Renewed, restructured, repurposed...

...recycled, re-invited, revised...what more comes to mind? At the end of last school year, I responded "Yes" to an invitation to attend a one-day (Saturday) Catholic Charismatic Conference, here in suburban Atlanta. It was a day dedicated to "praise and teaching." My heart and mind were renewed. I was taught in a very special way, hard to articulate for me, even with two university degrees (was graduated in 1989 from Brown University, B.A. with Honors; and, again, in 1992, from Vanderbilt University, M.A. with Honors.) that God's Wisdom is truly not human wisdom. I have been thinking and praying lately that I desire and need the Holy Spirit to guide my steps, as we enter in to a new school year. Our children are 15, 13 and 10.

I am a wife and mother. Thanks be to God and to my faithful husband, I have, throughout most of my almost 17 years of marriage been a stay-at-home wife and mother. We began homeschooling 6 years ago and this little work has done so much to enrich our life of faith and grace, within the arms of Mother Church. We try hard to ask God to increase our faith, hope and love. We often fall short and are very human ("in the flesh" as one dear sister in Christ recently expressed to me). His grace is surely enough, and that is an awesome reality indeed. Alleluia!

I enjoy looking at the odds and ends around our house, garage and yard, especially our eclectic mix of furniture, and see how we can move things around, paint something, or use some thing or some place in our home for something a little fresher, a little different from what or where it has been. I think our awesome God, in His infinite creativity, often looks at our lives that way. He is inviting us to change. We know this.

If we set about to plan our daily lives -- daily, weekly, monthly...into retirement-- without Him and the Spirit of God, we will surely "poop out" and find ourselves exhausted and depleted. This has happened to "me and mine" on several occasions. On the other hand, we must turn to his holy mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and hear the Words of her Spouse, "Repent and believe the good news!" The Sacrament of Penance saves us over and over and keeps us humble, secure and free.

This summer 2011, I have been hearing God tell me to turn to Him, to wait on the Lord and let Him fill me with His grace and purpose FIRST, then I can "go out and make disciples of all the nations." Here is the big news that is big and little, at the same time:

We wives and moms are called to make these disciples first and foremost in our homes among brother husband and sister daughter. Among brother son. Among brother dog and sister cat. If I may add, with a bit of reverant humor, among brother dust and sister laundry!

I am off to do some cooking and to pray a morning offering with our son. I hope and pray for renewal in Mother Church, starting with one domestic church at a time.

Please, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary, renew this wife and mother's heart. Bring my heart between your Holy Hearts and make a "heart sandwich". I want my heart to be completely consumed by the fires of Divine Love, so that all evils will be conquered, especially those evils that hatch so close to home through the internet, salacious advertising and music, and general concupiscence. May Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Holy Will be Done in us, as persons and as families, now and throughout all eternity. Amen.