The Magazine and Daily Blog of Catholic Living
Faith & Family Live is where everyday moms offer one another inspiration, support, and
encouragement in Catholic living. Anyone grappling with the meaning of life or the cleaning of laundry is
welcome here. Read the blog, check out our magazine, join our community, learn more
about our mission, and come on in! READ MORE
Meet the Faith & Family bloggers. We invite you to join us in encouraging and helping the Faith & Family community grow in faith!
Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is Editorial Director of Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom (Pauline 2005) and Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice and Support for Catholic Living (Pauline 2007). Though she once struggled to separate her life …
Read My Posts
Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and together they are the parents of five lively boys. Besides being a mom, she is also a writer and a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has maintained her personal blog at Testosterhome.net where she …
Read My Posts
Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com, a Catholic web site focusing on the Catholic faith, Catholic parenting and family life, and Catholic cultural topics. Most recently she has authored The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also employed as webmaster for her parish web sites. …
Read My Posts
Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their young children Camilla and Blaise. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site is ABC Family. …
Read My Posts
Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
Read My Posts
Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is the managing editor of Faith & Family magazine. She is (yikes!) an almost 30 year-old, single lady, living in Connecticut with her two cousins in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law …
Read My Posts
Hallie Lord
Hallie Lord married her dashing husband, Dan, in the fall of 2001 (the same year, coincidentally, that she joyfully converted to the Catholic faith). They now happily reside in the deep South with their two energetic boys and two very sassy girls. In her *ample* spare time, Hallie enjoys cheap wine, …
Read My Posts
Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and …
Read My Posts
Sara Fox Peterson
Sara Fox Peterson is the wife of one wonderful man who was (finally!) baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church in 2008 and together they are the parents of four young children. She holds and B.S. in biology and an M.S. in human physiology, both from Georgetown University, and has been …
Read My Posts
coffee talk | advice | discussion | christmas | parenting | family | children | prayer | advent | books | recipes | giveaway | love | podcast | sharing | encouragement | relationships | moms | learning | housekeeping | cleaning | thanksgiving | support | education | marriage | saints | homeschool | babies | nfp | links | school | faith | tips | traditions | couples | fun | gifts | small successes | shopping | art | casual fridays | fertility | laundry | toddlers | food | saints of christmas | humor | career | sex | teens | fashion | videos | time management | pro-life | haiti | faith & family days | video | jesus | super bowl | charity | dinner | cooking | resolutions | style | women | technology | work | magazine | mass | winter | music | celebration | joy | evangelization | new years | pregnancy | modesty | spouse | holidays | television | games | pie | preferences | grace | photos | prizes | husbands | seasons | baking | kids | stories | questions | motherhood | challenges | god | church | wives | football | march for life | mary |
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:03 PM
This evening was not fun.
My husband found out in mid-afternoon that he was going to have to work late. He ended up not leaving the office until more than three hours after his usual time.
The toddler pulled a torch lamp over into a bookshelf, shattering its globe and sending glass shards everywhere.
The baby refused to go to sleep for most of the evening, and by the time he finally crashed out he was so overtired that he and I were both crying in frustration.
When Bryan walked in the door a little before 10:00pm, I nearly collapsed with gratitude.
The times when my husband has to work late are not always this bad. But tonight was. And it brought me a much-needed reminder.
I rely a lot on positive attitude to help me deal with obstacles. If I come across something I can’t change, then I change the way I look at it, change my response to it, until I can accept it.
I like to think of this as a skill that I have.
Then something like tonight comes along: a concatenation of small troubles that, combined together, are enough to throw me off-balance. And no matter how much I try to call on my positive-attitude skills, they’re just not enough.
It’s a wake-up call. It reminds me that those “skills” I have are illusory. I’m not the one who has them. Whenever I am able to meet challenges, it’s because God is pouring out his grace with infinite generosity.
In really tough times like Blaise’s hospitalization earlier this year, I’m forced to pray unceasingly in order to make it from hour to hour. But when things are easier, it feels unnecessary to do that.
Nights like tonight remind me that unceasing prayer is not just an ideal. I might feel like I can manage on my own a lot of the time, but it’s simply not true.
Praise God for grace. Praise God that He is so generous with it. And most of all, praise Him that He continues to give it, even when I’ve been forgetting to ask!
Page 1 of 1 pages
Yes.
“Humility is hindered by self-reliance.”
Our vocations are hand-crafted by OUR Creator for our sanctification, and if I think I’m just going to “muscle” my way through difficulties on my own skills and strength, I’m rather missing the whole point of sanctity, right?
My knees should be a lot more calloused than they are.
Arwen, I wish I could come over and give you a hug!! Thanks for your reminder that at times like this, we should all know where to turn. My boys are older, but I still have nights like yours occasionally and your reminder to pray will be in my mind this week!
I’ve found that the amount of sleep I’ve had is a direct correlation to how I can deal with things. Conversion Diary had a couple of awesome posts on this - here is one on how fear - a lack of trust in God - makes it worse than it is, and here is the parents’ sleep index, which I found to be a riot and pretty true!
As a wife whose husband works several night shifts every month, I can completely sympathize. I often find my self wondering how I will survive the night. I often pray for those who endure this situation for much longer than I; military wives whose husbands have been deployed are often in my thoughts. God give them grace!
By submitting this form, you give Faith And Family Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
Todd and Sarah Palin’s infant son Trig has brought new attention to the frightening fact that 90 percent of children diagnosed prenatally with Down Syndrome are aborted. This tiny baby is bringing new hope to people with Down Syndrome and those who love them. This tiny baby presents a real threat to the culture of death.
Print Blog
Email a Friend