Letting God Take the Reigns in Motherhood

Gospel Reading today Mark 7:1-13
"These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me, because they teach man-made rules as though they were my laws!" Mark 7:6-8


Do we get so caught up in rules that we completely miss the boat? Is Jesus and His disciples waving at us in the boat as we stand on the shore? How do we know what is right and wrong? I struggle with a few teachings of the Catholic Faith and I am sure anyone reading this of another denomination probably feels the same about their church as well. But I heard it put perfectly about the teaching of the Catholic faith....we are like young children not wanting to listen to their parents and think that we know better. This is true with our faith....our faith knows best just as our parents knew what was best in raising us. But do some of us get so caught up in the teaching of the faith that we aren't living the faith as best as we can? These are all just questions I have that I am throwing out there. As far as motherhood goes, do we look at the rules and regulations through books instead of looking to God to lead us the best we can in teaching and disciplining our children? I think we do get so caught up in man-made rules that we forget with have the most loving and wisest teacher right in our midst....our Heavenly Father. If only we call upon Him to help us and guide us in our vocation of motherhood, we can be more at peace each in every day by living out our vocation the best we can. I think sometimes we just have to "toss" all of these dad blame rules and look within our heart for the surest, most honest teaching. I know there has to be law of some sort in everything here on earth, but if we don't watch it, we can become so consumed with following the law that we really do miss the boat that Jesus is on. Let Him help us to take everything we hear or read with a grain of salt and ask the Lord to guide our hearts to truth and wisdom. I am going to do that very thing today with my life. I am going to step aside and let Jesus take the reigns in this task of motherhood. I am going to take back seat today and see what happens. (I am sure it will be alot more in control and peaceful for sure!)

Blessings to you this Tuesday!

Calling All Mothers to do the Technology Detox

Today's Gospel Reading
"And when they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, and ran about the whole neighborhood and began to bring sick people on their pallets to any place where they heard he was." Mark 6:53-56


So much is on my heart this morning. Through fasting and confession last week, my mind has been opened and my heart cleansed at the clutter that has taken hold of my life as of late. As I have struggled with detoxing of technology and the craziness in my life, I read the gospel this morning and realize how bombarded Jesus must have felt from all of the people wanting to touch his cloak and be saved. Our children do the same to us...constanly tug at our "cloaks" and cry out to us to save them from their sibling, hold them when they are tired and nourish their minds and spirits through our touch. As we are such a "public figure" in our homes, Jesus was such a public figure here on earth and I am sure he felt very overwhelmed at times just like we do as mothers. How did Jesus differentiate what was from His father and what wasn't from his father? First of all, He didn't turn away from His children. He wasn't focused on cleaning fish or carpentry so much that He tuned them out. Jesus was available to His children. I believe that is how we discern what is from the Lord and what isn't is our availablity to our family.

I have realized alot this past week...mostly that technology in our culture can be a sickness if you let it. We all become immune of how addicted our culture is to technology but when you open your eyes to the sickness, you start seeing how tainted this sickness really is. This past week I have watched how everyone has their phone constantly in their hands, next to their plate at lunch with a friend, talking while driving, in their purse at church. A phone is what our culture clings to. Especially the young...if they don't have their phone right next to them, they are lost and feel naked. The computer is the other "bug" going around to cause such sickness. People are addicted to the internet. As a mother at home doing the mundane daily chores or breaking up fights, it is easy to get away from the mundane and nourish your wonder by surfing the web, checking email...but this is tainted I believe. Everything in moderation is key. I don't want my children to see me on the computer all of the time or on the phone and as of late it was getting out of hand. Therefore, the Lord opened my eyes and I am simplifying my life. I have unplugged my home phone, I have put up my laptop to only check email once a day during rest time. I put my cell phone in my purse behind my seat in the car. I might not respond to an email or return a phone call for days....but I will be at peace knowing my children and husband have my 100% attention. I am anxious to see if there is less whining and fighting and more giggles and laughter with my children having their mother "in tune" to them verses tuned to other things. Satan is very sly and his work is a slow rott. I believe technology can be a wonderful thing....like writing or reading a spiritual blog such as this one or finding a good recipe online to cook for your family, or keeping in touch with friends and family via emai. However, technology can be like a bad habit that you are addicted to. If we don't get a handle on this as mothers, it is going to slowly rott on our families. I urge all of you to do the Technology Cleanse and seek to live a more simple life. In turn, our families will be healthier for this. For we are their first teachers and if they see us talking on the phone all of the time or on the computer, they will do the same. Let's fight against this war on the family and one of the main weapon is detoxing ourselves and our family from the sickness of technology.

