Every week, we will open up a link-up for your blog posts, your instagram posts, your thoughts to share with each other as sisters. We will offer a prompt that goes with our On the Way: Lenten Workbook in these to get your mind thinking. This is an open link-up to your progress in faith and your personal prayer life this Lent, so this is YOURS to be creative with in terms of your blog posts or instagram posts. Contemplate Imagine the women who are suffering directly from the darkness that our world is in today. Maybe the women suffering form the violence in the Middle East, maybe the women who stand on the street corners are night, maybe the women who desperately search each day for enough food for their children. Connect yourself with them. You see, we are not alone in this. This week, lift up your sacrifices for all the women suffering from the darkness of the world. When something seems difficult, make it a prayer for them. Lord, make me a woman of the Light. Or contemplate this verse this week: Bless the LORD, my soul; all my being, bless his holy name! Psalm 103:1 [bctt tweet="Linking up with @blessedisshe__ for the Lenten season. #BISLent"] photo credit An InLinkz Link-up

It's the third week of Lent. God reminds us today that He is the I AM. Lean into Him. As a reminder this week, grab this free wallpaper download by Erica of Be A Heart. "I am who I am" Exodus 3:14 Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

Exactly one year ago we switched from sending out our wallpapers in the weekly email to uploading them on our site. It's been 52 new wallpapers for your devices to remind you of the Word. We are so grateful for all of you who tell us how much you love them - it really keeps us doing them each week. Embarissingly enough, I am so late to uploading it this week. Please accept my apology. Especially when the wallpaper is THIS beautiful. Made by Katrina of Hatch Prints. "The Lord is my light and my salvation" Psalms 27:1 Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

During college, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking I needed to be in a relationship. I felt pitied and ashamed of being single, but after much thought and prayer, God led me to ask a few questions. Why do you think being in a relationship will make you a better and happier person? So when you get married, that's when you will be who you’re meant to be? The answer seemed clear: Your womanhood should be lived out each day, not just in a relationship. Relationship status is not the meaning of my life. My life already has meaning before I meet “the one.” I realized that if I am called to marriage, the time to start loving and respecting my future husband is right now. Instead of waiting for the perfect man, I could start spending my time preparing myself for my vocation by focusing on a few specific areas. Build a firm relationship with God first. God is the only person who will prepare me for the love my heart longs for. I asked Him to put His love into my heart so I can learn what it truly means to love. God loves and cares for you more deeply and more intimately than any boyfriend could. God’s love is a great way to remind yourself of the kind of love you deserve. Learn His ways and imitate His ways because God is love. Build a firm relationship with yourself. Each day, I pray and ask Our Lady to make me, not only a woman of God, but to a woman society needs. There are temptations that prowl around the world trying to ruin hearts and souls, but we need to fight the norm! Use each day to be the woman God wants you to become and you will in turn be prepared for your vocation. You truly find yourself when choosing to be a woman of God. Pray for your future spouse. Even as I grow in these practices, I spend so much of my mental energy thinking about what my future spouse is doing. To calm these thoughts, I ask God to protect both my heart and his heart from evil and temptation. Pray for God to form you both into the spouses you are meant to be. Prayer is the best way to make sure, right now, your future husband is doing okay. Of course, you may not know if your vocation truly is marriage, but any prayer will open your heart. Each day’s goal is striving for holiness. WRITE + PRAY We invite you to sit with the Word and unpack it in a uniquely personal way, finding your own story. Discover your story within His. GET WRITE AND PRAY Stay hopeful. Trust God’s timing is perfect, you’ll realize everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen. I learned to stop rushing for a relationship and just God take over. Just because it seems like everyone is in a relationship except you doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you, it simply means your plan is in the works! Maybe God is saving you for someone amazing, so prepare to be amazing back! Relationships can be a deep and profound way of bringing another person on the path of holiness with you. I hope you can strive with me to becoming woman of God before we ever become the woman a man needs. Wait with the utmost patience knowing you will be rewarded for the amount of holiness you put into your life. Trust that God’s grace and His divine plan will fulfill your future. [bctt tweet="Trust that God’s grace and His divine plan will fulfill your future."] Shannon Donnelly is a Religious Studies major and Philosophy minor at Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania, who wants to share her path to holiness with other women of God.

