Let Truth Bloom

Do you get angry or resentful if you see your husband relaxing on the couch when there’s so much to do? Do you begrudge him having time outside the home, away from the kids? Do you sometimes feel like he has it so much easier than you do? Four years ago I found myself seething while vacuuming under my husband’s feet. It was 8.45pm and I was seven months pregnant with our third child.  There he was, the man I fell head-over-heels in love with seven years before, resting on the couch…and I was still going. Still working. Still trying to get everything done.  ‘ How could he rest?! Doesn’t he see me? ’ I thought. ‘ How can he think that it is okay to just sit there when he knows I find walking painful at this stage of pregnancy, never-mind vacuuming? Clearly he doesn’t love me or care about me ’, I confirmed.  I dreamed of my husband saying ‘ let me do that…sit down, love. You deserve to rest…you’ve done enough ’. But the permission to rest never came. USING RESENTMENT AS A S...

Are you experiencing emotional turmoil? Is there a person or situation in your life preoccupying your mind to the point of distraction? Is there a very real fear or concern overshadowing your peace? Is some hurt you are feeling leading you to ruminate? Are you experiencing anger towards someone or something but can’t seem to express it, process it or get past it? More often than I’d like to admit, I can find myself spiralling into emotional turmoil. And when I am experiencing that level of emotional pain, it can be so hard  to turn my focus elsewhere. It can be so hard  to see any shred of good where I am feeling and seeing only pain and angst. It feels so painfully real  and I can find plenty of evidence  to support my doubts, my anger, my loneliness, my worries, my fears, my beliefs. Perhaps this is a familiar dynamic for you, too? But what if we have more control than we may think over the unnecessary upheaval we find ourselves in? What if I told you that one simp...

As mothers our days can feel like they are hijacked as soon as our children awake. We can be care-giving and serving from the minute we rise to the minute our kids go to bed at night. Perhaps even then struggling in the evening to stop ‘doing’ long enough to be fully present with our spouse. With ‘all we have to do’, where is there time left in the day to just  be ? My alarm clock  used to be my children. While they climbed on top of me, my mind would race to the tasks that lay ahead: the planning, preparing, cooking, feeding, changing, dressing, tidying, decluttering, organising, sorting, cleaning, washing, folding, playing, care-giving, home-schooling, phone calls, arranging, packing, unpacking, socialising, shopping. I would lie there, trying to convince myself to get up. Reminding myself - albeit begrudgingly - that this is my life’s purpose; that this is what I had always wanted. Reminding myself that as a good Catholic wife and mother you put up with the workload, t...

What do you want? A simple question, perhaps… but not one that may be all that easy to answer. Do you know what you want? I am not asking if you know how to go about getting what you want; but rather if you know what it is your heart desires? It is very easy for me to have a fleeting idea of what I may want and then quickly depart to “but we don’t have the time for that now” or “but that is far too expensive” or “we have small kids so that’s just not a possibility for us” or “with work and family commitments that isn’t doable” or hundreds of other logical reasons as to why my desire cannot be fulfilled.  And that is where I used to stop. Allowing my desires to be limited by the bounds of my own imagination. Quenching those desires before they had a chance to see the light of day. There was also a deeply ingrained perception I seemed to have that it was selfish to have desires. It took a lot of practice to get in touch with what I truly want. Honestly, it still takes effort. Even w...