So all my dear friends who might be reading this, you might have to come knock at my front door if you really need to talk. I will welcome you with open arms. But I have a family to take care of and this is my first and foremost priorty. Answering emails and returning phone calls is just going to have to take back seat.

The little daily lesson: to keep soberly and quietly in His Presence, trying to turn every little action on His Will; and to praise and love through cloud and sunshine is all my care and study.

-- St. Elizabeth Ann Seton


Blessings to you all this Monday!

Weekend Post: The Other Baby (our bread baking business)

Here is part three of the other side of my life. You can catch up on part one and two from the past two weekends.

THE BIRTH OF A DREAM
After the hard times in Amarillo, we decided to treat ourselves to an upscale loft in the heart of the Dallas scene. We nurtured our marriage and had fun cooking gourmet meals and drinking lots of good wine at night. I was working for an interior design firm and Clint was plunging through learning the mortgage business. Not by choice, by necessity. After several months, the mortgage business started taking a downward turn. “Again”? I would ask myself? “His job is not working out, again?” As I was becoming a little bitter that my husband was not happy (again) with his job, I found Clint watching out the window one morning. He said, “look how cool that is..”. It was an Empire Baking Co. (who now is our competition) delivery truck unloading fresh bread to a café. I thought to myself “don’t you even think about it…”. A week or two later, he was on his way home in bumper to bumper traffic and called me and told me he can’t quite thinking about opening up a bakery. I was hesitant at first but then started praying for God’s will. Several weeks went by and I was on my way to install drapery and Clint was having troubles with his boss and it just hit me like a ton of bricks! What do we have to lose? I called Clint and said, “pack up your desk…we are opening up a bakery!”. He said, “seriously?” And that was all I had to say. Two months later, he was at the San Francisco Baking Institute and we were scheduled to open our very own bakery after his return. We had no idea what we were getting into. The saying holds true that ignorance is bliss. We had four things on our side. A dream, passion, hard work ethic, and strong faith.

OPENING OUR DOORS
We designed the bakery of our dreams and worked hard day and night finishing out the space, laying the hard wood floors board by board and staining the floors on our hands and knees. A 1940’s style bakery with butter yellow walls, warm wood floors, a carerra marble counter with fresh pastries displayed on crisp white platters. Black and white photos of our family from the 40’s adorned the walls along with schoolhouse pendants giving a light glow from the ceilings. Old framed menu chalkboards hung above the countertops with a list of all of our made from scratch baked goods. The smells of fresh bread bellowed out into the dining area from the tiny hot kitchen. Frank Sinatra was to play lightly as people sipped on their cappuccino and bit into their flaky croissants. The morning we opened our doors in March 2004, Clint had been up all night cooking and baking. We didn’t think we were ready to open but Clint’s dad said we would never be ready and we just had to do it. About an hour before we opened, I found Clint in the bathroom sobbing. He was scared to death. He looked up at me with tears streaming down his face and said, “what if we don’t make it?” I embraced him and told him he was already a huge success by having so much courage opening his own business to share his passion with others. I will never forget that morning as long as I live. This was the beginning of the seesaw of lifting one up while the other one was down through hard and grueling times ahead.

