Tag: Tiny Revelations

OPEN BOOK--What I'm Reading Now

It is Better to Receive

marybethweisenburger

Sometimes, especially when it comes to God’s love, it’s better to receive than give.

The seed of this *face palm* realization was planted when I read the beautiful book, Thirsting for Prayer by Jacques Philippe. In the chapter where he describes conditions that are necessary for prayer to be fruitful, these words struck me: In our subtle pride, we want to do beautiful things for God instead of trying to find out what God wants to do for us gratuitously.  *Gulp*.  I recognized myself in that sentence.  I am often so caught up in my intention to do something for God that I forget to focus on the prerequisite requirement of loving and being loved by Him fully. “Merit does not consist of doing or giving a lot, but rather of receiving and loving a lot,” said St. Therese of Lisieux. Tricky!

It’s about love, the Holy Spirit reminded me. Specifically, God’s love for me and how I need to let that, first and foremost, be the compelling force behind my relationship with him and behind any works that result. But I have to let Him love me first. Let it, I felt God saying to my heart one morning while prayer journaling about the Thirsting for Prayer book. Let love come in. Allow it. Receive it. Let LOVE enter, and let LOVE be the guide for my actions. I can’t go charging ahead without it.  It can be prideful to keep asking “what can I do for you?” Father Jacques pointed out. Instead, my phrasing should be a more humble, “Please open me so that you can love and work through me, with me and for me.” It’s a subtle difference, but one with great implication.

God is faith, hope, love. He is a generous giver. He wants to give me an abundance of faith, hope and love through prayer and the sacraments and scripture.

And receiving it is priority No. 1 for those of us Thirsting for Prayer!

Tiny Revelations

Happy Homemaking

marybethweisenburger

I’ve been a marketing director, a college professor, a physician recruiter and a Sunday morning disc jockey.  I’ve made presentations on Wall Street, conducted interviews on Capitol Hill and started my own business. I am a magazine editor, a family humor columnist and the author of two books.

But here’s the thing: None of these accomplishments or titles matter, and I know it.

What has mattered, really mattered, in my life are my titles of wife, mom and homemaker. After “Catholic Christian,” these titles are the most meaningful to me. They are my vocation.

It took me a while to figure that out.  When I was in college in the early 1980s I was influenced by the radical feminists of the era who chanted in the background of my life to break the glass ceiling and strive for success as an independent career woman. Family and marital life was not considered a priority, or worse, it was discouraged. I drank some of that Kool-Aid, even though I didn’t really like the taste. Something seemed off with this philosophy, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I put myself through college and scrabbled for a job opportunity when I graduated, eager to launch a high-flying career in the communications field.

But there was a catch. A 6-foot-3-inch catch, to be exact. My tall, dark and handsome boyfriend swept me off my feet and I found myself walking down the aisle of a beautiful Catholic church before I could say Helen Gurley Brown. I loved this man. And that love compelled me to have a family with him. And then love for that family compelled me to be a homemaker.

The term “domestic church” was unfamiliar to me back then, but somehow I felt its pull and tug anyway. (thanks, Holy Spirit!). I wanted our home to be a respite for my husband and my kids—a place of peace, love and stability, where God could dwell and make himself evident. Was this always the case over the 30 years I’ve been a wife and mom? Um, no. Often it was the complete opposite. The struggle is real! But that did not stop my intention to make it so. To home-make was one of the strongest inner desires I had ever felt. And I believe it to be a holy desire, inspired by the God who created us to live out this very role. Homemaking, I discovered, is an important part of my vocational commitment. Slowly but surely, I gave up the lure of the feminist propaganda given to me by the culture, for the surety of the pure feminine genius given to me by God. I became a homemaker. And I liked it.

