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This week on JEI (Just Enough Info) we're talking about prayer.
1.What are your favorite devotions?
I switch around favorite devotions depending on what kind of season of life I'm in at the moment.I favor the rosary when I'm on the go, or when I have a baby that is in the will-only-sleep-on-a-breathing-person stage.
I re-re-(I can't even tell you how many times I've restarted) start the Liturgy of the Hours when I *could* slow down but I need to reinvigorate the discipline it takes to accept that that10 minutes would be better spent in prayer.
I do believe taking some time to have devotional time without small people crawling on me is important. I wouldn't count being a human jungle gym as quality time if I was trying to talk to my husband, why would it be fine when I'm trying to talk to God?
However, I DO pray with my kids. More on that to come!
2.Have any of your prayers been answered? Do you have any prayers that you are glad weren’t answered the way you’d hoped?
Oh yes.
Perhaps the biggest one was about my vocation.
When I was a kid, I had a strong attraction to the religious life. My parents were very supportive of this possibility, and when I was 12 I was able to spend a week at the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in Grand Prairie, TX. Just a short drive from where I grew up in Dallas.
It was one of the motherhouse convents, so the very old and the very young were all together. I lived in the Formation House, a part of the convent especially for those in formation and discernment, which meant some of the time recreation and group prayer was sometimes just with others at varying stages of discernment.
The sisters assigned us jobs like every other able bodied person in the convent. Mine was helping Sr. Mary Francis in the laundry, and occasionally in the convent library, shop, or museum.
I learned the rhythm of the convent days. It's where I learned how to pray the Liturgy of the Hours and how to chant.
I ended up coming back for a few summers, as well as Come and See Days. I entered the order as an Associate - a lay member who is pledged to assist the order through prayer and a commitment to living the spirit of the Holy Family.
The whole time I was praying about entering, but it was more like "what do I need to do to be the best sister I can be?" instead of asking God if this is what he really wanted for me.
My answer came one day during adoration. As best I can explain, I passed out and I had a total answer that God was not calling me to be a sister when I woke up. To this day I have a hard time explaining exactly what happened, but the certainty never wavered - this was not my calling.
And I was mad about it!
Religious life was what I very much wanted for myself, and letting go of that dream was rough.
It was a long road to discerning that married life would be my calling, and a funny story about how I finally came to accepting my vocation and meeting my husband. That's a story for another day.
3. How do you pray with your kids?
If you've been reading this blog for a bit, you might know I write about this a good bit.
Right now, we read a chapter from our Golden Children's Bible as part of our school time everyday. We pray before all meals - even Therese. I aim for at least one rosary a week with them.
We have mass study as part of my homeschooling this year. I'll have to write more about how I do that, because I'm really making it up as I go, but we use John's mass kit to go over different parts of the mass. The goal is for them to gain familiarity with the prayers and movements in the mass so it is easier for them to follow.
Here's three of my favorite posts about praying kids!
Your turn!
Link up if you have a blog, respond in the comments if you're a reader.
Make sure you read the rules of the link up, and follow each of your hosts in some way!
Alicia – Sweeping Up Joy | Pinterest | Facebook
Kirby (me!) – Under Thy Roof | Instagram | Facebook
Kerry - Fishbowl Fortune | Instagram | Facebook
When we get close to graduation time every spring, my husband cringes when people ask, "What do you want to do after high school?" The question we should be asking these kids is "Where is God calling you after high school?"
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad to have gotten to know you over the internets, Kirby. It was neat to hear a little snippet of your vocation journey. :)
That is so cool that you stayed in a convent for a short period of time! I am really enjoying this set of questions of prayer. Thank you for sharing!
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