praying the particulars: nursing an older baby

A Prayer for Nursing An Older Baby:

God of nurturing love,

Trying to nurse this squirmy worm of a growing baby has become a daily wrestling match.

Each time we snuggle into the rocking chair together, I grow frustrated with how quick he is to push away, holler in protest, lunge towards anything more interesting than his mother. Long-gone are the sleepy newborn days when he would curl contentedly in my lap. As he begins to crawl, the world is his to explore; he can’t scoot out of my arms quick enough for his curiosity.

Help me to give of myself with love and patience.

Turn my eyes from the clock to my child, from my chronos schedule to your kairos moment. Let me rejoice in his eagerness; let me celebrate his growing. So many adventures await him – let my love for him be a reflection of your great love for us, steady and faithful no matter how far and wide we roam.

Thank you for the gift of nursing him. When my frustrations grow high and my temper grows short, let me remember mothers who wanted to nurse but couldn’t, or who feel guilty because they never tried, or who persevere through painful complications. Transform our anxieties into assurance that every mother’s gift of self is life-giving, sacrificial, enough.

God of goodness, each day you offer everything I need: love, patience, forgiveness. Each day I push away from your embrace in search of what seems more pressing, interesting, important. Help me, too, to rest in your love, to drink in what I need most, to be grateful for the simple ways you sustain my life.

In patience and humor, I pray –

An exasperated mama

praying the particulars

I’m willing to bet that M.D. mamas secretly troll Dr. Google for quick answers to questions about mysterious rashes and childhood ailments.

So I’ll admit that one late night recently found me googling “prayer for stressed-out mother.” (Tsk, tsk – such a poor pastoral response for a mother with a MDiv!) Yet my need was great, my desire to pray was strong, and my ability to form thoughts into words was positively shot. And despite stacks of theological volumes around me, I came up empty-handed for a prayer that spoke to my heart.

I needed someone else’s words.

While I didn’t find exactly what my Google search sought, I was delighted to uncover a treasure I’d never found before – a collection of prayers for mothers from Creighton University’s Online Ministries.

The prayer for working mothers touched my heart (and made me chuckle), but I found myself pausing at prayers that didn’t speak to my life situation. The prayer for a mother with Alzheimer’s is heart-wrenching, as is the beautiful prayer for a mother whose children are no longer at home.

What I appreciate most about these prayers is their particularity. They don’t lump experiences of motherhood into one quick blessing. Instead, each one lifts up a unique aspect of mothering. Far from closing the window to those whose lives don’t match the situation described, the sharpened focus allows prayer to reflect in many directions, like a prism’s light.

Every day perfect strangers find my blog in search of prayer. I see the words that bring them here: prayers for pregnancy, prayers for anxiety and parenting, prayers for childbirth. Sometimes I see desperate words: prayers for unexpected pregnancy, prayers for depression. I wonder if they find anything here that speaks to their need; I wonder if I could do something more to help.

But all I can do is pray my own prayers. From the particular perspective of my life, my questions, my circumstances. And yet finding those prayers for mothering that spoke about Alzheimer’s and adoption and all sorts of situations that don’t reflect my own, I realized the merits of praying the particulars: even if they are not my words, someone else’s story can shed light on my own understanding of the divine.

So I’ve started scribbling down some prayers. Prayers for particular situations that are challenging for my parenting these days. Perhaps they’ll ring true to your struggles. Or perhaps they won’t, but they’ll remind you of someone else. Or another season in your life. Or they’ll simply reflect God’s light through a part of the prism you never noticed before.

What I really hope they’ll do is inspire you to pray the particulars of your own life. Because as interesting as someone else’s words may be, the Word of God inspires each of us to speak words of our own.

So if you’re wondering just why I’ve been so stressed out lately, check back tomorrow for the first in this series. (Here’s a hint: we’re eating lots of pizza for dinner and should have bought stock in Home Depot.) Maybe by the end of the week you’ll have your own particular prayer to share, too…

What part of parenting is challenging for you this week?

an un-mother’s day

You know those years when you just don’t feel like celebrating your birthday?

