Spiritual Tug-of-War

I am currently reading three fabulous books. First, I am reading 33 Days to Merciful Love: A Do-it-Yourself Retreat. This is just about a 3-5 minute read each day, and it's truly blown me away with how wonderful it is.  The day I started it, it was exactly what I needed that day.

The second is "Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother's Heart and Hope"  It talks about the many fears we as mothers often have. Am I doing enough? Will I ever have a career again? Have I lost myself in this 'job' of motherhood? It's really what I've been needing as well.

And the final one is "On the Other Side of Fear: How I Found Peace". This one is about dealing with fears and anxieties, the unknown. I saw this one advertised on FB, and with the fear I've had over this move, I decided to look in to it.

The three books have intersected so perfectly. Most recently, "On the Other Side of Fear" suggested talking your fears and anxieties out, working them to their logical conclusion and figuring out what is the worst that could happen. So, for example, if we don't get orders this week, what then? If we don't get them until the week we're suppose to leave, what then? What if we don't get movers by the time we gave our landlord notice? Then we'll have to talk to her. I don't want to, but it's possible. What if we close on the house and then don't move to ID? Then we'll rent it out. When my husband and I sat down and talked all of my fears out to the possible ends, it really helped.

I was thinking about this constant struggle I feel, this tug-of-war if you will. One day, I feel like the Lord is in control. The entire move is in His hands, and it will all work out. I have a "Thy Will" approach instead of "My Will". I remember His command "Be still and know that I am God." and I am at peace.

But then, the fear creeps in. I start worrying about the stress of every thing last minute. I start fretting about getting orders and movers. I start getting worried about purchasing the house, the church in town, homeschooling, etc. All of these fears then begin to consume me. I feel like the old cartoon with the angel and the devil on each shoulder.

I loved this quote "...darkness and light cannot coexist." The same is true for love and fear. The author went on to say she prayed for peace, for the ability to surrender, and that amidst her fears, that she'd be able to trust God and His plan for her life. This is my prayer as well.

With this constant struggle, often tug-of-war relationship between love of God and anxiety and fear, I was feeling discouraged. And then, I read the beautiful wisdom of St. Therese in "33 Days to Merciful Love", as she's talking about a stairway to holiness. Imagine a young child is trying to climb this stairway with huge steps.

"Now, the child, who is all of us little souls, cannot even climb the first step of that big staircase -- we're too little. But Therese tells us to try. She says 'Raise your little foot to scale the stairway of holiness.' Of course, we won't be successful, but Therese then adds 'God requires you only to demonstrate your good will.' In other words, we just need to give it a try. And as we do, Therese tells us that God will be 'conquered by [our] futile efforts' and will then descend the stairway, gather us into his arms, and take us to the heights. So, Therese's point seems to be that our efforts in the spiritual life are absolutely necessary but also absolutely useless....The Lord doesn't demand that we attain all virtues (success) but that we simply keep trying (faithfulness)." (day 11)

God understand that I am trying to have peace, I am trying to leave it in His hands, give it to Him, not have worry and anxiety.

"In sum, then, the Little Way is often a little way of darkess. It's about accepting that we are to put up with ourselves -- with all the darkness of our weakness, brokenness and sin -- without getting discouraged. It's recognizing, without giving up, that some struggles are chronic. It's realizing, without despairing, that they may be with us till our dying day. But, it's also about realizing that this does not prevent us from becoming saints." (day 11, 33 Days to Merciful Love) 

With all of this said, we still don't have orders. My husband got an email on Thursday saying "We're working on your orders." (I can't even begin to explain my response to that haha!) Yesterday was a family day and the whole base was basically closed. We're going to stop by the office this afternoon and see if they arrived. We also got paperwork to close on our house. We've got to get a notary, so hopefully Monday we'll be able to do that and get those papers sent back and close on our first home! More on that later.

