40-Day Challenge: Mercy (Day 20)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. Today I’m afraid I must be brief — I’ve reached the actual deadline on my current project, and the deadline is breathing down my neck. But I didn’t want to let down the team, so here goes! If you’re like me, you have a short list of books, movies, [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Memories (Day 19)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. I realize this might sound a bit like “Keepsake.” Please bear with me. Creating and preserving the memories of family life is a really important aspect of motherhood.  From baby books and family recipe files to scrapbooks and (more recently) personal blogs, we are the keepers of the important [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Longing (Day 18)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. Do you ever feel lonely in your marriage? I think most of us feel a bit isolated and disconnected from time to time. There have been times when I’ve wondered whether I should have stuck with my original plan (the one I was forming just before I met Craig) [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Leave and Cleave (Day 17)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. In Mark 10:6-8, Jesus describes marriage in its most elemental terms. “From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.” In this passage, [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Keepsake (Day 16)

Begin with Prayer of Abandonment. I was well into adulthood — over thirty, in fact — before I had acquired enough “stuff” to need a moving van. Up until that time, everything I owned in the world would fit in the back of my Toyota: a large box of books, another of kitchen equipment, and [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Integrity (Day 15)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. “Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world which passes like a shadow. Do not let the false delights of a deceptive world deceive you”  (St. Clare). Socrates once observed that the key to greatness is to [...]

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40-Day Challenge: Hope (Day 14)

Begin with the Prayer of Abandonment. When I first started writing this post, “H” stood for “Humor.”  How a judicious use of the funny bone can keep a marriage — and a household — on track. How the lack of it throws the soul out of whack, making  us susceptible to a wide range of negative physical, [...]

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