Such was my attitude toward Mother’s Day this go-round. I was just not all that into it.

My mothering lately has been grumpy, impatient and frazzled. It’s a stressful season of our family’s life, so I’m trying not to take it too seriously. But I still didn’t feel much like celebrating. Even though I believe firmly that Mother’s Day isn’t something we earn, I decided I’d rather have a normal, quiet, low-key Sunday than a Hallmark holiday.

But as I nursed Grinch-like sentiments this past week, the notion of Alice in Wonderland’s un-birthday wryly popped into my head. What would it mean to celebrate an un-Mother’s Day instead of the normal flowers-chocolate-&-brunch festivities?

First I thought it might mean indulging in a day of activities that had absolutely nothing to do with mothering. For example, uninterrupted sleep! Adult conversation! Spa treatments! Wine! Gourmet meals that someone else cooked! Plenty of geographic distance from one’s progeny!

But I realized that is, in fact, the perfect Mother’s Day. And I got it last year. Whoops.

So then I started from a truly unconventional standpoint. What if I spent the day thinking of un-mothers instead?

Un-mothers could be fathers, the paternal yang to the maternal yin. So yesterday I prayed for fathers – for their work outside the home to provide for their families and for their work at home to nurture their children.

Un-mothers could be children, the necessary and opposite other half of the mothering relationship. So I prayed for children who daily seek the love of a mother to help them grow.

Un-mothers could be women who want desperately to have children, those who suffer through infertility, miscarriage and failed adoptions. So I prayed for the women whose hearts break as the years pass, whose stomachs sink when strangers ask questions, whose hands ache to hold a baby.

Un-mothers could be women who have chosen not to have children, those who feel called to different paths. So I prayed for women whose vocations lead them to other nurturing relationships, rewarding work, and life-giving commitments.

Un-mothers could be women who have suffered the loss of a child, whose motherhood has been broken and reshaped by pain and death. So I prayed for women who grieve for their children, who struggle to redefine themselves as mother after loss, who seek to go on living after the life they held closest to their heart has stopped.

Un-mothers could be women who do not want the children they have. So I prayed for women whose motherhood was forced on them, or who made decisions to end their child’s life, or whose deep sorrow and anger at the world causes them to hurt their children.

In the Christian tradition, one way to describe God is the via positiva: what God is like. God is like a mother. Another way to describe God is the via negativa: what God is not like. God is not like a mother.

One way to understand mothering from a spiritual perspective is the via positiva – what it is to be a mother. Much of my thinking and writing in this space takes this slant. But another way to understand mothering is the via negativa – what it is not. Broadening my perspective to embrace those who are not mothers helps me to understand my own parenting better, situating my cares and concerns within a wider view.

And praying for those whose lives and loves differ from mine reminds me that all of us, mothers and un-mothers, are swept up into the mystery of who God is.

Which is a question well worth pondering, no matter what day it is.

yes, i’m mom. ENOUGH.

To say the cover of this week’s Time magazine is provocative would be an understatement:

When I saw the photo, I sighed. I get that extreme parenting makes headlines and sells magazines, but I’m so tired of this worn-out song. Look at this model mommy – she looks like a million bucks AND practices attachment parenting like a pro! She probably even got to shower this morning! SHE WINS!

But beyond the titillating cover shot, the headline is what bothers me most: “Are You Mom Enough?”

Demanding, defiant, pushy, probing – it’s exactly the kind of gut-punch-to-insecurity question that drives me nuts about today’s treatment of parenting in the media. Enough with the mommy wars, enough with the attachment parenting debates. Parenting is not a competitive sport. It’s not a test to be aced or a contest to be won.

It’s a relationship – a way of being with others in the world. It’s a calling – a lifelong commitment. It’s a leap of faith – a journey we start without knowing how it will end.

I am a mom. A pretty new mom. Equal parts clueless and hopeful. I make a lot of mistakes, but I want to learn. I love my kids fiercely.

I think that’s enough.