"God does not call us to be successful but to be faithful." ~Blessed Mother Theresa

Trusting God in the midst of a move

We are 39 days out of having to be out of Germany, and still do not have orders. Until we have orders, we can not schedule movers, schedule plane tickets, schedule hotels, etc. We're basically sitting and twiddling our thumbs. Our house is in shambles, everything piled in different corners of the den to be boxed up by men we don't know. Every other move we've done- four other moves- we have moved on our own. All of the stuff sitting in my den would already be boxed up, waiting for us to pick up the Uhaul and load it. But, it's not possible when moving back to the states. (When we moved here, we had everything in storage and the movers just picked it up and put it on the truck.)

Anyone who knows me know that this move has been a struggle for me. I know all the comments by memory. "You're going to love ID. It's in God's hands. Jesus, I trust in you. Give it to our Mother Mary." And while I know all of this, and know that I need trust God, at times, it's hard. My faith has been very lacking, and the past month has been very rough and dark for me. My heart says trust God, while my mind does what it wants, gets stressed, freaks out, plays all the 'what if' scenarios, gets anxious, and just stops trusting God, even saying I don't believe it's in His hands any more.

I realized something had to give. I realized I needed a Sacrament, the Sacrament of Confession. (I know many of my friends will not understand this Sacrament, and I really struggled with it before converting to the Catholic faith, but now, I realize it has so many benefits and is incredibly scriptural. This article explains it really well if you are interested in understanding our beliefs better.)    I finally went this weekend, and what a difference it made. It had been too long, and I think that I had not realized the impact of the darkness of sin on my life.

Aside from that, I had a friend encourage several of us to do "33 Days to Merciful Love"- a do-it-yourself retreat. It wasn't suppose to begin until Aug 27, but I just had to begin. I knew I was thirsty for something. I have done about a week, and am completely blown away. The whole first week was on trusting God. Yesterday's meditation talked about how Eve brought original sin into the world, and through her, we lost our trust in God. And that the New Eve- Mary- came to restore that doubt. We sometimes run from God because of our lack of trust, so He uses Mary to bring us back to Him. That she helps provide the grace to come back to Him.

At this time, I am at a place of peace. I'm trying not to worry, and just leaving it in the Lord's hands. It will all work out, just not the way I'd prefer. It will be stressful. But, it will work out.

Moving update

Everyone's asking, so here's the short end of where we are regarding moving. We don't know when we're leaving Germany, other than "By Sept 30". We still don't have orders (official military paperwork that says "You're moving to ID" and allows us to do things), so we can't plan movers, hotels, rentals, car shipment, cancel contracts, anything. We know they will not come until after Aug 12 at the earliest. However, we have to give 30 day notice to our landlord, so we're trying to figure out what to tell her and give her notice today.

The house we first put a contract in on came back with a bad inspection and we walked away. It was for the good. Now we have put a contract in on another house. A 1950's house that has been completely flipped- brand new kitchen, beautifully restained hardwood floors, plenty of room, nice backyard, and room to do some renovations for our own enjoyment, We are suppose to close at the end of the month, so we're praying that our orders do arrive before then. If you're the praying type, that's what our specific prayer request is at the moment.

Other than that, we're keeping busy plucking away at trying to get our house ready for movers. I've realized I definitely prefer DITY (Do it yourself) moves.I can pack all my books and pictures and make headway. With a moving company, I can't pack anything or else they are not responsible for it. So instead, I'm just making huge piles in my living room of stuff that is ready to be packed. This will actually be our first ever more where they come in and pack up all of our stuff. When we moved to Germany, we had everything in storage for a year. And amazingly, the only things that were broken upon arrival were the microwave glass and a bookshelf, so we packed well ;-) Here's hoping these movers do as well! I definitely prefer moving ourselves, and doubt we'll do another military move again unless we end up overseas again.

This week has been Totus Tuus, which is basically like VBS or Church camp if you aren't familiar with it. We've been hosting one of the team members and really enjoyed getting to know him. It's consisted of lots of driving getting him and the kids back and forth, but the kids are having an absolute blast and are so sad to know today is the last day.

I'm some how sort of keeping my head on straight, but I definitely don't do well with this kind of stress and anxiety. I'm totally accepting prayers said on our behalf that we get orders by the 15th, and that we can just stay on top of everything we need to- is there a Saint for that?? Maybe Mary or St. Anne huh? Here's to a military move!