On changing my major and naming a journey.

This is a bit of a personal blog, but I am feeling a bit... well.. bursting at the seams lately, so I just wanted to share what God has been doing in me. For years I have had this sort of blurry vision of how I believed God was calling me to minister to His people, both personally and as a family. I have always kind of hoped that I would end up a missionary in a foreign country. Or homesteading and teaching survivalism with my husband to families. Or running a little herboristerie (herbal shop) on the beach with a nurse friend where we could offer holistic, simple solutions to all of life's problems.... solutions like sin less and love more. 

First, I have been so conflicted-- because finding a balance between helping/ caring for my own family and finding/ caring for those I felt called to minister to (primarily other Christian women) has been quite challenging. Then finding ways to bring in income without feeling like I was taking money from those I wanted to serve most has been a real challenge.
Occasionally, I have found a good balance-- lately I've been home more often but making good headway in service to others by taking the time to help women who needed someone to walk them through switching over to a CM-style of homeschooling. It has been really enjoyable.

But  I have also been so confused.... wondering all the time what God could possibly be doing with me and preparing me for. I have been all over the place--- learning one trade, then another, moving from one place, then going to another, then right back where I started. What was God doing with me?? At first, I focused on that. But then I realized, I was being so selfish! God was preparing me for an ordinary life, for doing my duty, for simple things! Only in fully embracing that did I really begin to make an progress, spiritually or otherwise.

And yet even as I embraced that and rejected any form of "ministry" outside my own home, God has constantly brought people literally to my door in great spiritual need.
Out of a sense of need to DO SOMETHING about it, once and for all, and laboring under the idea that it would probably help my family, I undertook to return to college so that I could study psychology and maybe work for a parish and get paid for doing what I normally do.... talking people through their problems.

But at the same time this thing has kept bothering me: I don't want to wear a suit, to leave my home and children, to sit in an office, etc. I don't want to waste my life on discussion boards covering topics that I don't care in the least about just for a paper degree that cost me an arm or a leg. I want to keep doing what I'm doing. I want to be a wife, and a mom, and to do it well. I want to help other women and make an impact. I want to have a "profession" that helps my family AND helps other families... a job that is a ministry.  But how can I?

At the close of this semester, since I couldn't take any more college courses til the fall, I decided to work over the summer on my goal of continuing education in childbirth to stay updated as a doula. By a totally random turn of events, one of the courses I enrolled in thinking it was a doula training was actually a midwifery course. A midwife. Hmmm.

I'd met midwives, been served by them in childbirth and during well-woman visits. I'd worked with them at births.I have friends who ARE midwives, and  I'd even called some with questions about this or that herbal supplement. But what WERE they, really, ,and what did they really do?? What was I going to be studying besides how to catch babies??

I began to read, to research, and to talk to the midwives I know.

Suddenly, it was like I could hear the click, click, click of puzzle pieces coming together in my mind. MIDWIVES!! They were here in cities, in doctor's offices,  and along country roads and they were far away in countries with no running water, serving women everywhere they went. They were into herbs and birth and fertility awareness and marriage and counseling and motherhood. They were educators and they were committed. They were hidden in the background, working hard but hardly noticed. So hardly noticed that though I had gone to them all my life, I didn't even really know what they were! They were wise, wise women, always learning. Many of them had children of their own, whom they had raised. And they were discipling others, especially their own. Honestly, it felt like my brain exploded.

A MIDWIFE!

Before I could understand why it felt so right...like the path I'd been on all along.... I had to think a little bit about my own heart.

I am called to be a wife and mother.
NOTHING in my life had prepared me for wifehood and motherhood. Even when I was married, I never for one moment thought that I was accepting the kinds of struggles and difficulties all wives and mothers experience.  It has been hard. It has been painful. It has been a pruning experience. And yet it has been the single greatest and most glorious undertaking of my entire life. I have a burning vision for future generations of faithful sons and daughters, beginning with my own. In order to see that vision through, I am called to tremendous sacrifice: a career focused on my own family, submitted to my husband's leadership, and in a meek, and quiet manner, serving "in the background" primarily in my home.