A sweet sister on Twitter asked for a post on Catholic musicians, and since it's one of my favorite topics, I thought it'd be fun to share some of my favorites Catholic musicians who sing worship-ful music. I also put together a Spotify playlist to give you a taste of five of my favorite songs by Catholic musicians, and I'll add to the list weekly. Now, not in ANY sort of order whatsoever, here is a compilation of some Catholic artists/musicians: Emily Wilson Hussem Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube // Blessed is She Posts Ike Ndolo Find him on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Matt Maher Find him on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Sarah Kroger Quaglia Find her on iTunes // Twitter Jackie Francois Angel Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Danielle Rose Find her on iTunes // YouTube Marie Miller Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Tori Harris Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Joe Zambon Find him on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Jackie Minton Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Aly Aleigha Find her on iTunes // Twitter // YouTube Lee Roessler Find her on iTunes // Twitter Taylor Tripodi Find her on iTunes // Instagram // YouTube Gus & Iggy Find them on iTunes // Instagram // YouTube New One: VIGIL with Multiple Artists Find them on Instagram // YouTube [bctt tweet="Look no further for the ultimate #Catholic musician list:"] Tell us below: who would you add to the list? Jenna Guizar is a wifey and mama to four girls with one in heaven. She loves sitting outside in the beautiful Arizona sunshine while sipping iced coffee and being with her family. Find out more here.

On this second Sunday of Lent, we want to offer a place to come together as a community and document how this Lent is going. Every week, we will open up a link-up for your blog posts, your instagram posts, your thoughts to share with each other as sisters. We will offer a prompt that goes with our On the Way: Lenten Workbook in these to get your mind thinking. This is an open link-up to your progress in faith and your personal prayer life this Lent, so this is YOURS to be creative with in terms of your blog posts or instagram posts. Week 2 This week stay attentive to the manner in which you go about your day in passing other people. Instead of looking at your phone at the grocery store check out, look at the woman who is ringing up your items. Look into her eyes when you speak, smile, and engage with her. She is Christ. Look at your husband's face, your roommate's face, your friend's face when they walk in the door after work rather than muttering hello as you continue your task at hand. See his expression and inquire about his day. He is Christ. Oh Lord, open our eyes to see you in the other as Veronica saw you. Or contemplate this verse this week: The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid? Psalm 27:1 [bctt tweet="Linking up with @blessedisshe__ for the Lenten season. #BISLent"] photo credit An InLinkz Link-up

The world is busy. Long to-do lists, endless extracurricular activities, and plenty of prime-time television abound. And yet, when there’s much to do, value still abides in zipping our lips and just being for awhile. [bctt tweet="Value abides in zipping our lips and just being for awhile... Here are 5 ways to do that."] Here are five ways to help you do just that. 1. Be quiet. It’s a short commitment that can have bountiful benefits. Try to take a few moments in a calm environment and commit to not speaking. If thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them and dismiss them. Focus on your breath, or, perhaps, a sentiment or a word. Be patient with yourself. When the voice inside your head quiets down a bit –even momentarily– you might find yourself listening in a whole new way. 2. Take a break. We’ve written before about how important it is to get in touch with nature. Whether it’s a walk outside, an intentional listen to a song on Youtube, or taking a moment to smell a windowsill plant, getting your mind off of your surrounding environment is crucial to reaching within. Find a space that is relaxing to you – perhaps a beautiful view or an exquisite piece of music – and allow yourself time and solitude in it. In addition to the spiritual helpfulness of removing yourself from everyday life, taking a break bears practical pros, too. If you’re able to fulfill yourself and your own needs, you can pour more of yourself into your everyday work. 3. Go solo. While others can be a solid source of support and learning, your spiritual journey is ultimately your own. Taking some time to work on it alone is important; supplementing the solo time with group sessions might be a worthy follow-up. 4. Be intentional. What did you get out of your tasks today? How were you present in them? How is this part of your ministry? Finding the joy, gratitude, and ministry in the small bits of each day can lead to an intentionality that infuses our lives with greater purpose. 5. Switch it up When it comes to being contemplative, there’s no one right way to do it. The secret is to find what works for you. God can be found in everything from an exchange at the grocery store to nature walks. Indeed, setting aside time to be contemplative can make us better participants in all areas of our lives. Go ahead and spend time in quiet and being intentional today. You might find that the result is a whole different you, beautifully. photo by Sydney Marie Photography Gina Ciliberto is the Digital Media Journalist for the Dominican Sisters of Hope: 160+ Catholic Sisters who live hope in fifteen states and Puerto Rico. More about the Sisters' lives and ministries at www.ophope.org.

