PIC ME (part 1)

The last few days have been so surreal. 

Yesterday morning, I woke up in Slovakia. 

Today I woke up in Austria. 

I just replied to an email from a student by saying, "Hi!  Welcome back from Italy...." and to another student, "Hi!  Welcome back from Poland..."

What a semester of unexpected travels and surprises this has been thus far...and we're currently just under two months from returning to the States.  I sit here astonished at how quickly the time is going.  It feels like we were just planning for this semester abroad and packing in early January as we threw together what we thought we might need for the next several months amidst snow and Christmas decorations. 

Today is March 25th which is exactly nine months from Christmas Day.  Today, in our Church, is also the Solemnity of the Annunciation when Mary learned she would be having a baby.  I saw this image on social media followed by the comments below and just had to share it here.  I originally was going to write about the feast day of St. Joseph that was just celebrated last week but I really love what the author below had to say about the connection between these two special days in our Church history.

Laura Kelly Fanucci at Mothering Spirit

March 19 at 4:13 PM · 

Could today be a feast of unexpected parenthood?
For the first time it struck me that the Feast of St. Joseph (March 19) & the Annunciation (March 25) fall in the same week. A father's dream and a mother's interruption. A quiet no turned courageous yes. A startled question turned fierce fiat.
Together, a holy family beginning from what looked like exactly the opposite. Together, two feasts holding an octave of surprising beginnings, unexpected callings, upheaved plans, and logic-stomping grace.

In other words: how family looks in many of our lives.

Maybe you got pregnant too young, too soon, too poor, or too often.
Maybe everyone said you were too old, too late, or too successful for that nonsense.
Maybe you've stared down at a positive test with tears in your eyes thinking no no no.
Maybe you've stared up at the ceiling, praying please please please.

What this week teaches us is that God is not on our timeline. Love does not mean logic. And perhaps most importantly: joy is not always born of joy. Joy is often born of the exact opposite: grief, anger, fear, sadness, and disappointment.
Because new life starts after what looks like death, every time.

Today is a feast of saying yes to what matters most, shattering expectations, trusting dreams, defying popular opinion, and rushing into the mess when God points there.
Today is a day for remembering how many (all?) of us end up there: standing in the mess, shards of hope at our feet, piles of plans that will never be, unexpected gifts outstretched that look like anything but the good we wanted.

Today is a feast for bending low, scooping up the broken pieces, looking each other in the eye and saying: this will be good, too. This will be even Better.
Because whatever good we can give, whatever love we can offer, did not come from us. It came from God.

I had a hard conversation today with a dear loved one about religion and life.  The conversation barely just got started and did not last more than a few minutes but had been taking root for quite some time.  For the better part of the last 14 months or so, I've been praying specifically for this person and religious struggles being faced.  Life is incredibly hard and messy.  It doesn't always go as planned and unfair things happen to good people.  I only have to look back at the incredibly unfair events of what happened the night of Charlotte's birthday to be reminded of that.  Yet there is still resilience.  There is still grit.  Doing the right thing.  Holding on and trusting even when every instinct screams to fight and flee.  The statement above about God's timelines vs. our own made me think of this.  Take this in again:

Love does not mean logic.

And perhaps most importantly: joy is not always born of joy.

Joy is often born of the exact opposite: grief, anger, fear, sadness, and disappointment. 

Because new life starts after what looks like death, every time.

New beginnings come from endings.  New adventures come from the final moments of previous ones.  New starts come from final pushes to the finishing line before the fresh beginning.  Platitudes aside, here we are in Lent which is a time of waiting, praying, fasting, showing mercy, and almsgiving.  How amazing that a day devoted to Jesus' earthly father, Joseph, and a day devoted to the announcement Mary had conceived fall during this time of heightened introspection...the other day, when I realized the Feast Day of St. Joseph was near, it reminded me of the novena I prayed that had ended on March 19, 2013.  I had prayed the novena for my future spouse.  You guys...14 short months later I was engaged to marry Adam in a church called, St. Joseph the Worker.  ;)  I said it before and I'll say it again...what a Godicidence!

The Sunday before that feast day was St. Patrick's Day 2013!  I had spent the last couple days in York, PA so I could attend the St. Patrick's Day Parade and collect data for my pilot study of my dissertation.  I was inching closer to my dreams of obtaining my PhD and left Ashley's house that morning excited about the data I had collected.  I headed toward Emmitsburg, MD where my parents met me for mass at the shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton followed by a tour!  Here is a posting I had written about that trip.  If you pay particular attention to the pictures from the shrine and toward the bottom of the post, you'll see some pictures of Mom, Dad, and me from the church and some inspirational art.  When scrolling back through old blog posts to try to track down this photo, I gasped as I realized I had written 17 posts in March....03/17...!

This picture wound up being the "cover photo" I had used when I created or updated my Catholic Match profile that Adam wound up seeing seven months later in October 2013!  The above photo was taken two days shy of when my novena I had been praying would end on the Feast Day of St. Joseph during which I prayed for my future husband (Adam).

I also wrote this a week later.  You guys!  This was written almost one year to the day six years ago!!  At the time I was in the midst of dissertating living in my brother's house in North Carolina dreaming of a family of my own.  As I read over the excitement I had felt at this time in the spring six  years ago, I recognize I have been feeling this way lately now over the last several days.  My family and I made a big decision a little over a week ago and I have a hunch that is why I'm feeling simultaneous peace and expectation much like I felt at this time in 2013.  It may also be due to realizing that this life we're living here abroad is going to come to a close in a couple short months.  Ever since we returned from Rome/Assisi a few weeks ago, it feels the semester has been flying by at a rapid rate!

So, in my effort to slow down time and to capture every moment of living here, much like when I realized that I had less time in NC than when I first started my PhD journey down south, here is something I've been meaning to write for a while!  Just before Valentine's Day, I was invited to speak on a panel for Women's Ministry here called:  Dating to Marriage Night.

I was excited to attend this talk to hear from the other three wives on the panel and to also hear some of the questions the college students might have for us.

Wow, were the stories amazing!  This is exactly the type of event I would have loved as a college student and that I enjoyed attending as a young adult at Theology on Tap and other Young Adult Events.  In fact, I have written about being inspired by some of these types of events here on this blog over the years, particularly those led by my dear friend, Lisa.

While the other women shared stories of how they met their spouses, discerned if they were headed for marriage, and proposal stories, I took a different approach.  I told the room filled to the brim with eager to learn everything college women that I was going to share advice I had heard when I was their age and along the way but that I was also going to share how I physically put the advice into practice and that I would tie in bits and pieces of Adam's and my story into it.  This is what led to the PIC ME acronym that I will share with you later, dear reader!