My Living Space
alec vanderboom
Dancing to Pandora in our living room on a Saturday Night. I love having a big family because its so easy to start a party. Just turn the music on and start dancing with your husband. Soon you'll draw a crowd!
Alcove
Honesty
alec vanderboom
Just wanted to share my lack of filing skills. I have such a brain freeze about filing. Everything that is "important" that comes into the mail goes in a special green box. Then after 2 months I have to dump it out and file it. Only, that task seriously takes me hours. This was waiting for me on my dining room table when I woke up on Friday morning.
This is why pretty hair is so important in a woman's life. When I look pretty (and I'm in my sunny pink dining room) I have so much more patience with myself during difficult and unpleasant tasks.
Dump the Frump--Hair Scarf
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My copy of the Rosie look. It was pretty but didn't stay up for more than 2 hours. I think I need those special hair clip things.
Dump the Frump--Pretty Hair Day 3
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Dump the Frump--My Pretty Hair Look
alec vanderboom
This is my normal pretty hair look. First, I want to thank Kaitlin. Because until I started following her directions on how to take care of my daughter's corkscrew curls, I had no idea that I HAD BEAUTIFUL CURLY HAIR. Seriously, it's been 37 years of hating my hair. I thought I had messy wavy hair. I coveted all the straight hair girls with their surgically precise hair cuts. If I put just a little bit of Suave Mousse in my hair after a shower and lit my hair air dry--this is my result. It's like being the Brave Princess--but as a brunette.
Now my challenge is to find a quick "working Mama" hairdo. It actually hurts my curls to pin them up in a pony tail. Yet if I leave them loose like this, I've got a ten month old daughter who loves to painfully yank my hair everytime I pick her up. So I'm thinking, new hairdo with a scarf or something.
Dump the Frump
alec vanderboom
My fellow blogger is having a pre-Valentine's Day "Dump the Frump", anti-pony tail campaign. Instead of the pony tail, my "go to do" is shoving all of my hair into a banana clip. This is my usual look in the morning.
A Cello of Her Own
alec vanderboom
Me and My Cello, playing by the fire with "Date Night Hair" on Friday Night.
A Cello Of Her Own
alec vanderboom
I didn't get to play the cello when I was young. I played the Clarinet. My grandfather paid for my instrument and my lessons starting in the fifth grade. He was a former trombone player in the OSU Marching Band. It was considered a big gift that he paid for my clarinet even though "woodwinds don't play in the OSU Marching Band." Grandpa had the money. Grandpa picked the music program--Band over Orchestra. Even though I didn't want to play in Band, I wanted a cello.
I have no idea why I wasn't allowed to play the cello--or why at age 10, I thought it was so impossible to even ask out loud to play the cello. (My paternal grandmother played the cello, but I didn't learn about that fact until I was almost 20). All I can say is that musical instruments were a messy thing in my family. My maternal grandfather loved his college band. My maternal grandmother played the piano supposedly every day as an adult. Yet my Mother (their only child) was born with a small birth defect on one hand. According to family legend, because she could never play an instrument my grandmother put away her piano and never played again. She didn't want her daughter to feel left out. I don't know if this is true. I just know that my Dad told me that it was true.
So I don't know what really happened at age 10. I just remember being told by my best friend in the fourth grade that she started Orchestra class and I laid down in the gym locker room bench in despair. Orchestra had started without me. It was like this major train had started without me aboard. "How could I have missed it?"
The next year, in fifth grade, I started with Band. I chose the clarinet. I played until my senior year of high school. That was who I was, and I didn't like it.
I remember watching the boys unload their cellos outside of the middle school. Their parents drove them to a special entrance at the back of the school. I watched them gingerly remove their large black cases from the back of a car. "Oh, no one would ever trust me with a cello. They are too valuable." I thought.
I dated a guy who played the cello in seventh grade. I felt pain again when I moved to a new school my freshman year in high school. A new friend mentioned that he played in the Orchestra. "Maybe, I could join too?" I thought hopefully. "No, I already missed that chance. No one has beginner lessons in high school."
Orchestra was just something I missed. Either my parents didn't have money to buy a cello. Or I wasn't assertive enough to ask. Or --what I really thought--I was a klutzy kid who couldn't be trusted with a cello. Cellos are expensive. I'd probably break it--or run out of enthusiasm for it in a few weeks. I was a girl who couldn't be trusted with such a valuable instrument as a cello.
