The Glory to be Revealed in You

The Best of Intentions...

2008-06-25T03:05:00Z

Thanks for visiting my blog. I've taken on too many projects, and this will have to sit inactive for awhile. If yu would be interested in helping me put the rest of the content of my book, The Glory to be Revealed in You, up on this blog, please email me at kristen@mysecretismine.com

Your work in raising kids is so important - thanks for visiting my blog!

Preface - Part Two

2008-02-24T20:31:00Z

Seek out others who are connected to the Church. I cannot overemphasize the importance of your local parish as you work through your approach to religion for your family. Involve your parish priest, religious, extended family and friends in your struggles with Church teachings, whether you feel isolated for following those teachings, or have difficulty understanding the wisdom of those teachings. We must all struggle together as the family of God in order to build up the Church for our children. Just as the struggles of the early Christians strengthened the faithful, so too will your struggles and successes teach others and strengthen your parish.

This book is set up with a short essay and four meditations each month. The essay is meant to increase your intellectual knowledge about God. The meditations are more practical. They are designed to apply the insight of the essay to your experience. Chapter Nine includes six meditations, just in case your pregnancy lasts longer than you had hoped. Each meditation can be used for an entire week, particularly if you make use of the extra Bible verses and journaling space. It may be a challenge at first to force yourself to focus for one week on the meditation at hand. I encourage you to try, because this "slowing" of the mind and heart lends itself to prayer and reflection that is open to God's word for you alone. Do not be discouraged by the tendency of the mind to wander. As a wise mentor once said to me, "Most people find that their minds wander during prayer sometimes. When you notice it, gently guide your mind back to God."

At the same time, do not be afraid to make this your book! You do not have to adhere to the monthly and weekly schedule of essay and meditation if it does not work for you. Of course, you may already be "behind," since many women are not immediately aware of their pregnancy after conception. Perhaps you might like to skim the book first and then focus on the meditations. Perhaps you need to read the entire book in one setting. Perhaps you can only pick it up and put it down. The goal is to include God in your preparations for motherhood. If you like, you can even save chapters to focus on in your next pregnancy. God will help you find the best way to use this book.

I consider pregnancy to be an invitation to learn about God's very nature: Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. God is inviting you to delve deeply into the mystery at work in your very body, to ponder the reality of God's presence in your life via the new life He has bestowed upon you. Let this pregnancy, be it your first or your tenth (or more!), guide your soul into closer communion with the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Remember that He came first as a newborn baby to Mary, who treasured all of the things she did not understand in her heart, (Luke 2:51b) trusting she would someday know Him fully. Even though we may not be giving birth to the Messiah, the Messiah has given us new birth through his death and resurrection. By looking at the spiritual metaphors in pregnancy and childbirth, we can begin to know Jesus more fully ourselves.

Special Note to Unmarried Readers

2008-02-24T20:03:00Z

Because a clear majority of births in America are to married couples, I have chosen to refer to the father of the baby in this book as the husband of the reader. In no way do I mean to exclude or judge you, or your situation. No one can exclude you from the great spiritual gifts that God is offering you through this baby except you, yourself. I hope that you will find food for thought and prayer in this book, and that God will provide spiritual, emotional, and financial support to you as a mother. May God bless you for being open to the life within!

Preface - Part One

2008-02-24T20:02:00Z

Congratulations! I greet you with the same message Elizabeth gave to Mary centuries ago: "Blessed are you...and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Lk 1:42b) A deep and abiding love is offered to us in pregnancy by the Giver of life. My hope is that God will use this book to convince, enlighten or remind you about His abiding love for you.

This book is primarily for pregnant women. However, many others may find some portions of it enlightening or useful. Further, it is written from a Catholic perspective, with many biblical reference points. If you are not Catholic, please remember that doctrinal differences in no way exclude you from the salvation that is offered to you in Christ Jesus. If you are Catholic, I hope this book will help you to understand the Church better, and to love her as much as I have come to love her. When the descriptive title Christian is used in this book, it means any follower of Christ, Catholic or not.

You may read many books on the physiology and emotions of pregnancy and childbirth. My own bias is that much of the information in the secular press about parenting and childbirth is too anxious not to draw moral or religious conclusions, which in turn leads to an understanding of reproduction and parenthood which is both relative and value-neutral. It is popular to "judge not," but only in such a way as to deny the existence of an eternal Judge. The point I am making here is that your personal ideas about God and discipleship are important.

Discipleship is how a Christian lives his/her daily life in God's world. Each Christian mother is called to evaluate all the pregnancy "advice" and then make decisions she hopes will please God. I hope that this book will become a source of advice and reasoning in that sifting process. Sometimes we do not understand why God has chosen a certain path for us as Christian women. My prayer for you is that you will learn a bit about God's plan for your salvation, and that God will provide you with all the comfort you need, and all the gentle prodding you need, to let His love guide you as you follow His path.

