Ora et Labora: Pray and Work

Some pre-Lenten thoughts (with us Catholic wives and homeschool mamas in mind, but truth for all) to keep moving with life and growing in Faith during the upcoming time of Lenten prayer and work:

  1. If we homeschool mamas are in constant connection with God through regular prayer (ceaseless is my modus operandi), our eyes and hearts (and thus our homes and families) are more keenly aware of and appreciate the beauty of our days and experience true peace and authentic hope. And it is beautiful! Peace flows. And hope billows; it imbues and energizes us.
  2. If we homeschool mamas are in constant connection with God through our daily work, (and there is much hands-on, emotional, and spiritual work in this vocation…from wiping down counter-tops to putting feelings into perspective to scooping the ashes from the fireplace to teaching Algebra 2 and handwriting to sautéing the onions for the pasta sauce for supper to putting receipts on the budget to helping young adults pack their moving boxes and create their own budgets…), the work is abundant and beautiful and joyful and holy.
  3. Thankfully, through prayer and work, we obtain an increasingly deeper and more wonderful understanding of and love for our perfect God. Thankfully, we get to know ourselves clearly as daughters of God with beautiful, fulfilling vocations. Thankfully, we grasp and internalize an understanding of and an appreciation for the wonder and beauty of all His vast creation. And, as I frequently tell my children, we can (and should) bring that light into the world!

Ora et Labora, my friends!

An Honest Love Story (book review)

I found a new best friend! Well not really, but if we met in person, the moment could well be an instant sisterhood made in Heaven.

In Ree Drummond’s perfectly titled autobiography The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels – A Love Story, I passionately identified with her story…the messy emotional ups and downs of young womanhood… falling instantly and madly and deeply in love…getting hitched the old fashioned way (in an actual church)…and having that first baby girl.

Drummond’s relatable, comfortable style of writing draws her readers in to admire her life transform from a thoroughly-sure-of-her-destiny young woman who meets up with a life-changing man to a fiercely protective “Mama” who loves her husband even more because now he is “Daddy.”

Her descriptions are revealing, pictorial, and sometimes just downright palpable.

I always love an honest story, especially an honest love story…

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels – A Love Story
By Ree Drummond
Publication date: 2011
ISBN 978-0-06-199716-7