"Found"
I recently read the book "Found" written by Micha Boyett. It's one of those books that I wish I could buy a hundred copies of, and pass out to everyone I know. Or even people I don't know. It was that good.
Besides the thought that Micha and I would most likely be great friends, our stories run similar paths. We both came from an evangelistic approach to righteousness-by-achievement and have found that we are more at home in a liturgical church setting today. She and I both struggle with our very real "need to achieve" being thwarted by our vocations as stay-at-home moms. But she and I are both working our way to the surface, learning to breathe. She has two boys, like me. She lost her third pregnancy that was due in January, like me. And she is pregnant again, like me! :) I've found lots of encouragement in reading her words, both in her book and on her blog, during the last six months or so. I'm grateful that a friend introduced me to her.
I thought about trying to summarize her book, but let me just say this. She is a wonderful storyteller and writer. She focus on the Benedictine prayer model of praying at different hours throughout the day. But more than that, she focuses on God's grace at any point in your life, specifically, as a mother to young children. You can find her blog at www.michaboyett.com
And since I can't afford a hundred copies of her book, let me just go ahead and share some of my favorite passages.
"I need to know how to love God when all I have to offer is my daily chaos. Mostly, I long to know a quietness in my soul, true contentment, despite my spiritual unimpressiveness. I need to believe that my simple life really is a gift and really can be holy."
"I was going to say how monks stop to pray the way a parent stops to wipe nose, break up a toddler battle, or sniff a suspicious backside. Monks stop to refocus their hearts. We mothers can't help but hear the cries of our children. We know their shrill-pitched screams from across the playground. We stop. We refocus. I've been wondering what might happen if all that stopping brought me into God's presence every time. It doesn't now. Right now, it simply distracts. But what if it didn't? What if my child's need for me prompted me to pray? Not with words. I can't hold words and August's need simultaneously. But maybe, I think, maybe I could hold God's nearness in my chest, in the place where the guilt lives now."
"Much of my spiritual formation had been focused toward turning faith to action, into holiness."
"Stability enables me to outlast the dark, cold places of life until the thaw comes and I can see new life in this uninhabitable place again. But for this to happen, I must learn to wait through the winters."
"Prayer is not as hard as I make it out to be. Again and again, lift and unfold. Lay that line out, let it meander a little. Do it again. I am not profound. I am not brave in spirit. My faith is threadbare and self-consumed, but I am loved, I am loved, I am loved."
"I feel like Mary, aware that I carry a pearl in me, something fashioned in another, holier place. Most of the time, pregnancy feels frustrating, like an illness. My body is rarely happy with what this child is doing to me. But there are moments that are mystical, as if the incandescent glows beneath my skin and I can barely hold it for fear of being burned."
"All this time, as I pushed August on the swings and talked to moms at the park, as we colored and as I sliced apples, all I wanted was to find prayer. In reality, God was finding me, here, in my everyday. I was being found."
"There's never a moment when you learn how to be whole, just like there's never a moment when you learn how to be a mom, or how to see the holy around you. There's only practice. There's only noticing. There's only the constant prayer that your heart would become what God is making it to be, that you might lift your eyes from the ground where the city is all cement and metal and danger, and toward the warm sun, which burns till the fog flees back across the expanse of the wide sky, beyond the tips of the great buildings."
Even these quotes seem like thin shadows apart from the whole context of her words. But it's all I can share today.
Besides the thought that Micha and I would most likely be great friends, our stories run similar paths. We both came from an evangelistic approach to righteousness-by-achievement and have found that we are more at home in a liturgical church setting today. She and I both struggle with our very real "need to achieve" being thwarted by our vocations as stay-at-home moms. But she and I are both working our way to the surface, learning to breathe. She has two boys, like me. She lost her third pregnancy that was due in January, like me. And she is pregnant again, like me! :) I've found lots of encouragement in reading her words, both in her book and on her blog, during the last six months or so. I'm grateful that a friend introduced me to her.
I thought about trying to summarize her book, but let me just say this. She is a wonderful storyteller and writer. She focus on the Benedictine prayer model of praying at different hours throughout the day. But more than that, she focuses on God's grace at any point in your life, specifically, as a mother to young children. You can find her blog at www.michaboyett.com
And since I can't afford a hundred copies of her book, let me just go ahead and share some of my favorite passages.
"I need to know how to love God when all I have to offer is my daily chaos. Mostly, I long to know a quietness in my soul, true contentment, despite my spiritual unimpressiveness. I need to believe that my simple life really is a gift and really can be holy."
"I was going to say how monks stop to pray the way a parent stops to wipe nose, break up a toddler battle, or sniff a suspicious backside. Monks stop to refocus their hearts. We mothers can't help but hear the cries of our children. We know their shrill-pitched screams from across the playground. We stop. We refocus. I've been wondering what might happen if all that stopping brought me into God's presence every time. It doesn't now. Right now, it simply distracts. But what if it didn't? What if my child's need for me prompted me to pray? Not with words. I can't hold words and August's need simultaneously. But maybe, I think, maybe I could hold God's nearness in my chest, in the place where the guilt lives now."
"Much of my spiritual formation had been focused toward turning faith to action, into holiness."
"Stability enables me to outlast the dark, cold places of life until the thaw comes and I can see new life in this uninhabitable place again. But for this to happen, I must learn to wait through the winters."
"Prayer is not as hard as I make it out to be. Again and again, lift and unfold. Lay that line out, let it meander a little. Do it again. I am not profound. I am not brave in spirit. My faith is threadbare and self-consumed, but I am loved, I am loved, I am loved."
"I feel like Mary, aware that I carry a pearl in me, something fashioned in another, holier place. Most of the time, pregnancy feels frustrating, like an illness. My body is rarely happy with what this child is doing to me. But there are moments that are mystical, as if the incandescent glows beneath my skin and I can barely hold it for fear of being burned."
"All this time, as I pushed August on the swings and talked to moms at the park, as we colored and as I sliced apples, all I wanted was to find prayer. In reality, God was finding me, here, in my everyday. I was being found."
"There's never a moment when you learn how to be whole, just like there's never a moment when you learn how to be a mom, or how to see the holy around you. There's only practice. There's only noticing. There's only the constant prayer that your heart would become what God is making it to be, that you might lift your eyes from the ground where the city is all cement and metal and danger, and toward the warm sun, which burns till the fog flees back across the expanse of the wide sky, beyond the tips of the great buildings."
Even these quotes seem like thin shadows apart from the whole context of her words. But it's all I can share today.
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