A supportive community of faith is invaluable to expectant mothers. Begin with your husband. (If you are unmarried, Special Note to Unmarried Readers.) Some couples wait until the children are old enough to attend catechism classes before they begin to work through any differences they may have with respect to religion. Your relationship can only be made stronger and your parenthood easier by beginning to face those realities prior to the child's birth. Children are at once highly impressionable and deeply insightful. You will not be able to hide your disagreements from them.

But in a larger sense, spending some time with your spouse considering the work of God in your lives can be very exciting, and can even strengthen and renew your relationship. The Lord has blessed your union with a miracle! Many people in our society have chosen to focus on the stress involved in parenthood rather than the joy. Together, with God's help, you can claim the joy of parenthood, and learn how God can help you cope when the going gets rough. (And it will get rough sometimes, you can be sure of that.)

Week Two Meditation

2008-02-24T19:54:00Z

WEEK TWO:

“Mary becomes Mother because of her assent, in which she lets the word spoken by the angel come alive in her through the Holy Spirit. In her assent itself, grace was visible as God’s question which she might answer. Now that she is a mother, her pregnancy has become a sign and pledge of the grace developing in her as God’s answer. Between the two—God’s question and his answer—there lies no long evolution. Just as the Mother does not reflect and asks for no time to consider, so God’s answer is also an immediate one…God’s assent cannot be inferred from man’s assent alone, and yet the assent of man is only thinkable within the perfect Yes of divine grace.”

--Adrienne von Speyr, Handmaid of the Lord, p. 34.

You cannot see this baby, but you can feel the symptoms of pregnancy. The miracle of your baby’s conception was God’s grace to you and the father of the child. With every little discomfort this week—excess saliva, nausea or vomiting, moodiness, extreme fatigue—let the wonder of God’s divine grace intercede. These symptoms make the power of God’s grace visible, right now in your life. Consider the many ways in which God’s perfect Yes of divine grace may have helped you endure physical or spiritual difficulties in the past. Let your meditation conclude by asking God for help in making His grace visible in your life.

Journaling Questions:

What physical symptoms are causing me the worst suffering today? Are there also symptoms of discomfort in my relationship with the Lord?

What questions do you feel God is placing before you during this pregnancy? How do you envision His answers appearing?

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation

Psalm 139 John 9:1-41

Prayer:

Creator of my life and my unborn child, I thank you for including me in Your plan of creation. Let your joy over the child within permeate my life, so that everyone I encounter will see the goodness of your world. Amen.

Week One Meditation

2008-02-24T19:48:00Z

WEEK ONE:

"There may be times when we appear to be wasting our precious life and burying our talents. Our lives are utterly wasted if we use only the light of reason. Our life has no meaning unless we look at Christ in his poverty. Today when everything is questioned and changed, let us go back to Nazareth. Jesus had come to redeem the world-- to teach us that love of His Father. How strange that He should spend thirty years just doing nothing, wasting His time! Not giving a chance to his personality or to his gifts, for we know that at the age of twelve, He silenced the learned priests of the Temple, who knew so much and so well. But when his parents found him, He went down to Nazareth and was subject to them."

-- Mother Teresa, quoted in Prayertimes with Mother Teresa, by Eileen Egan and Kathleen Egan, O.S.B. (NY: Image Books, 1989)

Being an adult can be weary work. Often, obedience to a higher authority is required, be it the government, our parents, our job security, even rules of personal hygiene. Make a list this week of your daily, weekly, monthly and even annual "submissions." Meditate over this list, then, and play around with categorizing the tasks. (For example, fun vs. drudgery, religious vs. secular, things you do well vs. things you do not do well, and so on.)

Journaling Questions:
How might these categories shift with the new baby?
Whose expectations cause such shifts?
Does this affect your submission to God as Lord and Savior?

Bible Verses for Additional Meditation:
Psalm 40 John 13:1-17

Prayer:
Lord, lift my eyes and help me see Your hands offering to me Your divine Help. Remind me that I have never been truly alone, that you are always by my side. Where I have submitted myself to You unknowingly, where I have deliberately rejected Your help, where I have yearned for Your help but been unable to ask, have mercy on me and restore to me the grace of Your wisdom. Give me the humility to discern your will for my life. Amen.

What kind of glory was that?

2008-02-03T05:38:00Z

It's been a long time since I wrote The Glory to Be Revealed in You: A Spiritual Companion to Pregnancy.

At the time, I needed some adult projects to keep me busy on the long nights while my husband was deployed as a U.S. Marine overseas. After it was published, my family grew by six more children...and added some very different challenges to the mix.

With each pregnancy, I would re-read the book. Parts of it I was proud of, and parts of it made me wonder what crazed lunatic wrote that book. (Hormones can really change your perspective sometimes. I should know!)

So, here we go again. I'm actually not sure if I am pregnant or not...but I know that spiritually, God is asking me for some major life beginnings lately. So, I'm re-reading my book, and I plan to post it all here. But this time, I'd love it if you read along, and maybe we can all help each other get new insights into God's wonderful plan.

I'll try to post a new section of my book three times a week, and the weekly meditations will come out each Monday. If you're pregnant, too, you can subscibe to the blog in an RSS feed and we can walk together.

God bless you! (And you know I am begging Him to bless me - I an't no spring chicken!)