I was encouraged by many
I am Zena Moujalled and come from West Africa. Last year was a year I will never forget. It all started in September 2016 when my man left me because I was pregnant and he wasn’t ready to be a father. So, I had to move back in with my family while pregnant. I asked