While parenting shouldn’t fall prey to the self-esteem movement either - everyone gets a trophy! - it deserves to be treated as a complex, challenging calling. No theory will neatly solve its dilemmas, no ideology will produce perfection, no single decision will promise success. In fact, I wish we could banish “perfection” and “success” from our parenting discussions entirely. My inner critic doesn’t need any more help; does yours?

We’re called to be faithful parents, not successful ones.

Faithful parents keep their children’s best interests at heart and work hard to make choices that will speak to their changing needs as they grow. They stay true to their kids, not a theory or an expert.

Faithful parents know they need partners in parenting, and they find the help they need to raise their children: friends, family, doctors, nurses, teachers, day-care providers and babysitters. Faithful parents seek out community so they don’t have to go it alone.

Faithful parents try to forgive themselves for their shortcomings and forgive their kids for being human, too.

Faithful parents learn that they can’t do everything, but they can do enough.

In two days we’ll celebrate motherhood. Biological, adopted, foster, step, grand, and “other.” Flip through Mother’s Day cards at Hallmark and you’ll see this beautiful diversity: women who are faithful to the children in their lives, regardless of relationship. None of those cards are about success. None of our mothers “won.” But they were faithful. And that is enough.

Are you mom enough?

You, with your insecurities and doubts and fears? But your fierce, faithful love for the children in your life?

Yes, you are. Enough.

what name do you give God?

My son’s favorite is Ancient One. Mine is (no surprise) Mother. But on frazzled days I remind myself of Source of Peace.

Sandy Eisenberg Sasso’s lovely book In God’s Name has become a recent naptime favorite. Strangely my young son is smitten with the most ancient of God’s names. Every time we reach the page that describes how “the grandfather whose hair was white with the years called God Ancient One,” the boy with blond curls squirms happily in my lap. It’s a mystery why this name has captured his attention, but he can’t get it out of his head: he delights at its reading and asks all day long about its spelling. He wants to know everything about Ancient One.

I’ve loved this children’s book ever since it fell into my pregnant lap (literally) as I rummaged through cast-offs at a kids’ consignment sale. The illustrations are bright and charming, and the fable that describes how each person names God out of their own life is even more beautiful. At the end of the story everyone gathers around a lake that is God’s mirror and proclaims their different names for God all at once, a joyful sound reflecting the unity-in-diversity at the heart of God’s self.

In an era when our churches seem as polarized as our political parties, I can’t help but wonder at the relevance of this book’s message. Far from a wishy-washy relativism, the truth it gently preaches is important to remember: my understanding and image of God were formed by my upbringing, education and experiences of church. So they aren’t necessarily shared by others who share my faith.

As we each seek to approach the unknowable mystery of God, we name aspects of the divine that speak to us. Hopefully we can also open our hearts to others’ journeys towards the same God, no matter how foreign they may first seem. I can learn from your name for God, just as you can learn from mine.

Quite often I ponder this question of how we image God as it relates to parenting. Developmental psychologists and faith formation experts agree that parents influence a child’s first image of God. It’s only natural that as we begin to wonder about a Being greater than ourselves, we look through the lens of the dominant figures of love, power and authority in our lives.

I want to help my children see God as loving, compassionate, forgiving and just. So when I lose my temper and yell too loud, the startled look in their eyes reminds me that the way I mother matters not only to their emotional and intellectual development, but their spiritual growth as well. (Hence my need to sit at the feet of God who is Source of Peace!)

And when I soothe their cries, teach them patiently or laugh long and hard with them, I pray they are picking up small pieces of the best of what a parent’s love can be – and what it reveals of the God they may come to know as Father or Mother.

Different names for God have been important throughout the changing seasons of my life. When I was younger, Christ as companion captured my heart. As I learned about pneumatology in graduate school, God as Spirit opened my mind. After becoming a parent, God as Mother has taken on a powerful new depth of meaning.

As In God’s Name reminds me, there is no single name for God. Even Scripture is bursting with different images: God as potter, builder, midwife, gardener, servant and redeemer. Today it is “Ancient One” that mysteriously captures my child’s heart. Who knows what names and images will shape him as he grows?

What names for God speak to you today? What names have been important in the past?

what if we had a mommy war and nobody came?

