“Blessed are all who wait for the Lord.” Is. 30:18d My one-year-old eats a waffle for breakfast every morning. Despite that I have never failed to feed him, he inevitably wails for the entire two minutes it takes to pop up from the toaster. I sing and dance, trying to distract him. I explain that…
Author: Samantha Stephenson
The Bump as Invitation
Any woman who’s ever been visibly pregnant knows that her baby bump is an invitation. Whether she likes it or not, friends and strangers alike regard the bump as a signal. It alters the laws of social interaction, eliminating the concept of personal space surrounding the protruding area. The bump also elicits a flood of…
30+ Ways Parents Can Make Mass Less Stressful
The celebration of the Eucharist is the greatest miracle on earth. For parents of little kids, it can also be one of the most stressful! Of course, taking children to Mass is incredibly important and meaningful, but it hardly feels that way when yours is the child crying, laughing, screaming, or just generally being a…
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What I’ve Learned from Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom
It was the middle of the night when I drove myself to the emergency room. My lungs were burning and I had coughed up a bit of blood. I tried to keep myself calm, to avoid panicking prematurely. If it was what I thought it was, there was a very good chance that I could…
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5 Ways Ignatian Wisdom Can Help You Cultivate Work/Life Balance
I stumbled over the toys strewn across the living room floor before sneaking into my daughter’s dark room to kiss her goodnight. I had looked forward to this night “off” all week, but now that it was over, I found myself coveting missed bedtime cuddles. I crept back out to the living room and collapsed…
Continue reading ➞ 5 Ways Ignatian Wisdom Can Help You Cultivate Work/Life Balance
Mercy for the Outcast: The Story God Wants Told
Mere moments on Twitter are enough to alert us that our culture is plagued with demons. We live in a culture that responds to polarized politics and social values with contempt and hateful accusations that serve only to drive us further from one another, rather than seeking common ground. Even voices claiming to speak for…
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The Art of Allure in Marriage
I found myself crying in the dressing room. All I wanted was to find one thing I felt beautiful in, one thing that I could slip into and become that confident woman who used to lure her husband with a pair of stilettos and a bat of her lashes. Now, the mascara from those lashes was…