10 Years

Ten years ago I did something that everyone thought was crazy. I got married. I hadn't finished college and was a very newly 20 years old. Most people thought we should wait to get married. Wait to finish school. Wait till you have good careers. Wait for more money. Wait till you have traveled. Wait, wait, wait. Looking back it had to have been pure grace that kept me moving towards an altar instead of a diploma. I look back on my 20 year old self and remember how excited I was to start my vocation. I could have never imagined what the last ten years have held. But even back then, I knew marriage would be hard at times, and that no matter how hard it was, marriage was for keeps. Somehow this base understanding, coupled with my naivete regarding exactly how full of life the next decade would be, did me well. I was able to jump headfirst into marriage, without ever looking back.

In the past ten years Max and I have had 4 beautiful babies. Two of these babies came into the world with only the two of us present. We have moved 6 times and lived in 7 different places we called home. We have been up countless times together with sick children. We have spent so many nights talking till midnight trying to solve the world's, and our own, problems. We have said way too many goodbyes to friends we love and made amazing new friends along the way. We have survived my traumatic brain blood clot and the four month recovery afterwards. We have prayed and cried and accepted how that day completely changed how our future might look. We have remodeled a house and learned to raise chickens. We have watched Max's father suffer with cancer and draw his last breath. I have held him in his pain and he has held me in mine. We have seen really dark days where the joy in marriage seems like a thing of the past. We have been blessed with abundant grace to always forgive, never hold grudges and plow through till the sun shines once more. No, I didn't know that life would hold all of this ten years ago, but I know God placed me on the path of His will.

The night before our ten year anniversary I was reflecting on our marriage and something came to my mind. In the entirety of our marriage, Max has never once said an accusatory phrase to me. He has never said, "You're so fill in the blank" or "You always..." Those words have never come out of his mouth unless they are followed by something positive. How many women can say that? I wish I could say this went both ways, but I have sadly accused Max of being very many things in our marriage. Thankfully, he is a very forgiving man.

The last ten years have held life and death and fear and trust. They have held so much pain and so much joy. I couldn't imagine sharing it all with anyone besides Max and I look forward to the next decades we spend together. May God give me the grace to be the wife He calls me to be. And may Max have patience while I try and get there.

The Day That Changed Our Lives

I'll admit that when I set out to write this post, it was going to be a long 3 part series with every detail of everything that happened written down. The thing is, when I went to write everything down that has happened over the past 5 months, it was hard, and I didn't like doing it. While a lot of it is actually written down in a journal, I'm not quite ready to re-live or retell every single detail of those days. Maybe someday I will, but not today. Today will be a very short summary of everything that happened. It was too big of an event for me to just let it go without writing some of it down here.

Two weeks after I had Sarah, I got a very bad headache that lasted 5 days. On the 6th day of the headache, while nursing, I lost control of the upper left side of my body. My hand could not grasp things, and when I tried to raise my arm it simply dropped down. There was tingling from my upper neck to my hip. After consulting with my midwife, we decided to go in to the hospital.

After about two hours of non-stop physical tests, the doctors determined (or thought they determined) that I had an a-typical migraine. The plan was to send me home after doing a quick CT scan just to make sure all the bases were covered. About a minute after I was wheeled back in to my room a knock came on our door. If you have ever had tests done at a hospital you know that getting results often takes a long time; I knew immediately that knock was not good. "I'm sorry but we found something. We found bleeds in the brain. Neurosurgery will be up in a few minutes" Minutes.  Those moments were so surreal. Max's boss had just lost his wife because her brain was bleeding. Was I headed in that direction? In that moment life seemed so so incredibly small and simple and God seemed so so incredibly big. I felt like I was hanging over a dark pit of death held only by a thread that God could cut anytime He deemed right. If I have ever felt true "fear of the Lord", if I have ever been able to conceive even a small portion of His greatness and power, it was in these moments. I clung to Max. We prayed, we cried, we called a few people. Then we started thinking of practical things. I started worrying how Sarah would get fed if I needed surgery or wasn't there to feed her. I made him promise to pump milk for her even if I was unconscious, to comfort her through her tummy troubles should she need to go on formula. Nurses came and went and my father-in-law brought a priest friend to give me last rights. I am forever grateful for that favor and the grace of the sacraments that evening. A "few minutes" became lots of minutes as we sat and waited for more news.