Several parenting blog posts recently went viral among my Facebook friends.

First there was Glendon’s cry to not carpe diem and to soak in the kairos moments. Then the Huffington Post offered “Apologies to The Parents I Judged Four Years Ago” about one mother’s conversion from harsh critic to sympathetic insider.

In Catholic circles, Simcha’s encouragement to the mother with only one child was shared and reshared. As was the stay-at-home-mom blues.

But as post after post popped up on my friends’ walls, I noticed one thing. Only the new mothers were sharing them.

Moms with babies, toddlers and preschoolers leapt on these stories – of being real, of encouraging each other, of stopping the cruel judgment. But the moms I know with grade-schoolers, high-schoolers and beyond? Silent.

Did they not need the same reminder to play nice? Was the battle no longer theirs? Did they simply stop caring?

As someone swept up in the worries of new parenting, I found myself floored by this obvious fact. All the wise and experienced moms I knew seemed to have risen above the mommy wars, while my friends were firmly entrenched in the fight.

When would I, too, reach the place where I was confident enough in my own parenting to let all my silly insecurities go?

All the arguments over how we bear and birth and feed and clothe and teach young children – they’re meaningful to the extent they help us figure out how to take our first few steps in this strange new land called Parenthood. But once we’ve learned how to walk, we’re no longer concerned with bickering over breastfeeding vs. formula.

Because, as this wise and witty blogger describes, little of it matters in the long run.

I often find comfort in the fact that whenever I ask my own mother, over a panicked phone call, if any of her five kids did x or didn’t do y, I always get a pause and then the same light-hearted response: I don’t really remember!

During my first few months as a mother, I simply could not believe this was true. How could my mom have possibly forgotten the Life-Altering Transformation That Is Getting Your Baby On A Nap Schedule or Starting To Feed Your Child Solid Foods or Diagnosing That Strange Childhood Rash?

But now that we’re on baby #2 and seem to have lost any knowledge we thought we gained with #1, I completely understand how it happens.

I barely remember the days, only a few short years ago, when my first was a baby. Now my new obsessions are potty training and preschool, not naps and nursing. With the questions and concerns that arise at every new stage, we lose the worries of the last.

Which underscores the truth that ultimately, most of the daily dilemmas don’t matter. Each human being turns out to be a mysterious mix of nature and nurture, impossible to predict, define or control.

But when we’re taking our first few toddling steps into the world of raising children, we have no idea what we’re doing. We’re bumbling along, trying to make the best decisions with little experience and lots of anxiety – a perfect recipe for insecurity. So even when we try not to trash-talk other parents, the cruel beast of judgment sneaks in and rears its ugly head.

We roll our eyes. Snicker behind others’ backs. Share juicy gossip of “you won’t believe this…” with our spouse over dinner. I’ll admit to it. I bet you’ve done it, too. But for what gain?

In a season of life when the mommy wars are still raging around me, I wonder about peacemaking. At the heart of the Gospel is a call to make peace. Beyond passive observers or angry protesters, what would it mean to be a peacemaking parent among parents? To actively build up instead of tear others down?

I know that I want more peace and less anxiety around my parenting, and I imagine most new parents are in the same boat.

So I’m throwing it out there:

The next time someone invites you to a mommy war – through their gossip or email or jokes or judgment - try not showing up.

Instead, wonder about what it means to be a peacemaker.

Take a stand against pettiness and pride. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Try compassion or empathy. Picture yourself as an older, wiser parent and imagine the better perspective you’d bring with more confidence.

Because wouldn’t it be lovely to live a world of parenting peacemakers? To be at peace? To teach our children the same?

What if they threw a mommy war and none of us came?

enlighten your spirit: louise erdrich

“But of all passing notions, that of a human being for a child is perhaps the purest in the abstract, and the most complicated in reality. Growing, bearing, mothering or fathering, supporting, and at last letting go of an infant is a powerful and mundane creative act that rapturously sucks up whole chunks of life.”

Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year

I knew from the moment I saw the book’s cover that I would lose my heart to it.