  We're entering our first full week of Lent. Jesus shows us in the gospel that he resists the temptations of the world presented to him by the evil one and asks us to do the same. This week, Tara of Frameworthy Designs made the most gorgeous wallpaper for you to download for your tech devices. We are still so excited to be on the way with you! Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

On this first Sunday of Lent, we want to offer a place to come together as a community and document how this Lent is going. Every week, we will open up a link-up for your blog posts, your instagram posts, your thoughts to share with each other as sisters. We will offer a prompt that goes with our On the Way: Lenten Workbook in these to get your mind thinking. This is an open link-up to your progress in faith and your personal prayer life this Lent, so this is YOURS to be creative with in terms of your blog posts or instagram posts. Week 1 Find a place you choose to spend with Jesus this Lenten season. Whether it be your bed, your kitchen table, your outside patio. This it the place I devote to you, my God. This is the place I dive on the way with you. This is the place I will physically go to for prayer. This is where my hypocrisy ends, and my journey with the cross begins. Where is your designated prayer space? Why did you pick that space? Or contemplate this verse this week: You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty, say to the LORD, "My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust." Psalm 91:1-2 [bctt tweet="Linking up with @blessedisshe__ for the Lenten season. #BISLent"] photo credit An InLinkz Link-up

We are SO excited about how excited so many of you are for Lent this year. What a beautiful time of solitude, of prayer, of fasting, of service of mercy. We sold a record number of journals for our On The Way Lenten Workbook. God is so good that all of you want to join together on the journey toward Him. We know so many of you fast from social media during Lent and we wanted to offer you today a wallpaper for your tech devices to remind you to do your journaling and spend time in prayer each day. You can download it for free! And if you didn't get your journal yet, even though we are sold out of physical copies, we are still selling the digital download in our shop! Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

"As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Colossians 3:12,14 My husband and I, who are converts to Catholicism, recently witnessed a Catholic baptism for the first time. I had witnessed infants being baptized in my former church and although I had always considered it a beautiful moment, something about this Catholic baptism profoundly touched me. When the priest addressed the godparents, he encouraged them to make the sign of the cross on the child's forehead whenever they saw her. The sign would mark the child as the Lord’s and invoke his presence in her life and remind the godparent of his or her duty to ensure that the child grows up knowing the Lord. Later that evening, my husband and I discussed how the baptism inspired us. We wondered if it would also be appropriate to make the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads for the same reason the priest told the godparents to perform the ritual on the child’s forehead. Following a little research, we decided to incorporate the sign of the cross into our prayers lives as a couple rather than just as individuals. So, for the last few weeks, before we get up in the morning and before we go to sleep at night, we make the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads. In doing this, we remind ourselves that we have a duty to each other, as the godparent does to the child, to help each other grow in holiness and eventually see Jesus face to face. It also reminds us first and foremost we are the Lord’s, not each other’s and when we acknowledge this, it is easier to live in harmony with God. When we make the sign of the cross over our bodies and our loved ones, let us ask the Lord to clothe us in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, which is exactly what Jesus was clothed in when he made his sign of love on the Cross. [bctt tweet="How the baptism inspired us on the #BISblog."] photo by Jenna Wilber Bond is a Southwest Virginia native currently living in Cullowhee, North Carolina where her husband, Reece, plays collegiate baseball. She enjoys studying theology and history, traveling, and grocery shopping dates with Reece at Whole Foods.

