5 Minute Friday: I Feel the Most Loved When...

Okay, so hopefully y'all remember how this game goes...five minutes of unedited thinking on the prompt for the day!  And, by the way, where did this week go?  I can't believe it's Friday again!

It's hard for me to write today, because we had to say farewell to our faithful and beautiful German Shepherd this morning.  But my tears are spent for now...so here goes my attempt!


I feel the most loved when...


I feel most loved when I am needed most.  We've been dealing with early spring sickness here the last few weeks -- coughs and runny noses and little fevers.  As many ways to love and tend as there are tissues in the box...and then some!  And it is amazing how loved you feel when you give all you have to others.  It is wonderful to be needed.


At the same time, I feel the most loved in the littlest acts of kindness and thoughtfulness.  Like when my dear husband offered to take the fussy baby last night so that I could have a couple of minutes to pray before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament after Mass.  Like when my mom walked her and walked her so that I could get my hair cut yesterday afternoon.  Like when one of my little (and not so little) boys offers to do some small chore or help with the toddler so that I can put out a fire somewhere else.


Finally, I feel most loved in those precious moments of silence during Mass, cradling a sweet, sleeping baby, sunshine streaming through the windows, and it is just God and I in the peace of my heart.  All that I am, and all that I have been given...I am so blessed, and I know that I am loved!

Blessings,
Shannon 

Small Steps: Sacrifices

I am looking forward to Lent this year.  Truly.  What a blessing it is that the Church gives us the cycle of the Liturgical Year, with the beginning of each season like a port of call, where we can clamber aboard our spiritual vessel once more!

As a child growing up, I was in a military family.  As I got older, I started looking at those inevitable moving days as an opportunity to start fresh.  It was a gift -- an uprooting that made growth possible.  Now that I have settled down quite firmly and no longer have the chance to make a clean break and start fresh in a new place, my heart often misses those days.  I have caught myself looking for watershed moments in other places: the changing of the quarters or semesters in our homeschool, and most especially in the turn of the seasons of the Liturgical Year.  Lent, more than any other season, is the chance to uproot the old and stale habits and let new ones bud out and flower.  Fasting becomes a symbol of letting go of all those things that tie us down in the spiritual life.  For me, so often either pregnant or nursing during this season, actual fasting hasn't been much of an option, so I have to look to other sacrifices to fulfill this purpose.

This Lent, I'm once more nourishing another little life, so I must forgo the fast.  But I hope that as I give up the sweet and sugary things from which I too often seek comfort, I will reach instead for true consolation - true sweetness - that fills the soul but not the stomach!  As I give up a little extra sleep to meet the Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I pray that I will find true rest in His peace and grace.

There are so many things that fell out of our routine with the arrival of our youngest child!  The proverbial wheels came right off the wagon.  As we adjust to the "new normal", I'm taking the start of this Lent as the moment to reassemble the wagon.  Perhaps we don't need wheels any longer.  I'm thinking hover technology with a jet engine might be more appropriate at this point.  But I want to redouble our efforts, especially in our homeschool, to bring back on board some of the things that got jettisoned in order for me to keep my sanity.

Little by little, I must remind myself.  Small steps, but steps upward and onward nonetheless!

Blessings,
Shannon

Five Minute Friday: When I look in the mirror...

I love chances to unlock some creativity, especially these days as I work on editing a manuscript....  I got the idea from Elizabeth Foss's blog, which I totally adore! :)  So, here goes!








When I look in the mirror...

Quick glances.  I see a body changed by vocation, most recently by the gift of a precious baby girl, so welcome in our house of little gentlemen!

I don't smile as often as I should.  I am constantly reminding myself that I am surrounded by joy and laughter, and that I should slow down and drink it in!  I used to practice different smiles as a girl -- trying to work out how to capture an image in words.  That same girl who practiced a confidence she never felt, learning to conceal so many things.

I see a tumble of red hair.  It is so long now that when I cut it next week I will be able to donate it to Locks of Love.  I am so excited to have the chance to give something of myself as we begin the Lenten season!  I think of St. Paul, of discarding the old and putting on Christ Jesus.  As those scissors work through my mane of hair, I pray it will be as a shedding of my old bad habits and a chance to walk, lighter and more free, in the footsteps of my Lord and my God!

I see a woman constantly surprised by love, surprised by joy.  Fearful, yet hopeful.  Anxious and striving to trust.  Trying to give with open hands and heart so that they may be filled to overflowing.

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Okay, that's five! :)  Take the challenge...and have fun!!!!

Blessings,
Shannon