So it was totally, totally crazy that God and my husband got me a cello for Christmas in my 37 year. This was totally a "ship that had sailed." I missed my chance. Who possibly learns how to play a new instrument from scratch as an adult--with FIVE YOUNG CHILDREN in her house?
I remember telling my husband in a panic--what if we spend all this money and then I never use it. He told me with certainty "I trust you! I trust you with a cello." He confidence was a gift to my soul.
So here I am. Six weeks later. I play the cello. I play duets with my husband and I laugh. I make mistakes and I'm patient. I soothe myself after a hard day of mothering. I set a good example of practice and diligence for my children. And oh my goodness--is a musical instrument rental CHEAP. For heavens sake. For the price of inexpensive dinner out--I feel like a Vanderbilt all month long.
I'm never to old to start up a new dream for God.
A Cello Of Her Own
alec vanderboom
Me-the first day I brought my cello home
My Cross
alec vanderboom
I am not normal.
I've faked normal. I've faked competent. I've faked pretty, and quiet, and emotionally sturdy and low-key.
Inside the heart of a 'over-achiever' there is nothing. There is a bland, dull ache of a flat grey sea. Because I felt like nothing, I had to constantly be "doing something."Achievements were once my currency. I collected them like other women collect new shoes. There was always some interesting humanitarian project I was involved in, or some new art flick I wanted to talk about.
I couldn't talk about myself. I didn't know myself.
I couldn't talk about you. I was sort of afraid to have intimacy with you. You might discover that I'm a big fat fraud and reject me.
I couldn't be silent, next to you. Because silence is stillness. Silence is holy.
So I had to talk. I had to talk a lot. I had to talk about some grand-big-gigantically important idea that would mutually engulf the both of us. I had a lot of big ideas. I had a lot of late night chats over steaming cups of coffee.
When I was 25, I stumbled upon the biggest idea of all time--God.
God somehow makes everything very small. Very still. Very intimate.
I know that God cares about what type of linoleum my husband and I chose for our kitchen floor. The Incarnation is that "nitty gritty" about all the little details of my life.
Right now, I'm doing some major soul gardening. The little tricks. The little sins. The little lies I tell myself don't work anymore. The little coping tricks are gone. I've cut out getting angry at others as a distraction from my grief. I've cut out over-spending. I've cut out distraction with work, volunteer activities, and busy-body friendships.
It's just me.
When its just me--and not the glittery stuff that distracts me from looking inside myself--I'm finally able to feel. Most of my first feelings are not happy, right now. Most of my first feelings are grief.
It's good, this grief. It's holy. It's healing. It got me to buy a cello--I could tell you exactly how I felt in the 4th grade when I learned that Orchestra Class had started without me. The tears that I cry are little hidden pieces of me that are coming back up to the surface.
I wish this wasn't the place where I am at age 38, while I'm the CFO of a small nation of little ones. But my cross is my cross. I didn't choose it. I can only choose to carry it well.
I didn't get to cry at 4. I didn't get to cry at 14 or 18. When I was 20, I flew off the handle into some mortal sin and lost my connection to the Holy Spirit. At 25, I came back to God in humility. At 28, I entered the Catholic Church.
Ten years. It's taken ten year to get down to this level of vulnerability to say to God "Do you really love me for me alone? And not for what I can do for you?"
He keeps saying yes! He gave me a cello. He gave me fresh Madelines I now bake from our oven. He gave me a husband who rubs my head and tells me I'm gorgeous in little notes on our breakfast table. "In the midst of my affliction, my cup overflowth."
I think the hardest thing about stay-at-home motherhood is the mental cross. It's not the pregnancy. It's not the nursing. It's the nakedness of being alone with the Infant Jesus, day in and day out--no distractions. No award dinners. No funny jokes with co-workers around the water cooler. Day in, day out. Intimacy with God.
I've faked normal. I've faked competent. I've faked pretty, and quiet, and emotionally sturdy and low-key.
Inside the heart of a 'over-achiever' there is nothing. There is a bland, dull ache of a flat grey sea. Because I felt like nothing, I had to constantly be "doing something."Achievements were once my currency. I collected them like other women collect new shoes. There was always some interesting humanitarian project I was involved in, or some new art flick I wanted to talk about.
I couldn't talk about myself. I didn't know myself.
I couldn't talk about you. I was sort of afraid to have intimacy with you. You might discover that I'm a big fat fraud and reject me.
