the real antidote to spiritual destitution

THINK

The Gospel is the real antidote to spiritual destitution: wherever we go, we are called as Christians to proclaim the liberating news that forgiveness for sins committed is possible, that God is greater than our sinfulness, that He freely loves us at all times and that we were made for communion and eternal life. --Pope Francis

PRAY

Dear Lord, As Lent begins, I place all my intentions at the foot of your cross. I want to "do this well." Please take from me that want and replace it with the sincere acknowledgement that I am nothing without You. I believe that forgiveness is possible and that your love is greater than my sinfulness. I believe that in Your Word there is hope and truth and pardon and peace. Let me steep in the true Love of the gospel. Help me to grow in the gospel during this Lenten season. Bring me back, God. Inspire in me true contrition, true repentance--and let my entire life be a witness to the truth of the Good News. 

ACT

Ash Wednesday can feel like New Year's Day. Firm commitments made for Lent can look a lot like resolutions made as the calendar year begins. Our Lenten commitments deserve a sharper focus. Lent is about returning to the Father. What we give up, what we do extra--they are to serve one purpose: to bring us back to Him, to restore us to His will for us. Lent is about remembering that He breathed us into being and He loves us unconditionally. All the things that pass between our beginnings in His hands and our return to the earth are dependent upon the one, true God. He's in it all. He gives it life. He gives us life--again and again and again every day. Our Lenten sacrifices need to sting a little, to require some struggle. They need to make us cry out to Him for grace sufficient. Over. And over. And over. Lent is habit training in dependency. Without Him, we are nothing. With Him, we are and we have everything. Let this Lent be about knowing Him. Seek Him earnestly in the Word. Become intimate with the love letters there. And, confident in who He is and how He loves, let this Lent be about asking for His grace for every step and knowing that His grace is enough.

Right here, Right now.

THINK

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

PRAY

Show me, Jesus. Show me what you would have me do right here, right now, in this time and place where I find myself. You know me. You know where I am. I am here in this part of your Kingdom for just such a time. Use me right here, today.

ACT

When Colleen and I first started meeting together in the Lord--oh about 9 years ago--she was in a rural Louisiana home and I was about an hour outside Washington DC in certain suburbia. Our lives seemed different from each other, but also very similar. Back then, one of the stark differences was that she had Sonic Drive-thru nearby and I didn't, but the commercials played on the television and radio here. That meant that I still had Sonic ice cravings when I was pregnant, but couldn't act upon them. The struggle was real, my friends.

Then Colleen moved to Costa Rica and embraced 24/7, 365 days a year mission life. And our lives looked starkly different. Over the past few years, we've had lots of conversations about those differences. Sometimes, it's hard not to feel guilty that my mission is here and I am not immediately in danger of poisonous snakes or bugs or an active volcano. Colleen is. I don't serve indigenous women who walk countless miles through the jungle for basic maternity care. Colleen does.

What is the time for which I was born? This one. Here and now in northern Virginia. This is my place and this is my moment. And every day there are opportunities for works of mercy. Sometimes--often, really--there are chances for heroic acts of faith. They just look different here. The needy don't look so materially needy. The wounds are mostly hidden, deep beneath lovely clothes and perfectly manicured fingernails. I cannot put the pictures of these women on Facebook and ask for prayers. The piece of the Kingdom of God that has been entrusted to me is one of relative affluence. I remind myself daily that it it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. (Matthew 19:24)

But God calls them. He wants them. He is waiting to heal them. These are souls in peril. I was born for a time such as this. Today, on the soccer field, in the grocery store, in the carpool pick-up line, be Christ to someone else. Someone who might not look sorrowful or suffering, but who has wounds only He can bind. Be the hands that heal in Christ, no matter where you find yourself in the Kingdom of God.

~*~*~*~

Motherhood can feel like the loneliest vocation in the world. Surrounded by children, who frequently bring us to our knees, both literally and figuratively, we can be overwhelmed by isolation. Mothers need community. We can be community for one another. We can encourage on another and hold each other accountable. If you like these short devotions, please share the image and send another woman here. And when you're here, please take a moment to pray with another mother who is visiting. Leave a comment and when you do, pray for the woman whose comment is just above yours. Just a moment--blessed--will begin to build community.

I like to pray when I run in the morning. Often, I listen to Divine Office and pray Morning Prayer or the Office of Readings. Then, I just take up a conversation with God. I'd love to pray for you! Please leave your prayer requests below and we can pray for each other, no matter how we spend our morning prayer time. Meet me back here tomorrow and I'll share the ponderings from my #morningrun.

I want to be all in for God

THINK

My God, I choose all. I do not want to be a saint by halves. I am not afraid to suffer for you. I fear only one thing--that I should keep my own will. So take it, for I choose all that you will.

--St. Therese

PRAY

It's such a hard prayer to pray sometimes, Jesus: the one the that says, "I'm not afraid to suffer for you." Give me the courage to pray it and the grace to suffer well, in the small, daily trials and the big, scary tribulations. Let me be a saint with every breath. Let me be all in for you.

ACT

In the everyday clamor and chaos--whether the frustrating child or the incessant dinging of your inbox--know that you are given graces aplenty for your vocation. Ask for them! Then, embrace the struggle and remind yourself that, really, this life is not a bad way to suffer at all. 

On this day, a new life begins

THINK

And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him -- really rest -- and start the next day as a new life. ~--St. Teresa Benedicta

PRAY

Wow, Jesus, it’s like St. Teresa Benedicta was inside my head. How many undone things rouse shame and regret! I am grateful for the chance to lay at your feet the time wasted in front of the computer, the words spoken hastily in anger, the words that should have been spoken that I didn’t bring myself to speak, the promises broken, the tears shed. There they are for you to take. I begin this new day from a place of rest in you. I trust with my whole heart that-- at the beginning of this new life that starts today—you will guide and protect and direct me, that I am forgiven and fortified. I believe that I am yours and I am dearly loved.

ACT

The peace that comes with resting in God begins with repentance. It is a week before lent begins. With lent comes restoration. God will call us to Him and restore us to a place of rest. First, we need to repent. What are those things that rouse shame and regret at the end of the day? Make a real list. Write it all down. Then lay it all at the cross. Note: confession highly recommended.

There is a new day and a whole new life waiting for you.

He is up with Dawn--and waiting for you.

THINK

“Come, let us return to the Lord;
    for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
    he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
 After two days he will revive us;
    on the third day he will raise us up,
    that we may live before him.
 Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
    his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”

PRAY

I'm up with the dawn today, Lord. My to-do list is long and I can feel my patience growing short already. I'm bumbling around, trying to do too much too fast on my my own power. But you were already up when I awoke. As sure as the sun will come up, You have gone ahead of me. And you are waiting to heal me. Slow me down, God, so that I can see you in the sunrise and help me stop long enough to really hear your message for me. And then, please, remind me all day long that you are there and waiting, ready to water my soul so that the seed you planted will grow.

ACT

I can feel the pace quicken as we approach Lent. The time of restoration and healing is right around the corner! In all the places I've transgressed and all the sorrows so starkly obvious before me, there can be healing. I am promised that God will bind me up.  Every day is a chance to begin again, to seek Him in the morning and to know His healing all day long. He is up with dawn, waiting to speak into your soul! And then, the seeds that are planted in that morning meeting he promises to water --spring rains that will make the seeds grow. Take time to let God plant seeds in you this morning and then set alarms to chime every three hours all day long and just pause in those moments and be still with Him long enough to let the rain fall on the good seed.