When You Realize Your Greatest Dream Has Already Come True

Several afternoons ago I sat the baby on the carpet and took my sweet husband by the hands. As the children played around us I looked into his eyes and said, "I need you to know that in this beautiful life of ours, everything good and hard that has happened....our children, our adventures, our life, YOU are my greatest dream come true. I don't know what is going to happen or where we will end up but it doesn't matter, because the deepest dream of my heart is already a reality."

He needed to hear it, I needed to say it....

He is my greatest dream come true.

The night he proposed to me, what joy!

It came to me in my early morning prayer time. I was reflecting on Hannah and her prayer of grief and torment as she begged to be blessed with a son. The writer of the reflection commented that hope transforms prayer from pleading to worship. It brought me back to my broken anxious prayers for someone who would see me, love me, and want me as I am with all my quirks. Broken and fragile from a previous relationship with a man who didn't care enough to be faithful, and who liked to use words like "pathetic" to describe me, I wondered if my heart's shape had become too disfigured to fit another's.

Then this boy came along, not really a man yet, and he wore his nobility of heart on his sleeve. He truly was so captivated by me, my mind, my face, my heart, my dreams that he sometimes was lost for words. I brought him to his knees, and he brought me to mine, and together we prayed a prayer of praise for this love that seemed like a fairy tale. I was so captivated by his eager search for truth and his determined virtue, and his big dreams! We were going to conquer the world together.

Fast forward all of these years in our love story and we are tired. We have three beautiful exhausting children, and to top it all of he has been without steady income for a half a year. Most days it feels like we are just keeping our heads above water, and we fall asleep holding pinkies or touching feet with a nursing baby hogging the space in between us.

Our little Ezekiel's baptism day

I became disillusioned because with his previous steady income came a flood of exciting possibilities. Perhaps we could buy a home, take a warm vacation, start putting some money away for retirement, renew our wedding vows in Italy, buy Joe the truck of his dreams, educate our children how and where we want, etc etc etc. It sort of went away overnight when the company he was working for had to be put on the shelf in the midst of our struggling economy.

And so it feels like we have been in the trenches, and as I am keeping the home and educating our children, he is doing battle to bring in enough to live off of. He feels like he is letting us down, and he feels responsible for any struggles we might have, even though he is not! And we both are tempted to feel like our dreams are becoming farther away. 

Until I realized my dream is standing right beside me each day, through thick and thin. Those other "dreams" would be nice, but they are fluff and he is the real deal.

...in the midst of the grief, the cross, or the exhaustion, he is patient, devoted, determined, hard working, tender, and funny. He loves our children magnificently and witnesses to them what it looks like when a husband loves his wife with all his heart and will. Who knows if he will change the world as a career man, but he is absolutely changing the world through how he loves his family. 

All is grace. "When all is grace we can wait out our pain and longing in hope. When all is grace, we can give God back our answered prayers in faith. When all is grace, we can see salvation coming in glimpses and flashes, and take up our place in its story. When all is grace, we can be drunk with grief and bold with hope all at once. Because this is just what salvation is: the cradle and the cross, the grace and the stone rolled away, the dark days before a savior and the lit up skies of 'Hosanna in the highest.'"

All glory to God! How fortunate I am. 

The Scars of Love

6 Years! 6 years of marriage, how can it be? This morning I sat clicking through over 1000 wedding photos. I had picked less than 100 as my favourites 6 years ago, and today I sat scrolling through them again. After these 6 years, certain images had a new and beautiful weight to them and stood out to me in ways they hadn't years ago. It was beautiful, and nostalgic, and entirely interrupted by a preschooler and toddler whose needs were still immediate, no matter the day.

I wish I had something profound and existential to write about these 6 years with my beloved. And yet, my mind is tired and foggy, my body is weary, these days have been busy days. Despite it all my heart is light and my soul full of joy. This, my friends, is where the contrast strikes me.

This love, this true married love, one of I-THOU, me and my beloved, each reflecting back to the other worthiness, beauty, eternity.....this love leaves us tired, this love has left scars and yet our hearts are light and full of joy. I have a burn scar on my arm from a frying pan when I tripped over a toddler playing on the kitchen floor, always wanting to be close to mama. I have stretch marks and a still remaining linea negra from the 2 times I carried our darlings. My body is different....softer in some places, more angular in other, less shapely in still others. my hairline is different from postpartum loss and regrowth. These are only the scars you can see. There are the unseen scars as well... those of loving 3 beings, (4 if you count our sweet one in heaven), so much that your heart is forever scarred by the bittersweet passing of time. There are scars of loving my husband so deeply that I am ever aware of my own journey, and how much I have to grow in order to be less selfish. There are scars of working on a marriage or growing as mother, and falling and rising to try again because love is worth it. There are even the scars of the pain of post partum depression, unemployment, and sickness.