ENDLESS DAYS OF THE BAKERY
Weeks went by and we couldn’t keep the counters full of fresh baked goods. Long lines spilling out our doors for lunch made us excited and nervous at the same time. We were only a three-man show; Clint in the kitchen and me and one employee up front. How would we ever keep up was the burning question in our hearts. Clint was getting no sleep and we were both exhausted, working 16-20 hours a day. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment where we were only there for a few hours to eat a large pizza in bed and fall asleep watching the Food Network. I remember, as Clint would get out of bed at 1 am to go start breads, my body would ache and my mind was full of worry. How in the world could he keep going?

Every morning in five short hours in the bakery kitchen, Clint would produce, all by himself the entire amount of product we would sell that day. From an assortment of artisan breads such as sourdough, baguettes, multigrain bread, batards, ciabatta, jalapeño cheddar to a variety of croissants done the right way…pain au chocolate & pain au jambon. These were complicated procedures of mixing, proofing and baking off just right. Fresh cranberry scones, bran and blueberry muffins, cinnamon rolls, granola, three different kinds of quiches would also be made from scratch at the same time. While this was all going on, Clint would have a large pot of chicken stock boiling for a homemade soup of the day. He skimped on no ingredients or procedures and that is why people couldn’t get enough of our product.

Many mornings I would be tying on my apron, walking into the back kitchen while the sun was coming up. I had already drank my coffee and said my fervant prayers, begging the Lord to get us through another day. I will never forget one morning when I smelled the strongest scent of my Grandma Fanny's kitchen as I was walking in. It brought me to tears and I knew at that moment she was with us, helping us get through the dog days of starting a business. For she knew hard times of being a farmer's wife in the dust bowl days. She worked endless hours on the farm and she was my strength many many mornings through the smell of her tiny farm kitchen. I would lift my teary eyes to the sunrise and say, "thank you, Grandma Fanny. I love you."

I felt my ancestors so strong through those tough times. I would sweep the bakery floors exhausted at night while I listened to old music that reminded me of the farm. I would stare at the 1940's pictures of my family and would get an overwhelming feeling of peace. For I knew they were with us, praying for us, and so very proud of us. I found such courage and strength through those photos, for I was reminded of the hard times they endured on the Texas Plains. I felt so blessed I had such strong and deep family roots. I realized what a gift that was and could only pray someday my grandchildren and great grandchildren would find strength and courage through mine and Clint's legacy of what we hope to leave behind. I also have a soft heart for the pregant women who have to work on their feet. I sometimes cry when I see a pregnant woman tired and working. I know exactly how she feels. I worked every day until I was nine months pregnant. Twelve hours on my feet was brutal. I will never forget falling into bed at 3 months pregnant so tired I cried my eyes out. In the afternoons when I was further along, I would sit on a chair and sweep because I just couldn't stand anymore. I would be bent over the kitchen sink washing stacks of dishes and praying that my baby was okay. I have such an apreciation of what the women of the past did...they cared for their families, grew babies in their wombs all while working hard day in and day out. They didn't have a choice, just like I didn't have a choice...you do what you have to do, period. This is the exact reason why the women before us were so much tougher and stronger...I saw this in my Great Aunt Clementine when she was dying. That woman was tough because of what she had to endure growing up in the Great depression. Nothing was easy for her.

We ran into several hurdles each and every day because of starting our business on a dime. We would be so tired and bogged down that we wouldn’t get our inventory list correct and would run out of product right in the middle of the lunch hour. As Clint would have more bread in the oven, we would have a line out the door and he would be dashing to the store to grab more chips and tomatoes. Then he would get back in a hurry and almost a heart attack and our sweet little 18-year-old employee would giggle and tell Clint we were out of ice. That might be one of the worst feelings….people standing there waiting for their drinks when you realize there are no more bags of ice in the freezer. This went on for two years. Somehow we were making money & every time we turned around there was another article written about our business. Things were going well but we were tired and getting a little burned out. We had NO time off…ever. Even on Sunday mornings we would nod off in church as we knew that might be our only tiny nap before we had to go directly to the bakery kitchen to take inventory, clean, and go to the store to get groceries for the week. In the meantime of all of the chaos, Clint had started a wholesale business out the back door of our bakery. Restaurants and delis had come to us needing good bread and we couldn’t pass up the business so that is how our wholesale business was born. On a hot summer day in July, I was riding around with Clint in our white Ford Explorer that had 180,000 miles on it delivering bread to restaurants and hotels in Dallas. I was due any day with our firstborn. I started going into labor while delivering bread and the next morning our son was born! Back at the bakery Jacque Braun and Lauren Hazledine, our sweet employees, came up with Ben’s BLT sandwich that was later one of our best selling items on the menu!