I am called to be a Christian wife and mother.
What distinguishes me from the rest of the wives and moms out there? A deep commitment to honoring the ways of God. In my home, my husband leads, and I follow (on a good day.)  In my home, my children are homeschooled, and their vocation is to their studies, for now. In my home, I am to accept suffering with great courage and perseverance. In my home, I must live an authentically Christian life--a sacramental life. We do not use contraceptives, even though it is often hard to trust God. My husband and I regularly abstain from sex and pray together instead. We go to confession, we go to liturgy, we bring our kids, they sit alongside us. We train them up in the faith. Childbirth, and reliance on God, and not knowing what the future holds is a way of life for us. Not so for most women and for many Christians, who decide and determine when they will start and when they will stop having babies. But for those of us who trust in the Lord with ALL of our lives.... things are different. And I want to encourage that in others, and nurture it in myself by remembering the value of human life.

I am called to be a missionary.
Whether I'm here at home or in a foreign land, and I've been to many, there is always this tug on my heart: SERVE THESE PEOPLE. BRING JESUS TO THEM. My life has been a long series of funny turns of events in which I've had to rely completely on God, and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. Our call to missions is tangible-- we feel it inscribed in our hearts, and yet God has never made a way, despite our efforts, for us to "go." The larger our family gets, the less likely it seems we will ever "go," but strangely enough he is beginning to build in us this idea that wherever we are, THERE is our mission. And it has born fruit when we have been faithful to it.

I am called to help women.
Through this blog, and through my personal encounters with other women, my most fruitful times of ministry have been when deep in intimate dialogue with other women. Whether we are discussing faith formation, friendship, leadership, avenues of service, or faithful wifehood and motherhood, helping women has always been the area I have felt most useful. I never want to stop getting real with other women.

I am called to help women celebrate life.
Whether helping women through the decision to skip an abortion, to honor their husbands intstead of belittling them, teaching fertility awareness, serving alongside them as a doula during childbirth, or encouraging them to embrace the children they already have, I've always been grateful to be around women so that I can encourage them to choose life... and life abundant. There are voices for death all around us-- voices telling us to devalue our bodies, to be objectified, to objectify others, to murder our young. I want to advocate for life, all my life.

I am called to help women live simply and richly.
Having been raised in a very materialistic community, one of the greatest blessings I have learned in married life has been to embrace a simple, whole life. By eating natural foods and herbs, making my own beauty and medicine products, and learning the art of homesteading and bushcraft, of a life rooted in hard work and prayer,  I have found tremendous happiness. By enjoying the outdoors and "the simple things," I have seen so much improvement in my quality of life and in the satisfaction I have come to feel in just... being alive.

I am called to pray and to stay "in the background."
Nothing has been more evident in my life than the clear message God sends me over and over again that I am to PRAY, and pray hard.There was even a time when God completely removed my ability to GO to people who needed prayer, thus leaving me at home with nothing to do BUT pray, in the silence. Things haven't changed all that much since then, what with babies and fathers in law to watch over. And so I pray.

I am called to bring deliverance to people.
For the longest time I thought I was called to deliverance ministry-- to helping exorcists. Everything about this thought came about in random patterns I noticed in my personal life... the types of experiences I had and the types of people who I came into contact with or had an impact on. I met famous exorcists. I saw people delivered. Random possessed people often asked me for help. And I prayed, prayed, prayed. But despite all the apparent coincidences that pointed in that direction, in the secret places of my heart I knew that it was my pride and curiosity that called me to deliverance ministry, and not the Lord. This little thing is not insignificant, though-- because I have seen how active The Enemy is in promoting his culture of death all over the world. It is his domain, and his greatest work in the world. Because of that, amazingly, deliverance and healing often come through.... delivery! The willingness of women to accept who they are and what they-- should they be married-- are called to! The Bible says we women are saved through childbirth.... and I believe it. It is our strength against the devil's work.