My homemaking was not focused on cleaning and organizing. Instead, it included intentional decisions to create a serene and welcoming environment. We wanted lots of natural light pouring in from big windows. Our décor was informal and kick-your-shoes-off inviting—no white carpet and no fussy, off-limit areas. We had Mozart on the stereo, fluffy pillows and cozy blankets on the couches, fresh vegetables and bright flowers from the garden. We read books together and ate supper at the table almost every night, even if the fare was from a box or a can. We had multiple pets, we played outside often and we created a space in the basement for teenagers to hang out on the weekends. We laughed a lot, had joke-telling and story-telling challenges, and celebrated special events with gusto.   And there was a continual flow of guests into our home (over the years, I honed my introverted/underdeveloped hospitality skills and got over the concern of a supposed not-clean-enough-for-guests home). We also prayed together.

We didn’t get it right all the time. We still argued, got stressed and took out our frustrations on each other. There were slammed doors and tears and words of regret. But there was also forgiveness and mercy and compassion. And life lessons that could be taught nowhere else but in this domestic church.

I realized we did at least a little something right when my 27-year-old son recently mentioned to me how he always loved our home: being home and returning home. He wasn’t talking about the bricks and mortar of our house. He was talking about growing up in a home surrounded by a sense of being guided and nurtured and cared for. A home his parents designed and maintained with family life in mind. He physically, emotionally and spiritually benefited from intentional homemaking. We all do.

Far from my attitude 35 years ago, I now assert that we wives and mothers have a right and a responsibility to our families to home-make in ways that have eternal value and influence. It’s a gift particularly endowed on us women and we should not deny or suppress it.  We are made for this!

So when the time comes to write my obituary, I will set aside all my worldly accomplishments. I will say instead that I was most thankful for the gift of being a Child of God.  And most honored and fulfilled by my vocation as a wife, mother… and happy homemaker.

What about you—are you a happy homemaker? What do you do to create your own domestic church?

Catholic Sistas Post

Learning to Be a Better Pencil

marybethweisenburger

I’ve done it for years. Decades, really. I’ve made lists. You know the kind— where you write down all the tasks you need to accomplish as a wife, mom, employee, homemaker, all of the above? I actually got pretty good at it over time. I use a business system to help me track and organize my various to-do’s. I create weekly and monthly goals that connect to my daily planner. And once, in a highly creative but mercifully short-lived phase, I color-coded my list according to priority. Yep, that’s me: A list-maker supreme.

So it only came naturally to me when I reverted to the Catholic faith five years ago to approach my spiritual growth in the same structured manner. Soon I found myself making a list of books I wanted to read, jotting down virtues I wanted to explore and develop, and later, noting elements of the faith I wanted to re-learn (better this time). And I made prayer intention lists— lots of prayer intention lists. But more recently I began penning things I thought the Holy Spirit was nudging me to explore— in particular, ways I could maybe help build the kingdom using the talents and gifts He’s given me.

Sometimes the spiritual list-making worked. I checked off several important milestones in my faith life and I felt like I had accomplished some significant goals. But then…

Read the rest of my post over at CATHOLIC SISTAS  here.

Prayer Journal Pondering

Make Room, Make Haste, Make Holy

marybethweisenburger

I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for two weeks. After all, January is almost over and it’s my New Year’s Resolution. But I just couldn’t seem to get the words from my brain to the Word document with all the other things going on. Perhaps I should have put “Be More Organized” on my resolution list this year!

This resolution, or more accurately, this phrase, came about through the process of prayer journaling (surprise, surprise!). The first segment—Make Room—came to me during Eucharistic Adoration in late December. I was pondering what the Holy Spirit would have me do next, specifically in 2018, and this thought popped into my head: Make Room. Make room for what? I wondered. I worked through the possible meanings over the next week and ended up with several thoughts: I need to make room in my schedule—that’s a little challenging but can be done. I need to make room for discipleship and kingdom-building opportunities. Makes sense. And I need to make room in my heart for the Holy Spirit to move. Hmmmm, that one’s slightly intimidating. But I am committed to praying for the Holy Spirit to come into my heart and clean house to make room for amazing things in 2018.