I couldn't be silent, next to you. Because silence is stillness. Silence is holy.
So I had to talk. I had to talk a lot. I had to talk about some grand-big-gigantically important idea that would mutually engulf the both of us. I had a lot of big ideas. I had a lot of late night chats over steaming cups of coffee.
When I was 25, I stumbled upon the biggest idea of all time--God.
God somehow makes everything very small. Very still. Very intimate.
I know that God cares about what type of linoleum my husband and I chose for our kitchen floor. The Incarnation is that "nitty gritty" about all the little details of my life.
Right now, I'm doing some major soul gardening. The little tricks. The little sins. The little lies I tell myself don't work anymore. The little coping tricks are gone. I've cut out getting angry at others as a distraction from my grief. I've cut out over-spending. I've cut out distraction with work, volunteer activities, and busy-body friendships.
It's just me.
When its just me--and not the glittery stuff that distracts me from looking inside myself--I'm finally able to feel. Most of my first feelings are not happy, right now. Most of my first feelings are grief.
It's good, this grief. It's holy. It's healing. It got me to buy a cello--I could tell you exactly how I felt in the 4th grade when I learned that Orchestra Class had started without me. The tears that I cry are little hidden pieces of me that are coming back up to the surface.
I wish this wasn't the place where I am at age 38, while I'm the CFO of a small nation of little ones. But my cross is my cross. I didn't choose it. I can only choose to carry it well.
I didn't get to cry at 4. I didn't get to cry at 14 or 18. When I was 20, I flew off the handle into some mortal sin and lost my connection to the Holy Spirit. At 25, I came back to God in humility. At 28, I entered the Catholic Church.
Ten years. It's taken ten year to get down to this level of vulnerability to say to God "Do you really love me for me alone? And not for what I can do for you?"
He keeps saying yes! He gave me a cello. He gave me fresh Madelines I now bake from our oven. He gave me a husband who rubs my head and tells me I'm gorgeous in little notes on our breakfast table. "In the midst of my affliction, my cup overflowth."
I think the hardest thing about stay-at-home motherhood is the mental cross. It's not the pregnancy. It's not the nursing. It's the nakedness of being alone with the Infant Jesus, day in and day out--no distractions. No award dinners. No funny jokes with co-workers around the water cooler. Day in, day out. Intimacy with God.
The Collapse
alec vanderboom
Do you have it? Have you felt it? The little dig. The little pinprick that lets all the air out of your self esteem balloon. The little interchange that leaves you flat and useless for the rest of the day.
AHHH! I'm going to STOP beating myself up for being weak. I read a passage where Jesus cures that demonic --you know the guy where Jesus sends all of his demons into a swine herd of pigs? So lets call him the "pig guy" for simplicity's sake. Okay, before the pig guy got cured--he used break free from metal chains, ran around a graveyard, and bashed his body with stones.
Yeah. So change that scenario to "figuratively" hits her body with stones, instead of "literally" (see I'm learning correct grammar from you Miss Leila) and that is me. I hit a patch of bad mental ice and rather than quickly correct, I walk around saying "I'm so stupid. I'm so weak. Normal Mothers don't do this!"
Last night, I got a tension head ache after three different women in my life emailed complicated instructions regarding Girl Scout Cookie Sales. A Normal Mom might not have been emotionally knocked out by a few email exchanges. But for me, I had a tension headache by 5 PM. I abandoned the field after dinner, crawled into bed, drank lots of foul tasting Gatoraide, and asked my husband to rub my neck while he read Sir Arther Coyle's Sherlock Holmes out loud.
I am in recovery. I'm not going to beat myself up. Instead, I'm going to reframe last night as a mental health victory. I finished dinner! Big deal! I didn't not take out my emotional pain by yelling at my husband or my five children--Bigger Deal! I exhibited self-care, by asking affirmatively for what I needed and showering myself with love. Yes! I skipped a Girl Scout Meeting when it appeared that my headache was not disappearing with medicine. Hurrah for getting over my "must have perfect attendance" guilt.
Now today's task is to not bash my head in with stones by saying "I'm so stupid and weak to be thrown off by a few emails." Today's task is to think " I am what I am" and God's grace is all that I need.
AHHH! I'm going to STOP beating myself up for being weak. I read a passage where Jesus cures that demonic --you know the guy where Jesus sends all of his demons into a swine herd of pigs? So lets call him the "pig guy" for simplicity's sake. Okay, before the pig guy got cured--he used break free from metal chains, ran around a graveyard, and bashed his body with stones.