As the chaos of our lives continued, we needed more room with our growing family; therefore, we bought a home and renovated it. Clint would get home from the bakery and lay hard wood floors & crown molding as well as paint. We were doing only what we knew we had to do….survive. Balancing a baby and the bakery was extremely hard but we somehow plunged through and didn’t know any different. There is so much wisdom to be learned from the ways of the past. I came to know the reason why people use to live above their business. You live, eat, sleep, breathe a small business (especially a bakery). I still ran the front of the café with Ben in the back kitchen half the time and the other half he was passed around from customer to customer. One morning, I served 45 customers with Ben in a Baby Bjorn (a papoose type thing). No wonder I thought motherhood was not what it was cracked up to be! Everything I knew, was the absolute hardest way. Through these hard times, our faith and our marriage became rock solid.....as Clint described it, "our roots were growing deep into the ground. And although our tree was new and small, it would be big and strong someday because of the deep roots that were presently growing through a cold and windy storm".
To Be Continued....

SWEET REMINDERS IN THE MUNDANE OF MOTHERHOOD

Gospel reading today 6:14-29
Psalms 119:9-16
"With all my heart I try to serve the Lord....I delight in following your commands more than in having great wealth." Psalms 119:10,14

The gospel reading today is about John the Baptizer's head being served on a platter.....that reading just baffles my mind every time. On a much lighter note, I decided to write the reflection for today on Psalms. Yesterday I had a nice conversation with Father Richard and he reminded me that the greatest work we do is serving our family. He was glad to hear that Clint and I go on dates regularly, for taking care of your marriage should be first and foremost priorty. He also said the best way to grow in holiness is in serving your family. He described how Jesus came into a messy world and He served gladly and died for us willingly. "We were worth saving!" he said with a smile. He said it is in the messiness of family life where the greatest work on earth is accomplished. Through our willingness to serve and to give our lives for our families, we are growing in holiness and paving our pathway as well as our husband and children's pathway to Heaven. There is no more important work than that!

I am also reminded in Psalms today, that in giving our lives for our families, we sometimes have to "give up" worldy pleasures and possessions ....the wealth of the world. But in giving up wealth in the world's eyes, we are gaining the wealth of wisdom and holiness. I would much rather have those two things in the "bank" verses the green paper that will eventually whither away. No wealth on earth measures up to the beautiful sacrifice of a mother laying down her life for her family. Just a sweet reminder today in the mundane of motherhood....

Blessings to you this Friday!

STANDING UP FOR TRUTH & SHAKING THE DUST OFF YOUR FEET

Gospel Reading today Mark 6:7-13
"And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet...."

There are very few times I read the gospel and have a hard time linking the reading to our vocation in motherhood. This one has been a little hard this morning.... As mothers, if our children do not hear us and refuse to listen, we can't shake the dust off our feet and forget about them.....it just doesn't work that way in Motherhood! However, I am reminded today through the gospel that our children can learn from us to "shake the dust of their feet" when someone doesn't treat them right or when they stand up for the truth. A person can not continue to be sugary sweet to someone when that particular person doesn't do what is right and treats you and your family with disrespect. We are called to stand up for truth and it is SO hard sometimes. Confrontation is not an easy thing to do. It is so much easier to look the other way and to not say a word. But if we are going to live the gospels, we are called to speak the truth and if the person doesn't listen we are to "shake the dust of our feet" and leave knowing we stood for the truth and they did not except. I have a hard time with this one because we are also told in the gospel to turn the other cheek and to be peacemakers. But I believe we have to stand up and speak out if there is someone who is disrespecting a family member. You never know through speaking the truth, if that particular person will "not listen" but internally is listening. We also have to show our love and devotion for our family members (even outside our nucleus family)by standing up for them.