But oh, these scars. The majesty, the beauty, the eternity, the sacredness - even in the ugliness and the brokenness they are beautiful and I am humbled to be growing worthy of them.

I have scars, other scars, from broken relationships, poor decision makings, self-loathing, and selfishness. These scars are weighty and in moments they threaten to discourage me.  This is the beautiful thing about married love and how the scars differ. They have a sort of weight that, heavy and profound, mysteriously unshackles me from myself and makes me free. The incredible reality of making a gift of my life and discovering my own worthiness and beauty in the self-giving. In this love I also discover my worthiness and beauty because of the epic, heroic, unwavering love my husband has for me. He looks at me and I see reflected back to me a potential I never knew I existed (even when he is annoyed with me, maybe especially when he is, haha!). He sees me, truly sees me, and the more he knows my heart and soul the more deeply he loves me. How could one not be set free to dream in the security of such a love?

6 beautiful years! I am excited to see what this next year will bring.

Thank you for your love and prayers on our anniversary,

xo

6 Years of Dating

This past weekend marked since years since the night my handsome man and I met! WOW!

I'll never forget the night we met, mostly because Joe had hair an inch past his shoulders and a goatee that was long enough to put in two braids. He was so shy but had such kind eyes (thank goodness, it was rather hard to see what he looked like behind all his hair!). I didn't know that he called his dad, that night, telling him that he had just met the woman he was going to marry. 

When I look back on our six years the one thing that has been such a gift for our relationship has been that we date each other, regularly. As a matter of fact, it is probably one of the biggest priorities of our week is to make sure date night happens. Our dates have taken many forms. When I lived in Dallas Joe would drive to visit and we walked to the Italian cafe every Friday for a greek salad and to share a carafe of wine. Despite the fact that Italian cafe is sub-par food and cheap wine, it will forever be one of my all time favourite restaurants. It was there I learned Joe's heart as we lingered over our cheap wine and walked home in the warm Texas air.

Walking home from Italian Cafe in good ol' Las Colinas, Tx

In Australia we were beyond poor. We had two types of regular date nights. The first was to Costco for a 99 cent hot dog and to share a frozen yogurt. We loved driving our tiny little car through downtown Melbourne for our cheap date and sitting there relishing in the unhealthy deliciousness. The second was date night in. We would play beer pong, eat salami and cheese, and cuddle together under the tiny little space heater keeping our freezing apartment warm. We would talk for hours dreaming of our life together. Even though we were home we chose to make that time a date and it was amazing. I will never forget those dates and I continued to learn his heart.

Beer pong, just the two of us, and I was pregnant at this point so I played with Apple Juice :) 

Well, much has happened since Oz but we still date, almost weekly, (thanks Mom and Dad for babysitting!!!). It seems like almost always we have to squeeze a little bit in other areas of our budget to make sure it happens, but on the weeks we miss date night the disconnection between us is very evident. So, we make it happen! Most often these days date night is wing night. Wings at 25 cents a piece and a nice cold beer are a perfect and budget friendly opportunity to unwind and reconnect. We've had special dates too....formal events, concerts, surprise hotel stays. Some of our most cherished dates, even now, are date night in when kids go to my parent's or we put them to bed and we make European style feasts of bread, cheese, olives, and wine. We cherish these feasts sitting cross legged on the carpet and breathing deeply, and we make sure we are still in tune with each other's hearts. 

A whale watching dinner cruise in Hawaii. We were engaged that year!

Date nights are the only times we take selfies because it is just.the.two of us. YAY!!!

We love getting dressed up together. Those are special date nights too! I was pregnant with Judah here :)

Nothing like a patio together!

Even though date nights are casual I really like getting dressed up for my man.
Who cares if we are waaaay over dressed for a neighborhood pub on wing night!

Two months or so before we met our baby boy. Joe's first stadium concert.

