This is the life of faith

“In order to write about life, you must first live it.” -Ernest Hemingway

After Michael’s plane crash a few years ago, Jeff Cavins and his wife Emily visited us a couple of times. Jeff has close friends here in Baton Rouge, and has come down regularly for years to give talks and retreats.

I’ll never forget getting that text from the Jeff Cavins while I was still with Michael in the hospital in South Carolina in June of 2022. He promised his prayers for us and asked if he could send me a copy of his book, When You Suffer. Jeff and Michael later connected, and that’s how the visits came about.

On one of Jeff and Emily’s visits, Jeff asked me about my blog and my writing.

“So, Erin, I understand that you are the Humble Handmaid. What is your writing and ministry about?”

…That moment that a major Catholic author and radio host and speaker visits your house and asks you (who have been writing online for 13 years at the time) what you write about.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it felt super underwhelming to me. It was something like, “well, I write about finding peace in the everyday life of faith.”

I felt suddenly so shy, even foolish, at the time. What had I been writing and speaking and podcasting about all those years? What was Humble Handmaid even all about? Did I even know?!

I sure didn’t deliver the kind of clear, compelling elevator pitch taught by the blogger marketing course I had taken once when I was Serious about My Platform. (Not to mention the elevator pitches I wrote professionally for clients for my then-new job at an ad agency.)

I remember feeling this real stab of frustration and helplessness. I wanted to write more, had enjoyed the ministry work I used to do on radio, podcasts, and on my blog, but at that moment in time—that day that the Cavins visited—I had a newborn, plus five older children, an injured and out-of-work husband at home full-time while looking for a new career, and I was still in the first few months of working outside the home after years of being a stay at home mom.

Understandably, I wasn’t writing much. And honestly at that moment in time it felt like I would never have time or energy to write again. Even before Michael’s accident, the past few years had turned life upside down for me.

Jeff gave me a truly kind response—he really did. But I was both a little sad and a little grateful that day that we all quietly moved on to talk about something else fairly soon after that.

It’s been three years since that conversation. I still don’t write much these days, despite Mike and me being so much more on our feet in every way since the plane crash. And I still don’t have an elevator pitch, or a content calendar, or a well-thought-out personal brand, or a new podcast, or an online course, or a super-busy speaking circuit schedule.

I speak a handful-or-less time per year, mostly locally, and my Substack publishing rate is about the same. Of course that is absolutely something, and I’m truly grateful.

Maybe God’s got Plans for that one day, and I’ll look back and read this post…

But the Lord just keeps telling me to just live my life right now, and He keeps giving me the kind of peace deep down that a small part of me sort of doesn’t want to have.

And yet here I am. I am actually writing today for the first time in a while. I felt a little green light from the Lord this afternoon. I’ve actually been encouraged by a couple of beautiful talks for Catholic writers I have heard this year from Blessed is She and Emily Stimpson Chapman and Write These Words and Danielle Bean. (The Holy Spirit is truly moving in our time to raise up Catholic women writers. It is so clear to me!)

Maybe God is doing something in me?

God finds me and guides me in the middle of my Real Life, and He knows my heart. He sent me those talks. And I know He gives us our gifts and talents because they are a gift to our own souls, maybe first and foremost.

Today, looking back at that conversation with Jeff Cavins, I do write about “finding peace in the life of faith.” It’s not a stellar elevator pitch, but it’s the truth, and that’s a great place to start.

Maybe one day I’ll just come up with a fancier way to say it. :)

Today, I carved out a little time to do something that fills my cup a little, and I know God is smiling to watch his little girl do something she loves on this quiet Sunday afternoon.

So today, here are some excerpts from this girl’s life of faith.

I’m buying homecoming suits and dresses for my two high schoolers.

Mike and I are spending long Sunday mornings after 8am Mass working through Ascension’s Chosen program at home with our three oldest children to prepare them to receive the sacrament of Confirmation in November.

I’m reading Emily Stimpson Chapman, and Emily P. Freeman and Jonathan Haidt and Shawn Smucker and the daily readings from ARK. Katie Marquette also makes me smile and think often. The Emilys and Shawn and ARK calm my heart and give me beautiful things to think about. Jonathan’s important work keeps me up to date and on my knees in prayer.

I am still missing my sweet houseguest from Poland who stayed with us for the whole month of July. Dorota is about 17 years older than I am, raised four children, and is a grandmother. She’s so lovely. My house has never been tidier or maybe even more cheerful than when she was with us. She organized my pantry and cabinets, played hours and hours of card games with my kids, and made us her family’s favorite Polish meals. Doing an English language immersion in the U.S. has been a lifelong dream of hers. She was inspired in prayer by St. Elizabeth earlier this year that it was never too late to ask God to do something new in you, for you, or through you.

Maybe she came to us in July just to tell me that.

I’m still figuring out how to not lose my mind doing 45 things between 5pm and 9:30pm on school nights. Mike is coaching cross country, and we’re juggling mandatory parent nights at school and evening board meetings and math homework with a second grader and it’s wild sometimes.

My daily prayer often includes a rosary, either with the Hallow app or the Daily Rosary Meditations podcast. I try to listen to the daily readings every day if I can, too.

I’m trying to learn more about the temperaments so I can parent each of my children with a little more insight and skill. (I’m super melancholic, go figure.:)

I’m trying to will Fall weather into existence by baking pumpkin bread and decorating my house in fake fall leaves and burning candles with names like “Apple Honey Butter.” #cantwait #readyforsweaterweather

I’m registered to attend my first silent retreat in many years in October. I’m so looking forward to it.

I’ve been hosting up a storm in this wonderful new house God gave us. In the past three months we’ve hosted everyone from my husband’s coworkers to missionaries to newlyweds from our parish to priests to a prayer group for Christian moms from my kids’ school to lots and lots of friends and family.

And I “write” all the time, really, if you count my multiple gigs worth of voice-to-text Notes on my phone.

I write about the lessons and responsibilities of leadership, and my thoughts on nurturing community.

I write about the holy moments that come with opening your home to people.

I record the simple joys of raising all these different ages of children (at one time!).

I write about my prayer times this year contemplating the lives of St. Josephine Bahkita and St. Carlo Acutis and St. Jean Vianney.

And I write so much about divine mercy: God’s mercy on us, and our mercy on ourselves, and our mercy on others…and what that actually looks and feels like in my real life, hard lessons and all.

I came across this prayer from Emily P. Freeman a few weeks ago and saved it.

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A Blessing for Listening to Your Life

By: Emily P. Freeman

Though you’ve been silenced and at times

forgotten the sound of your own voice,

though your senses are frayed, your attentions scattered,

may you remember your life is sacred, and has something to say.

May you have ears to hear

the unrepeatable poem that is your every day:

new mercies, new invitations, in every verse.

May you know firsthand that it is good

to go into the cloister of your own life,

the sacred site of divine encounter,

and take off your shoes.

Amen.

How many of us need this prayer, in our own way?

Three hours and 30min. Yikes.

Still progress. :)

No spell check or final read-through this evening, or I’ll never publish this post. Also I hear the sounds of hanger drifting down the hall. I’ve got to figure out dinner.

Now I must really be off to the races. The 25 Things That Must Be Done Before 9pm on Sunday Night won’t tackle themselves. At least I have Volume 5 of the Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion to look forward to if I’m done with the 25 Things before 9pm.

I’m loving that series so much right now.

How much God hopes we’ll recognize that those little delights in our lives are actually from Him.

He knows just what we would like, and He sends so many graces and pleasures each and every day. We are thought of and cared for with such love.

This is the life of faith.