Yeah. So change that scenario to "figuratively" hits her body with stones, instead of "literally" (see I'm learning correct grammar from you Miss Leila) and that is me. I hit a patch of bad mental ice and rather than quickly correct, I walk around saying "I'm so stupid. I'm so weak. Normal Mothers don't do this!"
Last night, I got a tension head ache after three different women in my life emailed complicated instructions regarding Girl Scout Cookie Sales. A Normal Mom might not have been emotionally knocked out by a few email exchanges. But for me, I had a tension headache by 5 PM. I abandoned the field after dinner, crawled into bed, drank lots of foul tasting Gatoraide, and asked my husband to rub my neck while he read Sir Arther Coyle's Sherlock Holmes out loud.
I am in recovery. I'm not going to beat myself up. Instead, I'm going to reframe last night as a mental health victory. I finished dinner! Big deal! I didn't not take out my emotional pain by yelling at my husband or my five children--Bigger Deal! I exhibited self-care, by asking affirmatively for what I needed and showering myself with love. Yes! I skipped a Girl Scout Meeting when it appeared that my headache was not disappearing with medicine. Hurrah for getting over my "must have perfect attendance" guilt.
Now today's task is to not bash my head in with stones by saying "I'm so stupid and weak to be thrown off by a few emails." Today's task is to think " I am what I am" and God's grace is all that I need.
Don't Get Discouraged Today
alec vanderboom
So it's the 15th. Thanks to some kind of evaporation in our tax code my husband's paycheck shrunk by $160 per month. I'm sure many of my readers are in similar situations.
Here's my comment on Facebook this morning:
"Mr Obama. It's the 15th. Our paycheck went down $80. That's $160 less per month for my middle class family of 7. Guess we'll just stop buying hay for the Polo Ponies we have in the backyard."
I'm encouraging myself to NOT PANIC. God is trustworthy. I've not gotten this far down the poverty rabbit hole without seeing major help come from unexpected quarters. God is in charge. Our health insurance rates are rising in February. The credit card balance needs to be paid off from Christmas. The girls and I still need new shoes.
Today, however, we are okay. It's Widow who fed Elijah during a famine time. My job is to make a good dinner tonight for my husband. Love on my kids. Maybe smile at a growling neighbor. If I'm smooth and happy inside, Jesus has more room to work in my life.
Housewifery is more than snags in the household budget. It's giving love. Receiving love. Praying to Mary in my heart while doing her little tasks with my hand.
"The Lord gives, The Lord Takes Away. In All Things, Bless the Lord's Holy Name." (Job, I think)
Here's my comment on Facebook this morning:
"Mr Obama. It's the 15th. Our paycheck went down $80. That's $160 less per month for my middle class family of 7. Guess we'll just stop buying hay for the Polo Ponies we have in the backyard."
I'm encouraging myself to NOT PANIC. God is trustworthy. I've not gotten this far down the poverty rabbit hole without seeing major help come from unexpected quarters. God is in charge. Our health insurance rates are rising in February. The credit card balance needs to be paid off from Christmas. The girls and I still need new shoes.
Today, however, we are okay. It's Widow who fed Elijah during a famine time. My job is to make a good dinner tonight for my husband. Love on my kids. Maybe smile at a growling neighbor. If I'm smooth and happy inside, Jesus has more room to work in my life.
Housewifery is more than snags in the household budget. It's giving love. Receiving love. Praying to Mary in my heart while doing her little tasks with my hand.
"The Lord gives, The Lord Takes Away. In All Things, Bless the Lord's Holy Name." (Job, I think)
Does my house look like "the little house" now?
alec vanderboom
Jon and I both loved this picture book as kids and now we get to live in "The Little House" as adults!
I'm off to find this house at the bookstore today.
A Face-Lift for My Home!
alec vanderboom
Beautiful!
(Now we've got to remove old white spray paint from porous brick? Ideas? Rubbing Alcohol? Mineral Spirits? )
Old porch
alec vanderboom
This is what Jon took off single handly in a few minutes while I was at Lowes. This is all made out of heavy metal from 1950. I'm pretty sure the angels helped. (Oh and wasps nests were everywhere. Good thing we took this out on a warm day in January)
The Restorer At Work
alec vanderboom
Old Front Porch
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Pregnancy On God's Timeline
alec vanderboom
I'm truly awed by God. I keep having this old secular idea that I want to be "prepared for pregnancy." If things were up to me, I would have moved into a new house. Had some time to unpack. Paint the house. Make some friends. Figured out homeschooling, and grocery shopping, and picked out our church. Gotten my life "squared" before being open to new life.