Those moments felt like hours, but eventually news came. After an MRI, it was confirmed that I had a huge blood clot in my superior sagittal sinus (a major drain in the brain) and two small bleeds that resulted from the clot.  It was also determined that, unless the bleeds became bigger, I would not need surgery that night. As long as I wasn't having my brain cut open and I had Max and the baby with me, I was at peace. But then another wave of bad news came: I was being transferred to the neurosurgery unit and Sarah was not allowed there. No matter the fit I threw or the people I asked to speak with, the request to have her near me was denied. I thank God everyday that my sister, Joanna, had come earlier to bring Max some food. When we got the news that Sarah could not come with me, she promised she would take perfect care of her, and even nurse her should she need to. It was the greatest gift she could ever give me, and God knew she was the only person on earth I would feel somewhat comfortable sending Sarah with. So, as they wheeled me across the doors of the neurosurgery unit, I kissed Sarah goodbye and left my heart there with her.

The next morning I woke, and my heart hurt more than my head. I missed Sarah with every bone in my body and longed to nurse and hold her. Max had woken up every 3 hours in the night with me to pump milk for her, since I couldn't use my left arm. The next two days in the hospital were filled with pumping, crying, waiting, sleeping, tests, and more waiting. We felt forgotten in that shared room, as every doctor who came in seemed to be for my roommate. After about 48  hours on heparin and test results that showed the bleeds had stopped, I was allowed to go home (I begged for this). With as little sleep as I was getting in the hospital, I felt I would die from staying there, not from going home.

My first night home was an exciting one to say the least. Only a few hours after being home, I was taken by ambulance back to the hospital. I had what they deemed a simple partial seizure where my left side went completely numb again, but only for a few minutes. Needless to say, it scared me very much and on the ride to the hospital I made peace with God that this whole thing might actually kill me. The funny thing is, I didn't fear for my children living without me, or wonder what would become of my family. Instead, I had only a great sadness that I might not be there to witness it all. I realized in that moment the privilege of my vocation. It wasn't that I didn't believe anyone could raise my kids or be a wife to my husband, it was that I wanted the blessing and honor of living out my vocation. And I promised God that if He willed that I live through all of it, that I would do my very best at living it out. My heart felt peace as I watched the lights of the city through the back window of the ambulance.

I was sent home from the E.R. with a new prescription of anti seizure medicine. Looking back I am not sure if it was the medicine, my blood clot, or a combination of both, but I slept....A LOT. Over the next few weeks, I slept nearly 22 hours a day. Taking a shower was almost too much to do. I ate in bed and only got up to go to the bathroom. Max had to go back to work and my mom promised to stay as long as we needed her. She became the woman of the house. She had to. I couldn't do anything but sleep, nurse and heal. If it hadn't been for my mom being there, I wouldn't have been able to heal the way I did. She cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids, took care of Max, took care of me, played interference when people wanted to come visit and loved with every ounce of her being. None of us knew how long the healing process would take, but she promised to be there for it's entirety.

Very, very slowly I began to heal. After the first two weeks of constant sleep, every day got a little better and I could do a little more. It would take about two months before I could even go out of the house, and even then it was a hard thing to do. Days were filled with sleep and doctors appointments and trying to figure out what our life would look like after all of this. It's hard to write down exactly how those days of healing passed, and only my mom, Max and I know what they really looked like. Over time I did heal. My mom stayed with us for four months, until I was finally able to handle the work of four children on my own. It was so bittersweet to say goodbye and I feel a part of me will always be with her for taking care of me during that time. It's as if she took a small piece of my heart home with her, and to say that the transition to "normal life" without her was heart breaking and hard is an understatement. I will forever be thankful for her help to us during those months, and to my dad who was willing to be without her all that time.