  We're about to enter into a new liturgical season so we have a colorful wallpaper before we enter the hues of purple, created by Katrina of Hatch Prints! You can download them for your tech devices below! "Here I am, I said, send me!" Isaiah 6:8   Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

There's something to be said about the stillness of the morning, those moments before the sunrise when the whole world seems still. There's something to be said for praying during that time, too, when the whole world is still and there's no one calling us, no distractions to be had. There's only God. I learned about the secret of praying in the morning while sitting in a New York apartment talking with Juanita Morales, OP, a Dominican Sister of Hope. Sister Juanita came to the United States from Puerto Rico to enter the convent in 1957, but she had been building her prayer life before that. When she was just a child, Sister Juanita would sit with her mother in the backyard and relish silence. Looking back, she realizes that was quality time with her Creator. As I quickly learned, Sister Juanita's prayer secrets aren't only for vowed sisters: you can connect with God throughout the day --and build a stronger prayer life on the whole-- no matter what your vocation is. Here are six easy ways to start. 1. Commit to Silence. Sister Juanita wakes up at 4:30 am everyday in order to ensure that she can pray in darkness and complete silence. By choosing a time when your neighbors/kids/friends aren’t up and your phone won’t ring, you are guaranteed peace and quiet that you might not get at other times during the day. Moreover, turning off the lights can be an extra help. “I like to pray in the dark always,” Sister Juanita shares. “To be quiet with your God, it’s just neat. I enjoy that.” 2.Discipline Yourself to Stick with It Once you’ve begun to get into the groove of prayer, it takes discipline to keep up the habit. It is crucial to assign yourself a specific time everyday to pray, and to honor that time commitment. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a long stretch. Five minutes is a good starting point; you can always increase the length of prayer from there. WRITE + PRAY We invite you to sit with the Word and unpack it in a uniquely personal way, finding your own story. Discover your story within His. GET WRITE AND PRAY 3. Keep a Journal Journaling daily helps to track progress in your spiritual life, and to identify patterns that can help inform prayer. Journaling might seem daunting, but you don’t have to start out with a blank slate. 4. Don’t Be Afraid to Include Movement Although Sister sets aside time to pray every morning in stillness, she follows it with a slow walk. Consider how you might use movement to connect with Him. 5. Multitask Prayer shouldn’t only be done while doing something else. Yet, multitasking helps to stay connected to God throughout the day, even while doing seemingly menial tasks like cooking or driving. “When I’m cooking, I’m praying for the people who have farms and till the earth, and those who get the goods to me, and the stores. I pray for all those people,” Sister says. How can you incorporate prayer into daily tasks? 6. Start Now. Certainly, there are steps we can take to help us focus more on prayer. Yet, like any good habit, the only sure way to improve your prayer life is to embark on the task. Whether you’re praying for others, praying with your body, praying in stillness or praying in the dark, the important part is that you pray. As with all good habits, there’s never a better time than right now. [bctt tweet="As with all good habits, there’s never a better time than right now."] Gina Ciliberto is the Digital Media Journalist for the Dominican Sisters of Hope: 160+ Catholic Sisters who live hope in fifteen states and Puerto Rico. More about the Sisters' lives and ministries at www.ophope.org.

I take so much comfort in knowing that God knew me before I even entered my mother's womb. That before I was born, there was a plan for me on this earth. For too long, though, I spent a lot of time trying to find the puzzle pieces to that plan. I would spin in circles trying to figure it out. And then with the help of my spiritual director, I came to know that God's biggest plan for me is to love. I was so in awe of the readings this Sunday because the first reading God said that He has a plan for me and the second reading He says that without love, I am nothing. There it is again! Below you can download this wallpaper that I made for your phone and computer for this week to meditate upon this idea from Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you." You can also purchase a printable version in our shop! Phone wallpaper Desktop wallpaper