I think that our dates are one of the biggest gifts we have given our marriage and our children. Date night shows them that we are in love with each other, that we prioritize one another, that we cherish the gift of carefree timelessness with our spouse. Liliana has just started complaining when we leave her to go on a date, but I always tell her that Mommy and Daddy need time together so we can be better mommies and daddies. She gets it and, more importantly, she gets to see that we walk the talk. My primary vocation is to my Joe and when I carve out time to make sure I still know his heart we can face whatever challenges greet us every day and we truly are better parents!

I am so beyond grateful for six years of dates with my Love, and I am excited that he is mine and I get to spend the rest of my life dating him!

Do you date your spouse? Do you have fun and budget friendly ideas for date night? I'd love to hear some of them!

Love and prayers for you this beautiful, sunny, winter day!

xoxo

Love, Marriage, and Other Light Musings....

Our beautiful Eve was married two weeks ago tomorrow! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone since her wedding. Of course, as my usual absent minded self I took one photo that day (of the bride and groom with the flower girls), and neglected to get a family photo or even one of my handsome men in their three piece suits! Hopefully there'll be some in the professional photos.

I find Catholic weddings to be truly breathtaking. Aware that the bride and groom have been waiting and longing for the day when they can be sacramentally and physically forever bound to their beloved....well, it just brings tears to my eyes. The joy is tangible, it is as though you could reach out and touch it. I am sure many people feel as though they want to capture some of that joy and bring it home with them.

Of course, being my melancholy self, I couldn't help but feel nostalgic for our wedding day almost 4 years ago. The tangible joy, the innocent anticipation, the dreams and hopes for a life together....on that day my heart was so full.

And yet...when I examine this beautiful life that I've been blessed with I can say that I've experienced deeper and more real heart bursting joy than I could have ever imagined I would on that day. Perhaps it is quieter, with the realities of life's ups and downs, this joy that I know now. I would never call it less. In its own quiet way it has made my heart expand and expand to hold this joy that almost overflows as it keeps being replenished.

I remember when I was writing my senior thesis on marital love I read in one of Dietrich Von Hildebrand's books that falling in love is (divinely) programmed to come to an end so that selfless love can begin to take over. At the time it didn't make sense to me. Now it does.

Life is just not conducive to "falling in love" as a permanent state of being. Every day realities make it so that we feel tired, touched-out, emotional, anxious....and then it is in those moments when we chose to love and care for our spouse ahead of moping and griping that love becomes a CHOICE and we grow in selflessness. Mysteriously and beautifully, when we choose love for our spouse (and children!) ahead of love for ourselves the marriage becomes stronger, the love and desire becomes more passionate, the ability to withstand whatever storms may rock it is tested and proven for greater storms to come. We individually become better version of ourselves but then, consequently, our marriage grows more and more into that Trinitarian love of which it is a model.

It has been a difficult year for us....soul-searching as far as jobs are concerned, a baby with a very sore tummy, penny-counting, severe baby blues for mama, a long, cold winter. Yes, so many in the world suffer so much more than we do...but at the same time I find it helpful to acknowledge our suffering and to put it in its place. However, I am amazed at the fact that when I look at my dearest husband I am consumed with love for him that I can't even find words for. Yes, 4 years ago on our wedding I was overflowing with feelings of happiness and love. But beautifully I never could have anticipated how much I love him now. Not only this but I never could have anticipated how he would help me grow, challenging me every day to be better than I was the day before.

On my 29th birthday....a beautiful sunny day and such fun together!

I am so happy for Eve and Sean, that they have a lifetime together of experiencing such deep joy and such intense love.

When a Man is Loved

Our DEAR ONES, near and far, how we love and miss you! We are all doing very well here in our little basement home, especially now that the -30 has passed. Joe behaved like a true Canadian yesterday when he went for a long walk in -4 degree weather because it felt so "warm" out!

Thoughts for today...

I am blessed with beautiful friends, the kind of friends who challenge me to love more deeply and with a constant eye to avoiding complacency or apathy in my expectations of self.

Thank you my wonderful friends!

The other day we had a long and engaging conversation about our husbands. Oh dear! BUT, get this, it was not to complain about this, that, or the other thing. Of course, men and women are so very different and I assume we all could have brought "complaints" to the table. Instead, it was to marvel at how good our men are, and to mourn the ways in which we so often fall short of loving them...when we nag or belittle them. It made me really reflect...how exactly are we as women to love the hearts we have been entrusted with in our men? Especially in this confusing world, this crazy world...where our good and faithful husbands are beset with so many challenges to their masculinity and fidelity?

