Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

I admit it. In these times there are days when I am really struggling. It seems at times to be coming from every side.

The pandemic, loss of loved ones, isolation, loneliness, the perils of the coming administration in regards to life, marriage and family, the cancel culture, lack of faith in our church leaders, I could go on and on, and then of course, there are my own personal failings and sins.

Some days it is hard to stay faithful to my prayer life, or even to function. It can take effort. There is a need to stay still in order for me to even cope. To just stop and rest in God.

As crazy as it seems, I feel like this is a special grace from Mary this year. An opportunity to be purified to become more like her. To be "fed with the milk of her grace."(Maximillian Kolbe)

In these final days of Advent we are traveling to Bethlehem. Uncomfortable, uncertain, isolated, perhaps rejected and in pain. I am sure Mary and Joseph felt much of this. Like them we may have the bare minimums to welcome in the birth of Christ, "born in Bethlehem at midnight, in the piercing cold." (St Andrew). An yet, it is in that moment when all would seem hopeless that God chose to bring hope into the world. Like with the time of Christs death, all may have seemed lost at His birth , but it wasn't lost. Love and Mercy were born and found laying in a manger as they were found hanging on the cross.

I am grateful to Mary for giving me a share in her journey. For moving me forward towards Bethlehem in the seeming darkness and hopelessness – for behold, Rejoice!  it is in that very darkness Our Savior the light of the world was born!

Come Lord Jesus!