I picked up a slim hardbound copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's A Gift from the Sea last month on a thrifting excursion. I vaguely recalled some reference to it years ago and a quick paging through while standing in the store aisle made me sure she had put words to my own thoughts in several places.  

Admittedly I ruined it for myself after reading more about the author's own messy personal life. Still, I have picked it up again and again and scribbled out bits into my notebook. The first day of lent brought back this description of her life and her ultimate goal which I can readily identify with:

“The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; I have a husband…children…and a home.  I have also a craft, therefore work I would like to pursue. The shape of my life is of course determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires…

I want to give and take from my children and my husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world as a woman, as an artist, and as a citizen.  

But I want first of all – in fact as an end to these other desires – to be at peace with myself.  

 I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eyes of God. 

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

I want, in fact–to borrow from the language of the saints–to 'live in grace' as much of the time as possible."

That is it really.  It is why we fast and pray.  It is to put all those raging passions in their place with hope that at the end of it we find a different sort of peace, that our lives will line up more closely with the will of God, that we will be able to carry out our vocation more sincerely and selflessly. 

In short, grace. 

Today's feast speaks to the very hearts of Irish hearth keepers. The story of Brigid of Ireland inspires us to grace and forgiveness in the face of grave injustice. It encourages giving from our need and not our excess. Generosity.  Absolute trust in providence. 

It is said, "One of the most appealing things told of Brigid is her contemporaries’ belief that there was peace in her blessing. Not merely did contentiousness die out in her presence, but just as by the touch of her hand she healed leprosy, so by her very will for peace she healed strife and laid antiseptics on the suppurating bitterness that foments it."  

"…remind us how to kindle the hearth, to keep it bright, to preserve the flame. Your hands upon ours." – from the prayer to St Brigid

May we too have such will for peace in our homes that contentiousness dies out in our presence, that we learn to lay antiseptics on bitterness. 

St Brigid cross tutorial here

If this thought occurred to you today – a paper version

San Antonio, summer of 1994, what can I say?  It was rough.  It had been a rough year in fact.  My husband and I had married nine years earlier, after he finished his second semester of college and he had joined the Air Force rather than enroll again.  Eight years, five homes, and three little boys later he walked across the stage to receive his bachelor's degree.  The week we learned he had been accepted to Officer's Training School we also discovered we were expecting our fourth baby.  

While he was gone for training the boys and I muddled along as best we could.  His commission would mean immediate relocation so we had to close up the house and move into temporary quarters before his return.  I remember distinctly getting the house packed up, getting the keys to the temporary unit, and then being beset with (thankfully) false labor.  He arrived soon after and I was well enough to travel though not drive.  His mother helped us make the long trek from Ohio to Texas.  

The heat arrived just as we did.  The rental house introduced us to small garden lizards and large roaches. Our parapalegic son was hospitalized after injuring his foot at the new babysitter while I was at the obstetrician's office.  Another son got a wicked gastrointestinal bug.  The onset was swift and unmistakeable as we stood, with me very pregnant, at the checkout cashier one day.  Our beautiful baby was born soon after and then?  Husband got a temporary assignment.  Where?  Back in Ohio.  

It was almost surreal. 

We had signed the lease on the new house and had no option to accompany him back to Ohio, so I stayed in Texas with the children.  In desperation one afternoon I pulled out the letter with the number scrawled in tidy cursive.  My sweet neighbor Mabel from Ohio had written urging me to call another friend of hers who had also recently relocated to the same base.  "You two need to meet!" she insisted.  Truer words were never spoken.  

Jen and I have always chattered non-stop with each other, our words tumbling over each other's like puppies. It was clear by the end of that first call that help was on the way. I remember walking up the cement pathway to her little rental house.  Her oldest son was swinging a plastic bat at a tee and she was standing in the door all warm and bubbly.  Jen's whole demeanor says, "Welcome." 

It was blessed relief to finally meet her.  We slipped into each other's lives readily, easily, permanently.  Her boys slept on my living room floor the night their sister was born by emergency c-section.  My children woke up to her in our kitchen the morning Moira was born.  We threw baby showers and birthday parties.  We had big cooking days, stocking freezers for deployments or medical needs. We occasionally got out together for 'mom time' catching a concert or conference.  

When we left three years later it was every bit as hard as when I had left my own family years earlier.  Our visits began to take place by phone and by email.  We wouldn't see each other in person for several more years but we would talk and talk, challenging each other to hold fast and try harder and to never succomb to the despair that sometimes threatens the strongest of military spouses.  

We still do that. 

Twenty-one years later Jen has gathered her thoughts into a new book to share with other military spouses.  It's solid.  I know this because I have heard these words over many many, years when I needed to hear them.  Today you can download the kindle version on Amazon here.  (the hard copy is coming in February!)  The format is fabulous for those in the trenches.  Each section begins with a story followed by practical and spiritual applications: challenges, prayers, scripture, and reflection. She meets you where you are and comes up alongside offering sound counsel and encouragement. 

If you are "married to the military" or just plain married, I truly encourage you to take that hand like I did. 

You can find more from Jen at her website 

(six years ago when we overlapped at the same base for two months) 

This.  

This is what I love best when we are all together and what I miss most when we aren't. 

Something about those little hands covering her eyes caught my eye in the mirror. "Ok, I'm ready, Mom!"  How many times has this scene played out in our family in 30 years: gently brushing out little tangles, making straight parts for ponytails, carefully dividing hair into sections to make even braids.  Little jobs like this are gifts. I am reminding myself not to rush through them because the day will come all too soon and there will be no more bows to tie.