We want our children to stand firm in their faith and by learning from us "to shake the dust off our feet" by standing for truth. We also need to teach them after speaking the truth to continue going about their business by not dwelling on the situation. This will teach them a valuable lesson in life....possibly a survival method in today's world.

Blessings to you this Thursday!

Living the faith in your little "home" town

Gospel reading today Mark 6:1-6
"Where did he get all this?" Mark 6:1

The gospel reading today talks about how you can't be a prophet in your own home town. When Jesus went back to Nazareth to preach, everyone rejected Him. I relate the gospel today to Mothers and Fathers who don't live the faith yet send their children to Christian schools or Sunday school. They know deep down in their hearts that they need to be teaching their children about the faith, yet they want someone else to do it. So the parents are comforted when they know that their children are getting some what of a "christian foundation" taught by someone else. However, when the parents go to teach their children when it is too late about right from wrong, dark from light, the children might look to them as the people of Nazareth looked at Jesus and say "where did you get all of this? How can you tell me to do as Jesus did, when I hardly know Jesus?"

I don't want to place judgement upon anybody. This is simply the truth and reality. If the faith is not lived by the parents, the children will not come to know the faith. If you don't go to church on sunday yet send your children to a faith formation class during the week or send them to a christian school, they will not "digest" the message fully from their other teachers because their first teachers (their parents) are not teaching them. So as mothers, we want our children to not be "hometown onlookers" of being surprised in middle school when we try to teach them about Jesus and following the light. They will look at us like the hometown people of Nazareth looked at Jesus and say "who the heck our you trying to tell me about Jesus?"

So today, teach your children about living the faith in all that you do. Ask for forgiveness when you slip up and yell out in frustration. Show your excitement about keeping holy the Lord's day. Don't wait until it is too late to teach your kids about the faith and don't expect someone else to teach your children the most important lesson you could ever teach them....the foundation of their faith.

Blessings to you this Wednesday!

A Mother's Delicate Heart

Gospel Reading today Luke 2:22-30
"And sorrow like a sharp sword will break your heart." Luke 2:35

My 18 month old was up early coughing so she sat with me while I drank coffee and prayed the rosary this morning. As I watched how preciuos she was giving her baby doll a bottle and "talking" to her baby, I thought I wouldn't trade this very moment for the world. A perfect gift before my eyes...so sweet, innocent, protected, delicate, and pure as heaven. As I meditated on the fourth sorrowful mystery of the rosary, Jesus carrying the cross, I was reminded of the image in the movie, The Passion of Christ, where Jesus falls down the second time when carrying His cross. Mother Mary begins running towards Him and has a flash back of running towards Jesus when he fell down as a child. As I looked at Anna Claire, I cherished in my heart that very moment and thought to myself how precious these times are before one day we have to help our children carry their crosses in life. As I help Benjamin, my four year old son, carry his cross daily with his hearing impairment, I know the struggles and heartache of helping your child carry their cross. And this is nothing compared to the big huge heavy crosses that my children might bear when they are older.

Just as Mary's heart was pierced by a sword at the death of her son, our hearts, too, may be pierced with a sword some day. That is why this time while they are little is SO precious. A time that is so sweet and blissful for their little souls. Relish in this time and let your heart embrace this season of your life, so if for some reason your heart is pierced, you will remember these precious times and know you enjoyed it and did not rush it away. You relished in it and did not wish for them to be older. You were present to them and did not hand them off to someone else to go and do bigger and better things. Your hands picked them up with each fall and they rested in your arms when they wered tired, sick or scared. Then, when you or when your child leaves this time on earth, you will know you did everything you could do to love them with every ounce of love that you had in your heart. And if your heart is pierced with a sword, you will have hope in Christ and the blood poured out of your heart will be only love and thanksgiving...not dispair and regret.

Blessings to you this Tuesday!