Make Haste entered into the mix when I was reading about the wise men and the shepherds in the fields who heard about the birth of Jesus and made haste to go find him. They didn’t doubt, they didn’t question, they didn’t ruminate—they dropped what they were doing and they made haste.  According to one of my previous bosses, instead of a “Ready, Aim, Fire” person, I can be more of a “Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim” person.  Guilty as charged (although I did defend myself by saying that at least I wasn’t a “Ready, Fire, Aim” person). Admittedly, I love the idea generation phase of a project, but I get bogged down in the execution. I second-guess. I want more time to test. I need to go over things with a fine-tooth comb one more time. I hesitate to pull the trigger. Yea, if I was one of the shepherds, I would still be sitting on a rock contemplating the pros and cons of heading into Bethlehem, and wondering if I really did see angels singing, while my fellow shepherds would already be gazing into the glory of the manger. I don’t make haste. But my new saint friend, Catherine of Siena, has been getting under my skin with her quote, “Start being brave about everything.” So when an opportunity presents itself in 2018, I plan to be brave and jump on it.

And finally, there’s Make Holy, a phrase that popped into my head at the precise moment when the priest at Mass was saying, “Make holy these gifts…” It’s kind of the cherry on top of the resolution ice cream sundae. Make Holy is a way, as St. Francis de Sales says, to Live Today Well. It means elevating my everyday acts and encounters to a holy level. To offer up my entire day to God, so he can sanctify the situations and sanctify me and take my meager offerings and make something holy out of them. Cue the Little Way of St. Therese: Doing dishes can be made holy. Getting groceries can be made holy. Making phone calls can be made holy. I don’t have to accomplish anything newsworthy—I can know, instead, that when God adds his grace to my everyday actions, they can be made holy. I just need to ask.

So there you have it.  In 2018, I hope and pray to Make Room, Make Haste and Make Holy.

Oh, and maybe become better organized while I’m at it…

Praying with a Pen

The Luxury of a Look-back

marybethweisenburger

One of the true advantages and joys of prayer journaling is the ability to look back through your journal pages and see how God has been at work in your life. It’s a consolation, an encouragement and an inspiration to keep moving ahead with your spiritual life! By marking your lessons and insights and realizations (I call them Holy Whispers or even Holy Moly Moments) in your prayer journal, you can easily return to them and recall how God loved you through a difficult phase. Here’s how I (and others) explain it in Praying with a Pen:

“…Don’t let my excitement over Holy Whispers and Holy Moly Moments received in prayer journaling give you the impression that I get these experiences all the time, every day and with the same constant pace that dirty laundry piles up in the laundry room. I don’t. The examples I’ve shared in this book have come to me over the course of many years. I am not a mystic or a saint or even someone who feels extra close to God all day, every day. I am a passenger on the struggle bus, just like you. I am someone who has gotten much better at being quiet and listening, thanks to prayer journaling. But I have a long way to go. In fact, most of the time when I figure out something significant, I want to shake my head and say, Duh, Mary Beth! How could you have not realized this before? And I often go days or weeks without feeling I’m making any progress at all. But that’s another reason to prayer journal and mark your “moments”—when you feel like you are going through a time of spiritual dryness, you can open your past notebooks and smile and have renewed hope and faith. You will know that you are drawing nearer, daughter of a King, one page at a time.

St. Augustine is quoted, “God loves each of us as if there was only one of us.” This means the Holy Whispers you receive will be different from my Holy Whispers, and your Holy Moly Moments will be different from my Holy Moly Moments. God will speak to you in your own language. “If I sense something from the Lord, I write that down,” says Debbie Guardino. “The more you pray, the more comfortable you are in knowing whether it’s the Lord’s voice you hear. The Lord is never speaking above my head in prayer journaling.”

You will want to track those unique-to-you whispers and moments so you will be able to appreciate your steady spiritual growth and progress. I had always known God’s hand was at work in my life, but when I began to track my spiritual growth and insights through my journal pages, I was floored. I could clearly see that grace was changing me, that prayers were indeed answered, that I felt greater peace despite any upheaval that was going on in my life at the time.

