Day 1: August 27, 2023

Diapers changed: 6

5:40 a.m.

I don’t think that I’m a particularly intriguing individual or that I’ve got my marriage all together. I certainly don’t think that I’m the best writer in the Catholic Mom blogging space.

But for some reason, as I sit up in bed feeding my 1.5-month-old, Elizabeth, I feel called to begin this year-long experiment.

Write a daily letter chronicling your triumphs and joys and utter failures and disasters in motherhood. Share (with whoever is out there on the internet) the Christian faith from the worldview of a particularly melancholic Catholic convert, wife of a country singer, and mom of two littles, a two-year-old and a two-month-old.

I’m glad that you’re here. It always makes me feel a trifle less lonely knowing that other ladies are hearing my woes and my wins. I suppose another reason I’m doing this is because I feel like I need a win. Or just one project I can control. Basically, everything else in my life is about to explode in a month and a half (selling our second home, military move home to Texas after 5 years as a Marine Corps wife, living in a 29′ long camper trailer outside of Austin).

In addition to the huge life events, I’m also quite the good idea / project-starter-and-never-completer fairy . . . and I’d like to change that.

The following is my 2023 motto I’m striving toward amidst the diapers and tantrums and online business hobbies and blogging and marriage struggles and chicken violence (I’ll explain later):

I am a mother who finishes projects that she starts.

In the past, I’ve flitted from one project to another. Never finding anything that satisfied my craving to utilize my unique talents from God, singing and musical theatre, and my feminine genius. The closest I’ve ever come was directing a high school musical this spring. That was beautiful.

Even so, the biggest fulfillment of my motto this year so far has been the birth of my second girl, Elizabeth. Of all the things that I don’t particularly enjoy finishing up, it’s pregnancy. Probably something to do with the excruciating pain.

But having her here now with me soundly snoozing in her cactus swaddle makes that pain feel distant, somehow. God rewards women who honor His creation and who finish what they’ve started.

” ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’? 20 Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. 21 When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.  22 So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.  23 On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”

John 16:19-24

In this the inaugural letter of “Everyday Grace” and inspired by the above Bible passage, I ask God to give me diligence in my writing, vulnerability so that what I share might encourage or entertain somebody out there somewhere, and patience in my marriage and motherhood.

Godspeed,

Grace

P.S. Shoutout to my lovely mother, Susan, for this project idea. Pleased to have at least one reader!