Seasons. We go through so many different seasons in our lives, don’t we? And every season teaches us something. Right now my family is in a very crazy season. Recently, we packed our things, sold our house, resigned from our jobs, sold a car, left our family, friends, and incredible community in Arizona and moved to Florida: the Land of humidity, mosquitos, and ‘gators (apparently they’re real and they will eat your children if you are not vigilant, so the locals tell me.). Oh, and did I mention I’m seven and a half months pregnant with baby number 3? Why did we do all this? To start a movement, based on a product that has the potential to change the world by radically altering how we grow food, a movement that the Lord has called us to be a part of. What? I still can’t believe that God is calling me and my family to this, little, small, insignificant us... every day, in every moment I’m just trying to say, “Yes”. This new season has been about understanding what it means to be obedient. Obedience is a funny thing isn’t it? I relish the idea of obedience (especially when it comes to my kids) and I completely despise it at the same time. How is that possible? How can you love and hate something at the same time? When it comes to being obedient to God’s will, we can love and hate it because it’s scary, it’s risky, there’s a lot of what if’s, but there’s a lot of potential. What will God do with my life if I let him lead the way? [bctt tweet="What will God do with my life if I let him lead the way?"] Even though this is a nutty time for our family, something incredible is happening with us - we are learning to trust God in new ways - to trust Him as a Good Father. We had no idea what to expect when we landed at the Tampa airport. We hadn’t made any visits before we left Arizona, we were just going to trust. In many ways things have been even better than we expected. And saying yes to this move and this new company hasn’t been as scary as I thought it was going to be. Don’t get me wrong- it’s still terrifying, but we know the Lord is behind us, moving us forward and leading the way. Sisters, we can trust that God is working in our lives and that He is a Good Father that has a plan. I’d love to share with you this new mission that God has put in front of us - it just might change the world. photo credit Have you ever taken a leap of faith? How so? Audra Le is a daughter, wife, mother, and sister, raising babies and working with her husband to change the world one home garden at a time.

This is it. We have prayed together diligently for the last 31 days. If you have ever been on retreat, you know that the question "How do I keep this going?!" can lurk at the end of a moving spiritual experience. How do we continue? How do I keep the flame in my heart alive? As St. Therese has reminded us the last few days, we can keep the flame alive in the smallest of acts. Choosing to love, choosing to serve, choosing to pray, choosing to offer our days to Jesus. Even as sanctity exists in the smallness, our souls also need to be fed. One of the most fruitful ways I have found for my soul to be fed is on retreat. Retreats provide a unique opportunity to be embraced in prayer and spend hours focused on the Lord. Look to your parish and diocese opportunities for retreat -- even just a morning or afternoon in prayer with others can rekindle the flame in your heart. And if you can, come spend time in prayer and sisterhood at the upcoming Blessed Is She retreat. This retreat is open to women of all ages, from all walks of life. There will be set aside time for prayer, for worship, for talks that will transform your faith journey and deepen your relationship with the Lord. I would love to put my hands in yours and pray together, as we have throughout this month. I would love to share a meal together with you this Lent. Together, we will go deeper. Together, we will know Him more. [bctt tweet="Together, we will go deeper. Together, we will know Him more."] Sign up here photo credit Comment below with your thoughts: Did your heart grow closer to God this month? Is your prayer rejuvenated and ready for 2016? How are you going to continue on in grace? or, simply answer: Did you pray today?