Drawn from the back, a dark-haired woman nuzzles a dark-haired baby in the curve of her neck, both gazing together at a blue jay outside the window. A newer edition has replaced the duo with the lone bird’s unflinching stare. But at the beginning of my own birth year with baby #2, it was this quiet, anonymous madonna-and-child that drew me in.

Erdrich describes her book as “a set of thoughts from one self to the other – writer to parent, artist to mother.” (So of course I tore through it cover to cover.)

And her treatment of a well-worn feminist theme – the dilemma of mother torn between child and work – is tender and tough at all once.

But what I love above all is that her treatment of maternal love is the most true and least sugary-sentimental I’ve yet read:

We live and work with a divided consciousness. It is a beautiful enough shock to fall in love with another adult, to feel the possibility of unbearable sorrow at the loss of that other, essential personality, expressed just so, that particular touch. But love of an infant is of a different order. It is twinned love, all absorbing, a blur of boundaries and messages. It is uncomfortably close to self-erasure, and in the face of it one’s fat ambitions, desperations, private icons, and urges fall away into a dreamlike before that haunts and forces itself into the present with tough persistence. The self will not be forced under, nor will the baby’s needs gracefully retreat. The world tips away when we look into our children’s faces.

You have to love nature to truly love this book, or at least be willing to stay the course through Erdrich’s wanderings through the wild that eventually wind back to mothering.

(You also have to forgive her several sections of randomly-placed recipes and homages to her husband’s cooking. Though pregnant and nursing mothers can’t help but fall in love with food as they nourish themselves and their babies at a staggering pace. Writes the woman who just helped herself to second dinner.)

But anyone who has lived through the seasons of a child’s early years will find themselves in her changing landscapes, both of the natural world and the interior life.

She weaves the stories of three of her babies into one narrative of a nameless daughter, reminiscent of the way any mother of multiple children looks back and wonders, “Was that with the first baby? Or the second? Or was it the third?”

A blur of babyhoods, but the powerful love and the raw frustrations and the deep conflicts meld into one story of woman becoming mother over time.

I love this memoir of early motherhood because it is poetic in its imagery and powerful in its honesty.

She writes of walking in winter at the end of a pregnancy and letting her swollen body sink to rest in a deep snowbank, wishing she could just birth the baby right then and there.

She describes her fraying nerves while rocking a colicky newborn for the umpteenth night in a row that finally resort to whispering (amidst the baby’s screams) words that parents never admit in the light of day: I love you, but you’re driving me completely nuts. You’re such a g****** crank.

I still laugh out loud when I think about that scene.

So if you long to write in the middle of life with littles, or if you gaze out windows to mark seasons passing through the maddening monotony, or if you simply love to dig in the dirt with children, your mothering spirit can find yourself in Erdrich’s words.

Perhaps we all can:

 Mothering is a subtle art whose rhythm we collect and learn, as much from one another as by instinct. Taking shape, we shape each other, with subtle pressures and sudden knocks. The challenges shape us, approvals refine, the wear and tear of small abrasions transform until we’re slowly made up of one another and yet wholly ourselves.

why i hate to leave my babies (and why i do it anyway)

I love my boys. And I love my job.

And I hate the tension between them.

While my commute being only a walk downstairs can seem enviable, working from home brings its own struggles. Boundaries are blurred. Child care or housework can encroach on my work time if I’m not careful. Or work can seep into every hour of the day and corner of the house if I don’t make myself fully present to my children when work is done.

Yes, working from home means I’m closer to my kids when they need me. Yes, working part-time means I’m able to be with them for much of the day-to-day of their early years. But it also means that when they are wailing upstairs, I can’t run to them – there is work to be done. Likewise, when they burst out in peals of laughter with the babysitter, I miss out on their joy. And that kills me, too.

Both sounds – the cries and the delights – tear at me when I can’t be right there. The flip side of being only a door away is that I am only a door away. And no white noise or background music can mask a mother’s most immediate and instinctive desire to run to her child.