Instead, I got pregnant with Abigail during our month long moving process. Once I arrived, I had exactly ten days to unpack a family of six, go on my first a Carmelite retreat, and before I came down with my worse case of morning sickness yet. I pretty much spent 9 months on the couch, followed by six months of cradling a young princess who often screamed herself purple with pain from infant reflux. Everything felt horrible. My prayer life felt like me often telling God "Seriously?"
To top it off, I was living in a new home (my first ever non-rental) so many things felt uncomfortable or ugly or vague dangerous. There wasn't any money to fix things up. There wasn't any time. I just wandered around in a sleep deprived haze thinking "things are so messy. I must really be a poor housekeeper or something."
Suddenly, post-Advent--the Lord is what I call "throwing down." All kinds of these horrible, hopeless home improvement projects are getting finished in the blink of an eye. It's amazing. It is so clearly "not us."
On my birthday (Dec 31) I told Jon, instead of going out to eat, I'd like my kitchen painted. We were just going to paint the kitchen. Instead, my husband went to a new store and found vinyl flooring that was on sale for $40--for the entire floor! I went from having a black kitchen floor with that annoying floating tiles that trap dirt in the crevices, to a clean wood-like finish. It's like something went from "poke you in the eye ugly" to beautiful.
While he was preparing the floor, Jon started tugging on this original fixture from 1950--a metal radiator. He broke it. Water started leaking out on our floor. He said in shock "I've ruined your birthday." Usually I get pretty tense at stuff like plumbing leaks, but that day I had supernatural calm. I was just sort of matter of factly said "well, it's 3:30 on New Years Eve. So if we need to call a plumber we better call soon before they are closed for New Years Day."
Long story short, these amazing HVAC people come. They turn off all the heating plumbing stuff in the house. They come at 8 AM on New Years Day to rip out the ugly heater in my kitchen so we can finish the floor. The best part is that now that my husband has watched them remove a radiator from our house--he can removed these ugly things himself.
So Jon has deleted these horrible metal fixtures from my home that I imagined were "immovable." I have more space in my dining room. I have space in my living room.
It's crazy because I would have never justified spending $300 to remove some unused heaters from my home--but it was a plumbing emergency. We had to spend Jon's precious bonus money on removing the heaters. Now, I can't believe what a difference it makes. I have tiny kids and those things just collected dust and clutter. Now it's easy to clean because my home makes "sense." It's finally set up for my individual family.
This weekend, Jon caught "the fever." He took down an ugly iron awning from our front porch. He gave us "curb appeal." He removed this awful never "should have been there" tan pain from the doorway. Now the door columns are white and our shutters are black. I found these crazy pineapple lights on sale for 80% off at Lowes. My husband figured out how to wire electricity so he could install them on our front porch. They are incredible.
Pineapples were a sign of hospitality in Colonial America--now our little brick Cape Cod says "Welcome! Please Come In!" Twenty-eight dollars for the pair and a husband with a few hours of spare time. The results finally say "This is Abigail and Jon's first home!" I feel like a blushing newlywed!
In the end, you've got to trust Him. In my world, I would have fixed up the house first, before the fifth baby. But God keeps telling me --do it as you go! Don't think everything has to be perfect before adding onto your family tree--just add another kid and I'll help you catch up even ahead of where you dream of going.
Instead, I got pregnant with Abigail during our month long moving process. Once I arrived, I had exactly ten days to unpack a family of six, go on my first a Carmelite retreat, and before I came down with my worse case of morning sickness yet. I pretty much spent 9 months on the couch, followed by six months of cradling a young princess who often screamed herself purple with pain from infant reflux. Everything felt horrible. My prayer life felt like me often telling God "Seriously?"
To top it off, I was living in a new home (my first ever non-rental) so many things felt uncomfortable or ugly or vague dangerous. There wasn't any money to fix things up. There wasn't any time. I just wandered around in a sleep deprived haze thinking "things are so messy. I must really be a poor housekeeper or something."
Suddenly, post-Advent--the Lord is what I call "throwing down." All kinds of these horrible, hopeless home improvement projects are getting finished in the blink of an eye. It's amazing. It is so clearly "not us."