Let's revisit St. Therese today -- such a powerful patron is worth a few posts! Elizabeth Foss shared this post on her blog about the Little Way in the face of motherhood and suffering. We all noticed it the year Patrick was fourteen. It seemed like overnight, but really, it wasn't. It was the whole fourteenth year. And my husband turned gray. It wasn't all Patrick, of course. That was the year of the fragile pregnancy and the fragile baby, and the college athlete who spent too much time on the bench. And then there was Patrick. Gray hair. This has been my year to turn gray. My friend the stylist is out on maternity leave. My hair was long overdue for a cut, making me crazy, curls more out of control as they lose color. I couldn't wait for her to return (and I have a hunch she won't), so I went to see the lady who cut my hair last year. To remind her of how it is supposed to be cut, I showed her a picture from the wedding. "Oh my goodness! It's turned so gray!" Is this how they get people to beg for color to go with their cut? No, thanks. I work too hard to keep color and chemicals out of my food to pay someone to allow it to seep into my scalp. If it's going to be gray, it's going to be gray. And apparently, it's going to be gray. It's not Patrick, this time. Well, there is that dang bench in college again, but no one thinks that will last long. He's discouraged, but he's just building character. There are other things this time around, things that pull on a mama's heart. And things that make her hair turn gray. She wonders, remembers, that it's not all turning out the way we thought it would. Way back when we thought life was black and white and there were no shades of gray... Now? Now there's gray. There is the benefit of experience. It stands in the gap where once stood the confidence (and naivete?) of youth. And my problems? They are decidedly first world problems. In the morning, as I pull gray hairs from between my fingers and ask if perhaps today could be calm for my children, my neighbors, and my friends, my husband reminds me that life is hard. Really hard. Gently, he pointed to the idea that when it's hard, there are children and young adults who look to our home for refuge. They call this home. And I didn't give birth to all of them. Life is hard and we are called to be Christ to one another in the midst of the hard. [bctt tweet="Life is hard and we are called to be Christ to one another in the midst of the hard."] Later in the day, a friend reminds me that children are starving, wars are waging, young fathers are dying of AIDS. All a world away in a place that is not at all first world. That's hard life, she says. I am chagrined. And silenced. The question burns though, all day, as I answer text messages and call in resources and troubleshoot and cry and pray and wait and worry on the behalf of people in my here and now: Is it somehow less when we suffer in the first world? Do those who suffer the pains of affluence--who know exactly how far their disease has progressed because they can afford a CT scan after they've drunk horrid yellow radioactive dye; those who struggle away from home for the first time because they've been afforded an education and tuition to university; those who wonder about paying the bills of a middle class lifestyle because suddenly costs will rise and income will decrease--is their suffering less worthy of my time and attention than the suffering across the ocean? St. Therese wanted to be a missionary to foreign lands. Instead, God called her to the cloister. Still, the Church calls Therese of Lisieux the patron of missions. Why? She shares the patronage with the great Jesuit missionary, St. Francis Xavier. His spiritual principle was, to “love those people to whom we are sent and to make ourselves loved by them.” St. Therese never left the cloister, never. Her motto? “To love Jesus and to make him loved.” She lived this mission wholeheartedly: “Just as a torrent, throwing itself with impetuosity into the ocean, drags after it everything it encounters in its passage, in the same way, Jesus, the soul who plunges into the shoreless ocean of your love draws with her all the treasures she possesses. Lord, You know it, I have no other treasures than the souls it has pleased You to unite to mine; it is You who entrusted these treasures to me.” To other people He has entrusted populations of impoverished natives of foreign lands. Me? He has sent me to a small town in the shadow of Washington, DC. He knows this small circle in suburbia is all that I can manage. I'm sure He's wondering at how poorly I "manage" even that some days. Then again, He has numbered every gray hair on my head. Nothing surprises Him. Mothers are mostly little and hidden. St. Therese had great apostolic zeal, yet it wasn't until after her death that the example of her life, the simplicity of her spirituality, and the intercession of her spirit, made her an apostle to the nations. St. Therese is a good patron for mothers at home, particularly mothers at home who might occasionally be distracted by the proliferation of blog posts and books that urge them to move beyond their "comfortable selfishness" to evangelize and bring comfort to the remote corners of the world. Go! By all means, whatever it takes, if it is God's call, go. It's not always God's call. Sometimes He calls us to quiet witness in our homes and communities. Sometimes He calls us to remain little and hidden in our domestic monasteries, nurturing the few souls in our spheres of influence. Loving them as unto the Lord. We can't bring healing to the impoverished masses huddled in their obvious suffering. We can't know what it feels like to fill the bellies and bind the wounds of the poor on foreign soil. Instead, we trust that giving a sippy cup of water to the least of these in our own kitchens is still doing His work. Vatican II defined missionary activity in these terms: “The special end of this missionary activity is the evangelization and the implantation of the Church among peoples or groups in which it has not yet taken root.” By golly, I assure you, that work is not yet finished in my home. At first it seemed so black and white, but really, this mission is colored in shades of gray. A woman can feed them, clothe them, educate them, comfort them, but in this culture, she is not guaranteed that they will stay close to God all their lives. The thing about the first world? There is a myriad of shiny things with which the devil can distract. The mission field is physically comfortable and spiritually very, very dangerous. It is one that requires the constant care and attention of the missionary, lest they are all blinded by the gray. I'm not a very good multi-tasker. The task at home is quite enough. I cannot serve soup in Africa. Right now, I cannot even seek the suffering in the cities close to my home. I'm just a mom in the suburbs, ladling chowder at my dining room table. And my hair is turning gray. Now. Here. This is where I'm called. This is where I pray He finds me, offering hope, serving unconditional love, and counting gifts. I'm giving until I've nothing left to give. I have to trust His grace to fill in the large gaps I've left when I feebly offer these days of relative comfort. I have to hope it is indeed enough. photo credit