Our Superhero...trekked through

the jungle to find perfect leaves to

shelter us from the storm :)

One wonderful lady led me to this bible verse in which St. Peter encourages women to point their men to higher things through their loveliness, gentleness, and beauty of spirit (among other things). Of course, he also encourages wives to obey their husbands. Some may take offence at that suggestion, but I don't think he was asking us to see ourselves as inferior to our husbands. Instead, he was suggesting just how we may encourage them to become the "best version of themselves." (As our dear friend Matthew Kelly would say!).

My Joe is an incredible man, but he is even MORE heroic when he knows that I am proud of him - that he is my prince, my knight, and that I need him. It is as though, when I offer myself to him to be taken care of, his chest puffs out, his shoulders go back, and he feels as though can conquer the world!

Now, this is not saying that I'm not perfectly capable of taking care of myself. As a matter of fact, sometimes it takes patience for me to let my husband do his thing instead of just taking the reigns and being bossy :) However, the amazing flip side of this whole deal is that when I make the effort to nudge my husband towards the greatness he is capable of through my femininity and gentle love, he is MORE romantic, MORE thoughtful, and MORE generous, than ever before.

I experience that it is ok to not be superwoman, I can allow myself to be loved, and most often I end up being spoiled! I am aware of total equality with my husband through our complementarity in our family. We both grow in virtue, and hopefully closer towards our eternal home.

I know this is radical to some, if not most. It certainly is not the message us women are given today about how to behave towards our men, and is probably worth a book...not a measly blog. Maybe, just maybe it is food for thought? What do you all think?

Love from the great frozen North!

XOXO

New Year, New Reflections

Dearest Friends and Loved Ones,

Here it is mid January and I sit down with a firm resolve to write more and often! I've been stuck in a funny state of limbo where my heart feels too full to adequately express in words what is in it. Thus, I've stayed far away from my keyboard, afraid to even attempt it. However, at the coaxing of my husband I am here again to try and pick back up where I left off! I simply can't let you all know of everything that is happening in our lives, although I will try, so instead I plan to let you know what is happening in my heart as it grows more and more full in this journey of love that is being a wife and mother!

Today I want to write about some of the lessons of these early days of motherhood. I never knew that I could be so stretched, challenged, fulfilled, deeply happy, and paralyzed with fear all at the same time. What the heck do I mean? Well, let me try to explain.

Stay moment, please STAY!

Lesson # 1: With my beautiful baby girl, my heart breaks every day! All I have to do is gaze at our baby sleeping, her perfect little chest rising and falling, and my heart feels as though it breaks in two. I contemplate the fact that I have no control over so many aspects of her life...I see her tiny body and know that she will have sickness, injuries, heart break, confusion, rebellion. She has to grow, suffer, learn, rejoice, and I can't stop any of it! I can only love her and teach her to the best of my ability and then let her go. I can't fathom letting her go, I just want to hold onto her forever.

Lesson #2: My love for Joe has only deepened through Liliana's presence. When she was first born I had this moment of panic, thinking that I couldn't stretch myself enough to love Joe as completely as I did before she came along, and love her with as much dedication as I wanted to. However, the heart is mysterious and wonderful in that it has found this ability to expand and encompass all the love I have for both. Ok, so I don't have as much time to spend with Joe, but in some mysterious way my love for him is even more intense and dedicated.



I could eat those delicious chubby cheeks!

Lesson #3: Productivity with a new baby cannot be measured in worldly terms: How many times in the last 5 months have I arrived at the end of the day with an unmade bed, a hastily prepared dinner, a pony tail in and lululemon on, emails piling up (you get the picture!). In the early days, I felt like a total failure at life. Of course, then I realized that I am productive if my baby is clean, cuddled, growing, kissed, played with, eating, thriving! My perfectionist tendencies tempt me to focus on measurable achievements, but for now I must learn to be content in being a mother. What better productivity is there than a healthy, growing baby?

Lesson #4: Having a baby is catalyst for questioning the meaning of life all over again! When I look at Liliana and experience this overwhelming love for her, I can't help but ask why. As morbid as it sounds, I know that at this moment in time we are Lyla's world, and one day we will not be here anymore for her. I can't bear the thought. Despite my faith I question why we come into this world only to leave it so quickly. Thank goodness for the gift of faith, for the promise of heaven, and for knowing that this life is merely a journey to our eternal reward. (Now I just need to remember that when I am tempted to have an existential crisis!)