There are other frustrations, of course. Trying to explain to a toddler why he can’t barge in on his mama whenever he wants a read or a cuddle. Pumping milk for a baby in the room right above my head. Navigating the tricky balance between letting a responsible sitter take charge of their care and feeling tempted to micro-manage since I’m within earshot.

And I’ve learned that living in-between worlds – that of the working mother and the stay-at-home mother – means I’m not good at doing either 100%.

Not being a full-time stay-at-home mom means that on the days when I’m with both boys from dawn till dusk with no break for my work, we are all on each other’s nerves by bedtime. I struggle when I’m home with them full-time.

Not being a full-time working mother means that on the days when I have to leave all day (or week) for meetings or conferences, the whole household is turned upside down to prepare for my extended absence. I struggle to get everything organized – for me and for them – to be gone full-time. To say nothing of hating how it feels to slip out of the house before they wake and return late after they’re back in bed.

So my work and my mothering are decidedly a muddle in the middle. Both/and; neither/nor.

And yet somehow I make it work and find the back-and-forth to be life-giving, if exhausting. I make it work because I love my kids and I love my job. I love using my skills and my gifts and my education to help make a small difference in my corner of the world. I feel called to this work and want to give myself to it.

But even knowing that I am blessed to have choices, and choices between good things, I still feel deeply torn on some days. The tensions I feel between my work and my family will never be fully resolved. I simply have to learn to live as best I can within them and rejoice in the fullness of my life writ large, pulled back from the daily effort required to keep juggling all these balls in the air.

One truth I did not know when I started on this mothering journey was how deeply compromised I would sometimes feel about the choices I would make. How much I would envy moms on one side of the fence or the other. But it turns out that parenting is a much more complicated picture than the pretty pastels I painted it to be in my youth.

Motherhood is also about compromise. And ambivalence. And guilt. And fear that if you choose poorly, you may somehow fail the most precious people in your life.

And when we don’t talk about the shadow side of mothering – when we insist upon the illusions of loving-every-second and complete-and-utter bliss – we sell ourselves short. All of us.

Including the God who mothers. The God who works. And the God who calls all of us to become the people we were created to be: people who give ourselves to work and relationships and service and others.

So I share my struggles here, in this space, with you, because I think it is only in the honest claiming and sharing of our stories that we create a community where diverse decisions and situations can be understood. I stake none of my choices as normative: this is simply the path I carved for myself. But showing the truth of it – the good and the bad – and inviting you to share your own story in turn reveals the many ways in which we are called and create our life out of our many calls.

One wish I have is for better language to share our stories. No “stay-at-home mom” lounges in the comfort of her couch all day, and all moms are “working mothers.” Women are called and gifted to serve the world in a myriad of vocations and professions. And it is the goodness of the work we are each called to do that makes our sacrifices “worth it” in the broadest sense.

So how could we more truthfully and creatively share the stories of the work we do as parents: inside and outside the home, paid and unpaid, for our children and for others? And how might this help us to tell God’s story better, too?

Where do you live in this tension?

How is your parenting shaped by compromise or conflict?

How do you embrace the choices you’ve made?

resolved: not to fail at resolutions again this year

We’re two weeks into the New Year. How are your resolutions going?

Mine are – and I have never uttered these words before – going well. For the first time ever, I find myself heading into week three not cursing the workout regime I’ve already slacked from or lamenting the prayer discipline I’ve already dropped.

Because this year, I made my resolutions in a drastically different fashion. Which is to say: I made them uber-realistic.

I’m a busy mother of two young kids. I cancelled my gym membership halfway through my last pregnancy, and I have no plans to renew it anytime soon. I love cooking, but I don’t have the luxury of lingering over exotic new recipes. So instead of setting myself up for another February failure in the resolution department, I got practical.

1) I started planning early. Resolution #1? To work more intentionally on my writing this year. Push it in new directions, polish up rough corners, ponder what might lie ahead. So back in December, I found a monthly writing group to join and two workshops – spaced far apart throughout the year – to try. Realistic enough that I could squeeze it in; big enough to challenge me. But I knew I had to start early to make it stick.