On my birthday (Dec 31) I told Jon, instead of going out to eat, I'd like my kitchen painted. We were just going to paint the kitchen. Instead, my husband went to a new store and found vinyl flooring that was on sale for $40--for the entire floor! I went from having a black kitchen floor with that annoying floating tiles that trap dirt in the crevices, to a clean wood-like finish. It's like something went from "poke you in the eye ugly" to beautiful.
While he was preparing the floor, Jon started tugging on this original fixture from 1950--a metal radiator. He broke it. Water started leaking out on our floor. He said in shock "I've ruined your birthday." Usually I get pretty tense at stuff like plumbing leaks, but that day I had supernatural calm. I was just sort of matter of factly said "well, it's 3:30 on New Years Eve. So if we need to call a plumber we better call soon before they are closed for New Years Day."
Long story short, these amazing HVAC people come. They turn off all the heating plumbing stuff in the house. They come at 8 AM on New Years Day to rip out the ugly heater in my kitchen so we can finish the floor. The best part is that now that my husband has watched them remove a radiator from our house--he can removed these ugly things himself.
So Jon has deleted these horrible metal fixtures from my home that I imagined were "immovable." I have more space in my dining room. I have space in my living room.
It's crazy because I would have never justified spending $300 to remove some unused heaters from my home--but it was a plumbing emergency. We had to spend Jon's precious bonus money on removing the heaters. Now, I can't believe what a difference it makes. I have tiny kids and those things just collected dust and clutter. Now it's easy to clean because my home makes "sense." It's finally set up for my individual family.
This weekend, Jon caught "the fever." He took down an ugly iron awning from our front porch. He gave us "curb appeal." He removed this awful never "should have been there" tan pain from the doorway. Now the door columns are white and our shutters are black. I found these crazy pineapple lights on sale for 80% off at Lowes. My husband figured out how to wire electricity so he could install them on our front porch. They are incredible.
Pineapples were a sign of hospitality in Colonial America--now our little brick Cape Cod says "Welcome! Please Come In!" Twenty-eight dollars for the pair and a husband with a few hours of spare time. The results finally say "This is Abigail and Jon's first home!" I feel like a blushing newlywed!
In the end, you've got to trust Him. In my world, I would have fixed up the house first, before the fifth baby. But God keeps telling me --do it as you go! Don't think everything has to be perfect before adding onto your family tree--just add another kid and I'll help you catch up even ahead of where you dream of going.
Comfort for Stay-at-Home Mothers
alec vanderboom
READING
2 Thessalonians 3:10b-13
"Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such person we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right."
(also from the Daily Office)
I used to go through periods of incredible guilt for not earning cash while in my 30s. I mentally called it "not earning my keep." This passage from St. Paul was healing for me: "anyone unwilling to work should not eat." What I took from this--is probably different than how the world views these lines. I feel this is a promise. "When I'm busy doing the Lord's work, I have a right to my Daily Bread." When I'm following the Lord's direction in my life, even if the labor is unpaid and unappreciated by the world, I have a right to eat. He will feed me. I can calmly take money out of my "husband's paycheck"* to buy $2 Sauve Hair Mousse and pay off my student loan.
Oh, and this passage is a great reminder: "be busy! Don't be a busybody!"
*I know now that there is only "our money"in a marriage, not "his" paycheck and "her" paycheck--but that was a secular habit that died hard in my Catholic mind.
2 Thessalonians 3:10b-13
"Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such person we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right."
(also from the Daily Office)
I used to go through periods of incredible guilt for not earning cash while in my 30s. I mentally called it "not earning my keep." This passage from St. Paul was healing for me: "anyone unwilling to work should not eat." What I took from this--is probably different than how the world views these lines. I feel this is a promise. "When I'm busy doing the Lord's work, I have a right to my Daily Bread." When I'm following the Lord's direction in my life, even if the labor is unpaid and unappreciated by the world, I have a right to eat. He will feed me. I can calmly take money out of my "husband's paycheck"* to buy $2 Sauve Hair Mousse and pay off my student loan.
Oh, and this passage is a great reminder: "be busy! Don't be a busybody!"
*I know now that there is only "our money"in a marriage, not "his" paycheck and "her" paycheck--but that was a secular habit that died hard in my Catholic mind.
The Real Goal of Hospitality
alec vanderboom
Those who welcome the Word as the guest of their hearts will have abiding joy.
(prayer from today's Daily Office)
(prayer from today's Daily Office)