I have left out so much here. Maybe someday I will write more. I do want to note that when I got sick I remembered this post about my hardships in pregnancy with Juliana. I remembered the lesson God taught me from all of it: that if we pray to be sanctified and holy, we must accept the sufferings that make that happen. Through the hardships of these past months, I know God is only allowing it for the sanctification of my soul and my family, and there is great peace in that. I cannot write down all the graces given to my soul during this time, but I will say that through suffering comes great spiritual growth and change. I know with everything in me that God allowed me to go through this because He loves me and hears my prayer to be the woman He created me to be. It would have been easier had my house burnt down than to go through what I did. He could have stripped me of my attachment to earthy goods, but He chose something much greater; God stripped me, in those days, of my very core. He stripped me of my capabilities as a wife, mother and person. I was forced to humbly accept any and all help that was offered because I could do nothing on my own. I gave up control of my house, my children, my health and life as I knew it. In giving up that control I had to give it ALL to Him. I was left with absolutely nothing and He became everything. And I wish so badly I could say that I have become a saint on earth from all this, but I continue to fall daily in my vocation. I continue to struggle with the "why" of all of it, and I'm still trying to deal with the great amount of emotion that comes from a traumatic event. But I know that as I struggle through this life, an ever-loving God is there to carry me through it. It is only by His grace that I can do anything.

A Confession For Ash Wednesday

My husband and I always joke that Catholics come out of the woodwork for Ash Wednesday. You may have not seen these Catholics all year long, but they all show up for their ashes. This used to frustrate me, but now I kind of enjoy it. It's sort of neat that people want to come to mass on the one day of the year that we receive a physical marking of our faith. I have a slight confession to make about this marking, and it is quite humbling to admit this. I write posts on prayer and fasting and growing closer to Christ, and yet when it comes to wearing ashes on my forehead as a physical sign of my faith...

I wipe them off.

Eh-Hem! I wipe them off. That's right, I am that vain and not proud of it at all. I kept them on almost all day, but when I had to go to the grocery store, I "accidently" kept touching my forehead, not wanting to be told, "Hey you have some dirt on your face" by a hundred people at the grocery store. I don't know why this scenario scares me so much, but it does. So this is my act of humility for the day: to confess to the whole blog world that I am a wimp when it comes to wearing ashes on my forehead. Maybe by next Ash Wednesday I will have grown enough in humility to stop caring what people are thinking of me and the "dirt" on my forehead and view it for what it is: a great opportunity to share my faith.

Top Ten Surprising Things

I got tagged in a meme by the mom (who is awesome by the way) to list the top ten things I have done that surprise me. So, here it goes:

1. I got engaged at 18 and married at 20.
2. I chose having babies over finishing college. I was supposed to be a doctor ya know.
3. I've talked to hundreds of random college students about abortion with a graphic, twenty foot, 3-sided exhibit behind me.
4. I've worked with post abortive women through Rachel's Vineyard.
5. I have a daughter. I always thought I would have all boys.
6. I'm a military wife. I always wanted to stay close to home.
7. I live in Oklahoma. Refer to number 6.
8. I'm able to clean up vomit on a regular basis without vomiting myself.
9. I actually wanted to give birth naturally and then did it (and liked it!).
10. If I really need to, I can nurse a baby while they are still in their car seat.

Since I don't have as many followers as most of the people doing this, I'm only going to tag 4 people (you are supposed to tag 5 to keep it going). I tag:

Megan at Heart of St. Monica
Katie at Sometimes Lonely
Andrea (with the cool name) at The Mantilla Diaries
Laura at Little Bee

Attachments

"When we are who we are called to be, we set the world ablaze" -St. Catherine of Sienna

I love this quote. It hangs on my refridgerator and I read it often. Usually I read it with a moment of awe, and then sadness comes sweeping over me. I am not who I am called to be. There are certain things, I feel, that keep me from being the woman God wants me to be. Attachments to worldy things I just can't seem to break away from. At the top of this very long list is:

Food: As Americans, I'm sure we all struggle with this one. But I happen to have an enormous sweet tooth. I can't even keep them in the house it's so bad. You've never seen a bag of Oreos disapear so fast in your life. The thing that bugs me most is when I walk into the kitchen, not hugry, and I hear God saying, "Give this one to me. Deny yourself and grow in temperance"  and then I eat four cookies.

