How Things Are Here

Mike and I went to a very early Mass last Sunday. We live in a diocese that observes the Ascension on Thursday, so our readings were for the seventh Sunday of Easter. As I listened to the readings, and then to an excellent homily, I could not shake the feeling that this week, in particular, they were spoken straight to me in preparation for what the week would hold. Our deacon zoomed in on the second reading. He said that sometimes our suffering is of our own making; we make poor choices and natural law means there will be sad consequences. But sometimes, we suffer through no “fault” of our own. Sometimes, we suffer because we believe in Christ and we believe that followers of Christ should both seek his will and behave as he would. I may ask the deacon for notes; it was just that good. It was also the preface to a week that proved to begin a new chapter in our lives. 

On Tuesday morning, about an hour after he left for work, Mike called to say he was on his way home. He said he’d been laid off and he was ten minutes away. He told me he wanted to give me a heads-up so that I could collect myself. Then he asked if I needed more time. Apparently, he really wanted to be sure I was collected when he got home.

I did not need more time. I had time enough to call one friend and ask for prayers that I would be calm and wise and wholly in God’s will. 

After decades of loyal service to his company, my husband was let go in a downsizing. I’m not terribly surprised. Nothing has surprised me lately, because everything has surprised me for three years. Almost three years to the day that we closed on our house in Connecticut, he was losing the job for which we moved. And in those three years, nearly every day, that job was a challenge to what he believed to be right and good and true. A company he once loved and for which he’d sacrificed so much was caught up in the current tidal wave of wokeism, and despite his best efforts, Mike could no longer hold back the surge. 

After he arrived, we sat in the garden and talked for a few minutes, then gathered the four children at home for a family meeting. He was a man who’d been liberated at last from a job that was slowly choking him. Despite all the uncertainty, there was a palpable sense of relief. Finally, he would be relieved of the daily pummeling that “the other cheek” has endured since we got here.

All is not sunshine and roses. We do love our life here. Our children are settled. We have community we cherish. And our son and his wife and their five children are woven into our daily lives. We want to stay. Maybe we can. Maybe we can’t. He spent the whole day on the phone yesterday, and the calls continue today. 

I keep returning to the spot pictured above, stopping to pray, “Just keep us on the narrow path, safe inside your holy will.” That is my only true want right now. It’s been three unspeakably difficult years. My eyes have been opened to the culture in ways I could never have imagined. But God has been so faithful. He’s carried us through some agonizing sufferings. He has shown us how necessary the grace of the sacrament of marriage is, and he has shown us that he is truly present in it. We are three. Every hard bump along the way, every exhausting, sleepless night in the last three years–he used them all to get us ready for today. 

I didn’t even need ten minutes:-). I just stood there on that brick walk, asked someone to cover me in prayer, and met Mike there, fully confident that whatever this new wrinkle brings, God’s grace is sufficient.

That said, I hate surprises. I love to know the plan. And I need order. So on Tuesday, after we talked to the kids at home, Nick made a tee time and took his dad golfing. I stayed home and cleaned things. We all have our ways of coping…

When my sister calmly suggested that maybe I could stop vacuuming, I turned to a project Micaela and I have been quietly working on for some time. There are plans to bring Take Up &  Read into the fullness of the vision we had for it from the beginning: a mentoring and coaching site that will serve Catholic women in a healthy and holistic way. Now that Mike is going to be around all day every day, maybe we can move that launch date up a little. 

I also checked in with Beautycounter to see if I could get a beat on what June will hold. Beautycounter has been a blessing in more ways than one these couple of years. It’s kept the lights on here on the ‘net and paid for educational opportunities for me and been such a push in the right direction at just the right moment. And in the face of some economic uncertainty, I wanted to see what this little business opportunity holds in the immediate future. There is that new lipstick, and a new product that promises to make us all look bright and beautiful by autumn. And–the thing I was most interested in having been so recently kicked in the teeth by the culture–there is very little reliable information on how and when and whether rainbows will be ominous beacons of things unintended by God next month. I have been sharing a product I love, believing in a company that promotes good health.

I am weary and watchful and so-not-woke. I’m praying that June is not political. But I don’t know. I truly don’t know. Perhaps, this too, will fall away, because the way of Christ is really very narrow, isn’t it?

For now, there’s a chance to try the new lipstick and snag a really great-smelling shower gel for dad (and for you too, because let’s be honest, it’s really nice when they smell good). There’s a gift with purchase offer to celebrate the holiday weekend. As always, but maybe a bit more poignantly today, your new lipstick blesses my family. 

Thanks for listening, for your prayers, and for your friendship.