A note before we begin: This isn’t the Holy Week post I had promised to share. That one is coming — and it’s a beautiful story worth its own space. But this week my journey looked like chicken nuggets and a red light and a little boy with a blanket. And I’ve come to believe that this is part of the conversion story too — maybe the most honest part. The unglamorous Tuesday version. So here it is.

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My boys needed dinner this week and I pulled the chicken nuggets out of the freezer. Again.

I didn’t take them on a walk. I sent them to the backyard instead. I sat in a chair and stared at my phone — checking the same email every thirty seconds, going down rabbit holes of what-ifs, refreshing the same feed waiting for news that wasn’t coming yet. Jamie dragged his blanket over, climbed into my lap, and curled up against me without saying a word.

I put the phone down.

For a minute, anyway.

We are in a season of waiting. I won’t get into the specifics — some just too unfinished to name out loud yet. But if you’ve ever had a season where several enormous things are suspended in the air at the same time and none of them have landed yet — you know the weight of it. It settles into your shoulders. It follows you into the car. It makes you snippy with your kids after school and distracted at dinner and checking your phone at the table and smiling at something funny they said a beat too late.

It was getting bad.

I caught myself talking to myself out loud at a red light this week. Just really going for it. Processing out loud every worry I’d already processed a hundred times that day. I glanced at the cars around me — and with an eye roll and a quick laugh realized this was getting ridiculous. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. Not from a red light on a Tuesday afternoon.

I sank back into my seat. And with whatever was left of me — I called out to God.

I glanced at the rosary my husband had hung on my dashboard. That was new — and in that moment I was so grateful he had put it there. I held the little crucifix in my hands and whispered in my head:

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

God, I’m so tired.

Help me here.

Holy Spirit — help me and Erjon. We are just so busy feeling the stress that we are overwhelmed by it. Help me. Help Erjon. Help us. To be wise in this moment. To rest in Your promises. To move back into the day’s moments with our boys. And whatever comes — comes. And You are with us.

Help my thoughts. Help me to remember.

Philippians 4 came up at Bible study that same day — and it just kept ringing in my ears all the way home.

Whatever is true. Whatever is noble. Whatever is right. Whatever is pure. Whatever is lovely. Whatever is admirable — think on these things. Practice these things. And the God of peace will be with you.

Not the what-ifs. Not the worst case. Not the timeline that isn’t moving fast enough.

These things.

Writing this post is me admitting something. I am the queen of the rabbit hole search, the go-it-alone attitude, the show-up-only-when-everything-is-fine approach to life. I wait until the road ahead is clear before I let anyone in — including God. Well. I have been waiting too long, and I have used up every last bit of my own energy doing it, and I simply cannot keep it up any longer.

Forgetting that He has all of these wonderful promises for His children — that the weary will find rest, that those who are poor in spirit are somehow the closest to the kingdom, that the ones who mourn will be comforted. That if we stop swimming in circles long enough to look up — the blessings are already there. That the blessings will be enough. That He will be enough. And that will get me and my family through to the next day, and the next. Whatever decisions come from all of this waiting — God will be with us through the struggles, through the uncertainty, through every single moment of the not-yet-knowing.

I wrote something recently to a tired mama in a Catholic moms group about laying on a blanket in the backyard with my firstborn years ago — bitter and lonely and exhausted, four weeks until I had to return to work. And then for one brief moment I looked at that tiny face and realized my own worried thoughts were stealing something beautiful right out from under me. I still had plenty to complain about later. But I never forgot that afternoon on the blanket with my beautiful boy.

I needed to read my own words back to myself this week.

My family has a plan. We have prayed over it, worked toward it, and released it as best we can. And now we wait. The art of waiting — real waiting, not just anxious suspended animation — is one I am still learning. I have done everything I can do. And now the next move isn’t mine.

I don’t want to be a deflated balloon curled up in a corner. What I want — what my boys need from me — is to stay open. Stay present. Stay ready for whatever comes next.

Because whatever comes next — we will be okay.

The full story of our family’s journey into the Church — including Holy Week and everything that came before it — is here on the blog whenever you’re ready for it. But today I needed to write about something else. I pray it finds you right where you are. 🤍

— Sharon