Falling on His Grace

Much to my dismay, both our boys (3 1/2 and 2 yrs) are huge into hockey (I'm hoping to avoid the cost of equipment and all the traveling hockey entails). It started over a year ago when B, the older child, started sleeping with a hockey puck rather than a stuffed bear. He insisted on it every night. This last Christmas, my mother-in-law gave the boys plastic goals and sticks, and so we have daily games, often back-to-back, in the kitchen, complete with the "National Anthem" and the two kids rocking back and forth like they see college hockey players do at their games, with a whistle blow (B sticking one finger in his mouth and making a high-pitched noise), a puck drop, "skating", shots on goal with one child falling onto his knees, and a siren signaling each goal. B's latest thing is telling me, 2 weeks running, as I'm saying goodnight to him, that he's going to go downstairs to play hockey, and Jesus is going to be the goalie. I love it! Of cou...

Being a mother of two toddlers, I am not as "experienced" a mother as many. I would like to know what I have to look forward to - or if I am living the dream right now. So my question for more "experienced" mothers (or fathers) is this: As a parent, what is/has been your favorite age? Please see the sidebar between now and March 1 to answer or to check the results, and feel free to add any comments under this post! Thanks, and happy voting! Kim

Our story is still being written. A year and a half later, our boys are 3 1/2 and 2 years old and keep us running. I am working for a wonderful company 4 days per week and enjoying one day per week and weekends home with my family. My husband has shown an interest in business and went back to school at a local university, working toward his Bachelor's degree. I have done some writing and have found I rarely feel more alive than with a paper and pen, in prayer. Writing in this blog is really the first time I have written for anyone besides myself, and I put this and all my writing in God's hands, that He may do with it as He pleases. I wish I could say everything is continuing to fall into place as easily as it did as God was directing our move. We, like all people, have our difficulties, and I still struggle with surrendering to God. But we have no doubt He is with us and directing us, and we have no doubt He has led us here for a reason. Learning to fully trust in God...

Andy began to look for work in the [small town] area. At first, we assumed he would be the one to work. I had always told him that if we were ever to move, I would stay home with our children. Andy looked but could not find work near [small town]. Maybe God is closing the door on this move, I thought. I had not even considered the idea that I may have to work. One week later, a letter came in the mail. As a physical therapist, I get almost daily mail seeking therapists to fill job openings. Usually, I look at them out of curiosity and then promptly discard them. But this one was different. This one was from a large, expanding Catholic organization in the Stevens Point area, calling therapists to “explore the back roads of your community” and to “bring strong Christian values and compassion to the people you serve.” It was a home health agency. “I could do this,” I told Andy, as I stood at the entrance of the living room, reading it over. ...

Giving it to God: How My Complete Surrender Gave Me the Freedom I Yearned For “Kim, you have to get home.” I had just come out of my counselor’s office and was sitting in my car, praying, when my phone rang. “Why? What’s going on?” I was concerned. The serious tone in my husband’s voice was obvious. “Everything’s caving in,” he explained. Both of us had been feeling depressed, crushed by the ins and outs of daily life, tired of the rush and hurry of our lives and the get-ahead mentality. Like many people, we needed to slow down. We were both working and raising two boys, ages 4 months and 20 months, and I was suffering with postpartum depression. City life was not for Andy, my husband of nearly three years, and he believed it wasn’t good for me either, that I would also feel better in a slower, less hurried environment. I rushed home. “We need to get out of here,” he said as I walked into the living room where he was ...

While I am not a writer or a theologian by training, I am a writer in that I love to write and rarely feel more alive than when I do write. And I am a theologian in that I love to study about God and to pray. I am one of those crazy people that learn the most through writing, especially when that writing is done in prayer and contemplation. And I feel that God has placed the desire to learn about Him and the desire to write on my heart. I hope that He will bless my efforts to praise Him through the use of the gifts He has given me and that He will help me to develop those gifts through their continued use so that I am able to give Him all the more glory. I am also not a counselor or a psychologist, but I do have some first hand knowledge of depression and anxiety and have learned much about both through experience. I have learned that depression and anxiety can be seen as an opportunity to fall on the grace of God, to learn to trust Him, and to allow ourselves to be drawn closer t...

Mary, I wish to consecrate the writing I do in this blog to you and to your Immaculate Heart, and through you to your Son, Jesus, and His Sacred Heart, for the GLORY OF OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN. Please pray for me and my project and guide my hand as I write.