Prayer journaling will help you see what God is doing in your life, too, if you learn to mark your moments. Adriene, Jackie and Debbie have all seen the benefits of tracking and reviewing their journal entries. “It is so wonderful to look back at past entries—I can see just what God was showing me during all seasons of my life,” said Adriene. “One of the best things about journaling is it allows me to trace God’s hand of faithfulness,” Jackie said. “When I feel like God isn’t hearing me, I can go back in my journal and see where God has been faithful even though he didn’t answer my prayers like I thought they should be answered (Ha—why do we think we know better than God?).” Debbie adds, “I rely on looking back on my previous prayer journaling experiences when things are difficult: ‘You did hear me and you answered!’”

My friends–mark your prayer journaling “AHA!” moments so you can have the luxury of a look-back!

 

Prayer Journal Pondering

Forward in Faith

marybethweisenburger

Wowza, is this world a hot mess right now.  Violence in our schools, deadly mass shootings, incredible natural disasters, government scandals and corruption—and that’s just on the national scale. Every day it seems we are faced with some new challenge in our own little worlds too: Challenges to our belief in goodness, our belief in humanity, and even our belief in a loving, ever-present God.

In one week in October, we had two deaths in our family. One was a long life well-lived, yet still came as a surprise. The other was a life sadly cut short, but was anticipated after a five-year bout with cancer.  I’m the first to admit it’s hard to make sense of it all.

In times like these I turn to an encouraging phrase that came together for me one morning in prayer journaling.  After reading the day’s gospel about Peter who tries to walk across the water to meet Jesus and then takes his eyes off Jesus and starts to sink, I wrote, Move forward in faith. Not just move forward, passing through the tragedies and the illnesses and the unfortunate events we are forced to deal with. There are millions in this world who simply move forward. The trick is moving forward in faith.  Not turning away from God, or being paralyzed by fear, or losing hope, but letting Jesus accompany us through our grief and confusion, allowing him to fight our battles with the evil one, and inviting him in to tend to our physical, emotional and spiritual needs.  Moving forward in faith means keeping our eyes on Jesus as we attempt to sort out and sift through life’s chaos. It’ the only guarantee we have against outright sinking.

Forward in Faith has helped me hand off my adult son to God this year, when the mom in me was desperately trying to hang on to my role (can anyone else relate??).  Forward in Faith has helped me leave a close-to-my-heart, part-time job behind as I make room for better things. And Forward in Faith has helped me slog through the grieving process and comfort others along the way.

I wrote this a few pages later in my prayer journal:

Jesus, you tell me: “Take courage, It is I. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I love you and you are mine.” So… Forward in Faith we will go together. Help me to be unafraid and always willing to move forward in faith with you.

Don’t try to go it alone, girlfriends. Focus on Jesus and go Forward in Faith!

 

Prayer Journal Pondering

Green Bean Benevolence

marybethweisenburger

“Make sure you take time to connect with the people you’re working for,” our parish priest advised us as we prepared to depart for our home improvement mission work deep in the hollers of Kentucky. We had our project lists in hand, our tools at the ready and our trucks loaded with supplies. All 22 of us were eager to dive in to the manual labor required over the next five days. But our pastor wisely counseled us to put down our hammers and paintbrushes and invest in the relationships with the homeowners we were serving as well.

That advice paid off for me. In green beans.

Head on over to Catholic Sistas to read the rest of the story here.

Prayer Journal Pondering

False Crawls

marybethweisenburger

Question: What can live for up to 100 years, is known to be harmless to humans and moves no faster than 1 mph but can still scare the living daylights out of a grown woman who comes face-to-face with one? Answer: A sea turtle. Years ago, I was snorkeling in Hanauma Bay in Oahu while on an anniversary trip with my husband when I turned my head away from some lovely circus-colored coral and straight into the snout of a gigundous Loggerhead turtle. Even though I do believe he was just as surprised as I was to make up-close underwater eye contact, it was me (the supposedly grown woman) who let out a garbled, high-pitched scream through my snorkel and made a hasty, comically uncoordinated retreat.