2) I erred on the side of vague. Resolution #2? To become more generous. My husband asked me what this one meant, and I told him I didn’t really know. I just knew I had room for improvement in the generosity department. But since vagueness grates on me as one who loves clarity, I’ve made myself look at generosity from many angles. Small ones (like leaving a bigger tip for baristas) and big ones (like reassessing how I can volunteer the little free time I have). Vagueness has meant my resolution has already surprised me in delightful ways.

3) I consciously thought about them every day. Resolution #3? To celebrate the joy in my life. Too often I zero in on all that’s out-of-place, still-not-done, not-good-enough. So every day since January 1, I’ve taken a moment or two to pause and let the reality of my life bring me joy. I’ve seen my marriage, my family, my work, and even my to-do list differently since I started practicing a little joyfulness each day.

So since this is the first January I’ve ever celebrated – instead of cursed – my good intentions for the new year, allow my joy (see #3) to be your cheerleader.

First, go read this. And pat yourself on the back for all that you’re already doing to thrive in the life you already live. Give yourself credit for the changes you have made, even if you’re surrounded by the chaos of raising children.

When I sat back and reflected, I realized that since having kids, I have: 1) become more serious about my writing; 2) become more committed to yoga. Two goals I had for years, but never acted up until: 1) I needed a creative outlet to process my transition into motherhood and started this lovely little blog; 2) I needed to tend to my aching pregnant body and fell back in love with yoga. Two resolutions that have changed my life for the better, because of – not despite! – my mothering.

Second, give yourself a break. January 1 is an arbitrary day on which to change your life. Start today, or start tomorrow. But don’t get bogged down by dates. Just take one small, practical, first step.

Want to jump-start your prayer life? Try a free sample of this wonderful daily resource here. (Or see below for more!) Want to go green? Ask someone else how they do it. Imagine how your life would look or feel if you made the change that’s been nagging you for years. And then imagine what dreams God has for your life. How can you clear a little room for the Spirit to sneak into a new corner and surprise you?

Happy New Year, belatedly. And happy resolving. It’s never too late.

To celebrate 2012 – and my 200th post in this corner of the world! – I have 10 free 3-month subscriptions to Give Us This Day, a new daily prayer resource from Liturgical Press. Morning and evening prayers short enough for busy parents, daily reflections on Scripture from wise thinkers, and glimpses of saints’ lives from around the world and church.

Give Us This Day is a gem, and I’d love to share it with you. Leave a comment below with your New Year’s resolution (or lack thereof!) and I’ll toss your name in the hat.

parenting in advent: third sunday

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor,
to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and release to the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1)

He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty. (Luke 1:53)

I never really loved Mary.

I know that’s a horrible thing to admit, especially growing up Catholic. And I liked Mary just fine: she seemed like a nice mother and an awfully brave girl to have done the things she did.

But I never loved her.

To me, Mary was unattainable perfection. Virgin yet mother, sinless yet human – it didn’t make much sense to me. Mary popped up a few times a year – the Christmas crèche, the May crowning – but most of the time she didn’t cross my mind.

Until a wise woman I met in grad school told me that during the darkest moments in her life, the times when she could barely pray at all, she could always pray the Magnificat. Because Mary’s hymn of praise to God was a prayer of a strong and brave woman: a mother of faith and a prophet of God’s justice.

I never read the Magnificat the same way again. And I came to see Mary in a whole new light. She became a woman of justice. She became a champion of the poor. She became the kind of strong, passionate mother I hoped I’d be.

Mary’s words that echo Isaiah’s truths remind me that she must have been the first to teach Jesus about God’s justice. That God raised up the lowly and cast down the powerful. That God fed the hungry and sent away the wealthy. That God would turn the world’s order upside down to care for the poorest and weakest.

Mary’s mothering in the light of justice reminds me that I have to teach my children what it means to love a God who loves the poor. What it means to feed the hungry. What it means to heal the brokenhearted in a broken world.

Her strength and faith remind me that from the humblest of circumstances and quietest of voices can come the conviction that changes the course of human history.

And in an Advent pregnant with God’s promise, in a world crying out for justice, in a home with two boys who need strong models of faith, I love Mary for that.