I am called to counseling and discipleship.
There is a reason I selected first journalism, and then psychology as my major.... Something inside me comes to life when I am in a setting where two people are interacting. Both when I am being mentored or when I am mentoring someone, discipleship and catechesis flows through my veins. It's how I was raised up in the faith, and my greatest desire for the people around me. It is something I have seen bear fruit, but also something which has stretched me and forced me to rely on God alone. Again, this is an area which activated my pride quite a bit, and so an area I have had to step away from to re-evaluate. In midwifery, there is an aspect that cannot be more in tune with the vision I have received... first, because midwives are mentors to women and especially, ideally, to their own daughters, and second because midwives provide counsel to women in all walks of life, counsel in marriage and motherhood, and faith and in health.

I am called to be an educator.
I homeschool my children. I teach Bible Studies and lectures on home education.  I eat, sleep, and breathe booklists and methodology and lesson plans, and I regularly give classes and talks to people in my community. Speaking about various topics, about education in general, and passing out resources to make sure people ARE educated is something I cannot ever stop doing. It sets me on fire.

One thing I have often prayed is "Lord, make me meek and humble" (good luck!) and "Lord, help me to enlarge my husband's ministry."

As I reflect on the role of a midwife, I'm so moved to see that midwives truly "hide" in the midst of all the families they serve, primarily their own, in the background-- encouraging, leading by example.
Yes, there are noisy, loud, aggressive, intense, mouthy midwives. I see them everywhere these days.... but they are not following in the traditions of their mothers.

I know I am called instead to traditional midwifery because....

my first aid shelf looks like this...tinctures and salves and herbs, oh my!

...and because the bathroom shelf in my house looks like this....

and because my kids' room looks like this and will only get more crowded....

... and because my happy place looks like this

... and like this

... and like this

... and like this

... and like this

.... and like this.... and because none of these things are going to change.

Me, my Mamoune (My French Grandmother, from whom I have learned so much), and one of my daughters.

For the first time in my adult life I am not suffering conflict between the care of my OWN family and service to others.... I feel fully at rest having babies, caring for babies, being a long-term student / apprentice, and staying home with them, knowing it is preparing me for a rewarding vocation as a wife, mother, and midwife. ♥

All of my life, I have used herbal remedies and ideas to serve my family that I learned from my own Grandmother, and prayed along the way that I would one day be a grandmother to many who-- like her-- had a family legacy to hand down, a body of knowledge to pass on, and a beautiful, full, rich tapestry of family life and service to give to my own children and to the people all around me as a gift. As living proof that life is precious and God's ways work. My Grandmother is the perfect example of a woman whose life and ministry and career have all melted into one beautiful picture of a woman with a life fully lived according to her vocation.

Those of you who know me well know that St Josemaria Escriva is one of my favorite saints. The Catholic Church has written specifically on the topic of midwives and their apostolate, and St Josemaria's words on the topic of apostolate has been my heart's joy lately:

Christ has taught us in a definitive way how to make this love for God real. Apostolate is love for God that overflows and communicates itself to others. The interior life implies a growth in union with Christ, in the bread and in the word. And apostolate is the precise and necessary outward manifestation of interior life. When one tastes the love of God, one feels burdened with the weight of souls. There is no way to separate interior life from apostolate, just as there is no way to separate Christ, the God-man, from his role as redeemer. The Word chose to become flesh in order to save men, to make them one with him. This is why he came to the world; he came down from heaven ‘for us men and for our salvation,’ as we say in the Creed.
For a Christian, apostolate is something instinctive. It is not something added onto his daily activities and his professional work from the outside. I have repeated it constantly, since the day that our Lord chose for the foundation of Opus Dei! We have to sanctify our ordinary work, we have to sanctify others through the exercise of the particular profession that is proper to each of us, in our own particular state in life.
We have to act in such a way that others will be able to say, when they meet us: this man is a Christian, because he does not hate, because he is willing to understand, because he is not a fanatic, because he is willing to make sacrifices, because he shows that he is a man of peace, because he knows how to love.
St Josemaria Escriva, Christ Is Passing By, 122 

A midwife!! Glory to God.