Head on over to Catholic Sistas to read the rest of this Prayer Journal Pondering!

Prayer Journal Pondering

A Magnificat New Year

marybethweisenburger

My palms were sweating like crazy. It was only my second attempt at the Sacrament of Reconciliation since returning to the Catholic Church after a 25-year hiatus. I stood in line at an unfamiliar church with unfamiliar people in order to sit across from an unfamiliar priest and confess my sins and struggles. Somehow I suppressed my overwhelming desire to turn tail and run, if only because I was concerned that my new boots would slip on the marble floor and I would end up doing ungainly splits in front of an imposing statue of Saint Joseph. This was not on my life bucket list. So I imagined myself breathing into a brown paper bag to calm down and I stepped into the confessional area.

Sisters, am I glad I did.

Read the rest of this post over at Catholic Sistas!

Tiny Revelations

Don’t Taste It!

marybethweisenburger

Every once in a while, a television commercial truly entertains me. Instead of fast-forwarding past it (or, more accurately, having my hubby fast-forward past it), I want to watch and enjoy it. Mostly, it’s been the insurance company commercials that make me hit the pause button and giggle. The “Mayhem” commercials influenced me enough that I named our adopted hyperactive/unpredictable/destructive stray kitten after the character. The “Jake from State Farm” commercials spawned Halloween costumes for my husband and me—he being Jake with the red shirt, name tag and, of course, khakis, and me as the suspicious wife in my robe with a phone in my hand. And I cannot get enough of the synchronized swimming dogs in the Farmers Insurance commercials. They just crack me up.

My current pause-worthy commercial is from Geico. It features a bevy of raccoons feasting on leftovers in a dumpster and having a very human-like conversation about whatever is tickling—or terrorizing— their taste buds.  “Oh man, this is terrible. Try this. It’s awful,” one raccoon says to his buddy. “It’s like mango, chutney… and burnt hair.”

I laugh out loud every time.  Isn’t it so true that when we taste something bad, we want others to experience it too? I did it just the other day at a restaurant in a city known for its foul tap water. “Ugh! This water tastes like gravel,” I told my husband. “Taste it!” He didn’t fall for it. In fact, rarely does anyone over the age of 8 ever fall for this request. So why do we even bother asking?

I think it’s because we humans like shared experiences. We want affirmation, we want a co-experiencer, we want to pull someone else in so we can revel in mutual disgust! It’s much more fun to lament in a group than to complain or criticize in private.  And it’s harmless…as long as the subject matter is harmless. Bad water, spoiled food: harmless. Talking about people: not so much.

When the subject is people, girlfriends, that’s when we can get into trouble. It’s a slippery slope. We can be tempted to gossip, slander and tear down. Did we have a poor customer service experience in a store? We want to plaster it all over Facebook. Did someone disappoint us? We are drawn to tell others in our circle all about it. Did a co-worker make a mistake? We can’t wait to let others know about it at lunch. We want them to “taste it” too, whatever “it” is. This is a bad habit to get into–one that has eternal consequences. We can’t fall for it, friends! As Saint Paul warns the Ephesians in 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” When you are tempted, or when you are in a group that is giving in to the temptation to gossip, slander or tear down, take action: Say a prayer, tame your tongue, change the subject, walk away. Don’t taste it! It’s worse than gravel and burnt hair—it’s sin.

We (me included as a repeat offender) need to put a clamp on this kind of “sharing.” Proverbs 11:13 teaches us: “Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered,” So…let’s not reveal secrets. Let’s be trustworthy. Let’s vow to keep a lid on the destructive talk. When the subject is a puzzled palate, go ahead—invite others to taste it! It’s all in fun. But when the subject is people, let’s keep it covered, build each other up and give only grace to those who hear!  Deal? Deal.

And we can all just keep on wondering what mango, chutney and burnt hair tastes like…