New Year, New Saints, New Photos

Happy New Year everyone!  Our family has a fun New Year's tradition of picking patron saints instead of resolutions for the New Year, a tradition we borrowed from St. Faustina's convent.  I read about this tradition of picking a special saint to get to know and to ask for their special intercession throughout the year in The Diary of St. Faustina, and it has become a fun and meaningful tradition for our family.  Every day on our way to school we say a rosary, followed by each person calling out the name of their saint that they picked on New Year's day.  It never fails to make me smile when I hear my boys (especially the little ones with their sweet voices) call out their saint, and then we all say "Pray for us!"  It's a fun and holy way to start each day and to start our New Year.  Let me know if you'd like me to draw a name for you.

Here are the saint names we picked (or perhaps I should say God picked them for us because He knew we would need the intercession of this particular saint for a reason):

Paul:  St. Elphage
Maria:  St. Rita and St. Blaise (yes, I needed two saints...it's a long story)  :)
Joseph:  St. Bernard
Michael:  St. Apollonia
Dominic:  St. Gemma Galgani
Nathanael:  St. James the Greater
Isaiah:  St. George

I also have a personal tradition of picking out a "word" for the New Year to meditate on and try to live out during the year.  I think it was Ann Voskamp that got me started with this tradition.  I think that Ann prays for a special word to come to her in prayer or be revealed to her somehow, but this year I decided to use Jennifer Fulwiler's "word of the New Year generator" :)  You just click a button and a word is given to you!  Kinda fun :)  The reason I like it is because if I try to pray and think of the word that God wants to give me, I'm always over-analyzing and second-guessing myself to determine if this is really my word, or if I just thought of it myself and wanted that word subconsciously.  I know, I know.  I drive myself crazy with how I over-think everything...imagine how my poor husband must feel!  :}  So anyway, the word generator is a better choice for people like me, and here is my word of the year:

FALL

Yes, it's the word "Fall."  At first I was like, wait...what??? That word made no sense to me and I didn't like it.  And I was tempted to pick a new word...  But I stopped myself and tried to ponder what God might want me to embrace spiritually with this random word.  And the first thing that came to my mind was St. Therese.  I had recently read about how St. Therese tried not to ever get discouraged when she "fell" into a particular sin or weakness, but rather trusted like a child in her Father's mercy and simply asked Him to pick her back up again.  She trusted completely that He would run to her, pick her up, and quickly forgive her and keep loving her---no matter how many times she fell.  Just like a tiny child trying to climb up some stairs and falls over and over again, the daddy would keep picking the child up, encouraging her to try again, assuring her that he will always be there for her if she falls.  That's how it is with us in the spiritual life.  We keep trying to climb the stairway of perfection to please God, but we keep falling.  And God keeps picking us back up, encouraging us to try again, and is deeply pleased (not disappointed) when we ask Him for the graces we need to climb the stairs and the mercy we need when we fall (which is bound to happen to all of us no matter how hard we try).  So, with that analogy in mind, I think the word "fall" is perfect for my soul this year.  I have a tendency to easily get discouraged when I fall, beating myself up interiorly, worrying about how I must have disappointed the Lord, rather than trusting in His boundless mercy. 

So that's my goal for 2018: 
to TRUST in God's goodness and mercy when I FALL... 
and to NOT GET DISCOURAGED.  

Pray for me!  :)

And last, but not least, here are some new pictures of our wild and crazy family :)  We had a sweet photographer named Crystal Nance take our photos.  She did a great job and was so patient with us regarding scheduling conflicts, editing, etc.  The photos are a concrete reminder to me how quickly our kids are growing!  Joseph and Michael look like young men already, and even my baby looks so grown up (especially in the photo where he is standing with his hands in his pockets).  All the photos remind me just how blessed I am to have such a holy and handsome husband to provide for us, 5 holy, healthy, and handsome boys, and this gorgeous property to live on.  Thank you, God, for all these blessings and even the ones I do not see!