Movies: My husband and I love to watch movies. Unfortunately, over the years, we have collected some that are extremely violent and some with quite a bit of pre-marital sexual relationships in them. A lot of people say to let this one go, that it's just a movie. But if Christ were sitting on my couch, I would be ashamed for some of our movies to be playing on the television. I have gone to clean the movies out many times and every time, I just can't. I alway think, "I paid so much for this." or "This one is so funny!"  Yeah, guess who's going to be laughing on judgement day. Not me. It's like some supernatural force (satin?) keeps me from taking the movies from the video stand to the trash.

Television: We don't have cable at our house, and by "don't have cable" I mean we don't have one single channel on our television. I do, however, own a few television series I really enjoy. I don't have too much guilt over watching these, except for the fact that my husband and I usually watch them in place of saying our daily prayers, or learning more about our faith. Someday, today actually, God will ask how I spent my time. I'd like to say I spent at least a little in prayer. I don't think saying, "watching The Office" is very pleasing to Him.

Computer: I love getting on the computer. I love checking facebook, reading blogs, and responding to e-mails. The thing is, I think I've gone overboard lately. It's become an addiction instead of a means for communication. I check my facebook every half hour and I feel like I'm neglecting my children when I get on the computer. Heck, who am I kidding, I am neglecting my children when I get on the computer. How can I be truly present to them, when I am reading or writing something else? (As a side note, I only blog when they are asleep, which is why sometimes my post are few and far between). What kind of example am I setting for them when every free second I get I spend it on the computer?

Obviously there is a lot for me to work on. I would really like to get to the root caust as to why I am attached to these things. I just feel very blessed to have a Heavenly Father that is patient, because otherwise I'm sure He would have given up on me a long time ago.

What are you attached to? How to you go about breaking free from these attachments? I would love some ideas!

Education vs. Vocation

Today is a bittersweet day for me. Today is the day I would have graduated college had I chosen to stay in New Mexico and not gotten married. For most people it seems that somehow getting educated goes right along with their vocation. For me, it did not. With a husband three years older than me, graduating college and moving away on military orders I was only left with two choices: marry the man I thought God called me to marry and move away with him, or stay in my hometown for the tree short semesters I had left and finish school. Of course, the world told me to finish school, but I chose marriage. I could have finished school wherever we moved, but my husband and I were pregnant within the first weeks of our marriage, and the online classes I was taking in an attempt to stay in school on the road didn't jive with a newborn.

When you are young and in school, your life is mapped out for you. You will go to elementary, you will go to middle and high school, you will go to college and then go get a masters or doctorate. Only after all this has been done is it ok to consider marriage and children in the world's eyes. But God had other plans for me than the world did. And I still catch hell for choosing God's plans every day. "What will you do if something happens to your husband?" I am asked this question so often when people find out that I'm not in school. God will take care of me. "Don't you miss it?" is another one I get. The answer to this is simply, yes. I love school, and I was really really good at it. It wasn't an easy thing to give up, especially when you are the former highschooler who was in all the advanced classes and was just expected to be there on graduation day. I'll go back someday; but I have promised myself that someday will be a day when I feel my children are not suffering or missing out on something because of my desires to go to school.

Today all my childhood friends will walk onto a huge stage in front of thousands of people and recieve a diploma. Their names will be called and their families will cheer in proud adoration of their children who worked so hard for this day. They will hug and talk about what a long road it's been, but that it's finally done with. I will spend today nursing a young baby, changing diapers and singing the ABC's. I will not hug friends, but rather the small bodies of my children. My name will be called in the form of a newborn cry, or the sweet sound of my son screaming "MAMA!". My friends will hold diplomas, but I will hold immortal souls.  And I wouldn't give that up for the world.

So Congratulations class of 2010. May you find as much joy in today as I will, and may you find God's will for your life in the future.