Lesson#5:  The right kind of diaper makes all the difference in the world. Ok, so it sounds superficial, but truly when you are already immersed in this world of "who the heck am I now that my life is no longer mine?" controlling the number of poopy blowouts makes all the difference! I mean, I remember the early days when she had 6 poops a day. If they were all blowouts, I would definitely be crying by the 4th one, with poop on my fingers, a laundry pile of yellow grossness growing by the hour, and a crying baby as I tried to maneuver soiled clothes over her wriggly and fragile body. Pampers, NOT Huggies. Costco Kirkland brand are also fabulous for being almost totally leak proof. Thank you, good diaper makers!



Hello, little ballerina!

Lesson #6: Small moments must be cherished. Yesterday was my mom's birthday. We dressed Liliana up for it in my favorite purple polka dot shirt, her tutu leggings, and her ballerina shoes. All night as I stood back and gazed at my baby as she was passed from arm to arm I just wanted to snatch her up, bury my nose in her milky smell, carry her to a quiet place where we could coo and play, and take a permanent mental snapshot of her oozing preciousness. I can't handle how perfect she is to me, how when she woke up today she was that much closer to never fitting into her purple polka dot shirt again. SO, I put her to bed in it, just to hold onto that moment a little longer.

Well dear loved ones, I suppose the final thought that I have to share today is that there will never be an end to the lessons. They keep on coming. I keep on being stretched, challenged, purified, reborn, humbled, exalted...transformed in love. Wow, what a journey!
We love you all so much and miss you wherever you are! I promise to write again soon!

XOXO

How can I love You even more than this?

Dearest ones, how are you today? You are going to have to excuse me for being cheesy and romantic. I just can't help it, maybe a little bit of pregnancy hormones, but I think more than anything you can blame my cheese on my ever growing gratitude for my dearest hubby.

The other day during class break I was having a discussion with my professor about the new trend, transhumanism, which professes the aim to make immortality possible for those who are genetically perfect (which they propose to do through eugenic manipulation). Someone asked, have they thought about what it means to never die? About how meaningless life would become when it just stretched on and on?  I agree, I can’t imagine knowing that this life would last forever, it would be so....bleak?

However, there is one reason why I can’t fathom physical death…and that is the immense love I have for my husband. We’ve only been married ten months and yet some nights I lie in bed unable to sleep because I can’t stand the thought of being separated from him eventually. It is the one reason getting older and the passage of time is so frightening to me! He is everything to me!! I truly ache for him when we've been apart half a day...he is my dearest beloved and my best friend. When I expressed this to my professor he only smiled, and told me that my love would only grow, that my spouse would only become more important to me, and my anticipation of one day being separated from him would become more and more painful! I can’t imagine!!!! Dr. Cooper said that he knows the death of his wife (if she dies before him) will be the certain death of a part of himself. Bernard, a class mate, said the same…that his attachment to his wife is only more intense than it has ever been (they’ve been married 30 years or so!). 

Anyhow, my heart gets tight in my chest when I think about how I love my husband. It is almost painful to love someone so much, yet he and our love is most sublime gift my life has brought to me. I know that many of you feel that way, and yet it is one of those things that simply can’t be described until it is experienced. Oh if only I could live forever only so I could love my Joe forever! I suppose that is reason in itself to love him as deeply, fully, and selflessly every day, so that I can never look back and wish I’d used the gift of time better. Speaking of looking back, I’ve been looking at old pics lately, so I thought I’d put some up from the very beginning of our relationship!

When I cheered on the baseball and not the basketball bleachers :) Such a handsome baseball player he is!

The first time Joe joined our family in Hawaii...such fun hiking!

The very first picture ever taken of us...at our friend Zac's birthday at the good old "Sugar Shack" in Dallas!



Cheering for the Mavs during playoffs....too bad they weren't doing as well then as they are now! Look at that Handsome shaved head....

'SIGH'

Oh a completely different note, the spiders have gone away with the cold but I may be scarred for life because today there was a cockroach that crawled into my hot chocolate while I wasn’t looking. It took a while for me to recover from that scare! He is now down the toilette, followed by lots of bleach so he doesn’t come back up and surprise one of us. Ewwww!

That’s all for today, dear loved ones…just the musings of a deeply in love wife, and a deeply grateful lady.  We miss you, of course! I know I say that every time I write but it is SO TRUE.  Long distance hugs from Melbourne to all of you, please know that we hold you close in our prayers.

xoxo