It’s that time again… time to start thinking about Lent! This is the third year we’re offering a Lent Challenge for Catholic Marriages. For every day of Lent, we have a challenge for you to complete together. Then refer to the Lent challenge guide for more thoughts about each challenge and ideas on how to complete it.
The challenges range from fun to spiritual. There are many ways to connect and pray together, and we wanted to include as many of them as possible. Hopefully this Lent challenge will help you figure out which devotions and small acts of love you want to continue once Lent is over. More importantly, it will help you connect with your spouse each day of Lent!
Also included is a blank calendar for February, March, and April that you can use to keep track of your Lent commitments and events, or you can fill in challenges of your own.
As we like to say with both our Lent and Advent challenges: don’t let these challenges stress you out. Yes, some of them may get you out of your comfort zone a little bit. But if you miss a day (or two…or three), just pick back up where you left off. The goal is to spend time together and pray together throughout the Lenten season. Click here or the button below to purchase.
Note: This is a digital download. A physical product will not be mailed to you. After checking out, you will receive an email with a link to download the PDF. Please do not share the file with anyone. If you’d like to print multiple copies, please email us for licensing options. Thank you!
Back in 2019, we started this Advent challenge for Catholic couples as a simple way to prepare for Christmas together with your spouse, while making your marriage a priority. So many have found it helpful, and we have even done a Lent challenge for 2 years now!
So here it is again: our 2022 Advent Challenge for Catholic Couples.
Our inspiration for this Advent challenge
Advent should be a calm and peaceful time, but often it’s the busiest time of the year! In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it’s very easy to get focused on shopping, parties, and everything else holiday-related.
But let’s not forget about our marriages.
Advent and marriage have a special link—both point us toward heaven.
Use this Advent season to draw closer to each other, to foster your relationship together, and to remind each other of the end goal—eternal life in heaven. And we’ve created something to help you do exactly that!
A calendar with a simple challenge each day
This challenge includes both a calendar with a simple challenge each day, as well as a guide that gives you some ideas on how to complete each challenge.
As an added bonus, we also include a blank calendar in case you want to make up your own challenges or switch some of the challenges around. Both calendars include feast days (because hey, Catholic marriage!). We really do hope and pray this will enrich your marriage and Advent season together! That being said…
Do not let these challenges stress you out. Skip a day, if necessary, or switch the challenges around to better suit your schedule. These challenges are to make sure you’re spending time together and praying together. Peace is the goal….not stress. Okay? Okay.
The Advent challenge and guide is available in our shop! Add it to your cart by clicking the button below (or click here if it’s not showing up)…
Note: This is a digital download. A physical product will not be mailed to you. After checking out, you will receive an email with a link to download the PDF. Please do not share the file with anyone. If you’d like to print multiple copies to share as gifts, please purchase multiple copies, or contact us for group licenses. Thank you!
A few years ago, we realized the importance of coming together on a weekly basis to prepare for the upcoming week, share concerns and struggles with each other, and to affirm each other. It’s very easy to let the busyness of life carry us away without taking a few minutes each week to slow down and go over important things together…so we wanted to create a simple and tangible way for married couples to connect every single week.
That’s where this marriage journal comes in! It’s a downloadable PDF that you can print, complete with 52 weekly pages, in addition to several extra pages.
For each weekly page, you’ll simply write down the following:
what you’re thankful for
prayer intentions for that week
3 things you need to accomplish together (i.e. projects around the house, appointments to schedule, etc.)
how you will make your marriage a priority (i.e. plan a date, schedule in some time together at home, etc.)
a short note of encouragement to each other
That’s it — 5 simple ways to get on the same page for the upcoming week while connecting with each other. Also included is a different Scripture verse (or verses) each week to read together and memorize if you’d like. We chose to get our journal printed as a spiral bound book (in color, but black and white is much cheaper), but you can also just print the pages you want to use, and then hole punch to put in a binder.
There are also a few “extra” pages, like a quarterly check-in page every 3 months, so you can evaluate how things are going. Other extras include:
an anniversary page
a date night bucket list
pages to write the Scripture of the week
extra pages to write notes to each other
a yearly review page
You can start using the journal at any time because we leave the date blank. So if you skip a week, you can still continue using the journal…and you can print it out again every single year! We created this to be simple and helpful, so we encourage you to use it in whichever way works best for you.
Having a weekly marriage meeting was such a game changer for us several years ago when we had 3 young boys. Eventually we just included the meeting points into our conversation throughout the week. But since our life was thrown into chaos this fall between Hurricane Ida and having a baby, we decided to bring back our weekly marriage meeting. We’ve updated our journal and hope it serves as a valuable tool for couples needing a little help getting on the same page each week. Click here or the button below to purchase this 68-page downloadable PDF. (If you purchased the old version already, please email or message us and we’d be happy to send you a link to download the new version for free!)
When I found out about Caitrin’s blog, I knew she would be the perfect guest blogger for us! It’s so important that we get to know married saints as inspiration for our own marriage. I love how Caitrin gives us some great examples of holy couples and concrete ways we can strive toward sainthood as husband and wife.
I’ve always been interested in the lives of the saints. Reading biographies of amazing holy people like St. Padre Pio, Pope St. John Paul II, and St. Augustine has been very inspiring to my faith. I love knowing I have friends in heaven, and that I can reach out to these saints to pray for me in specific situations that they can relate to personally.
But when I got married five years ago, I realized that none of my go-to saints were married. Who could I look to for inspiration in my marriage? Who could I ask to pray for my husband and me, knowing that they had experienced the joys and trials of married life themselves? I felt called to meet some married saints, so I began researching and reading.
I read about married saints from biblical times, like Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah; from the early centuries of the Church, like St. Monica; from the Reformation Era, like St. Thomas More. I even found some holy people on the road to sainthood who lived very recently — even during my own lifetime — like the Servants of God Cyprien and Daphrose Rugamba, who were killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
My research eventually became the basis for a book I am hoping to publish one day, as well as my own blog on Catholic marriage. Though my new married saint friends lived all over the world and throughout history, I noticed some common elements in their lives. These common elements helped the saints shape and maintain holy marriages, and they can do the same for all of us today. So, let’s get to the list and learn from the saints
1. Learn — and live out — your marital vows
A marriage is a covenant with specific vows. These vows are like our job description as married people. And how can you do well at a job if you don’t know what you are expected to do? On our wedding day, we each vowed to love our spouse freely, fully, faithfully, and fruitfully. I call these the “Four F’s.” Furthermore, we vowed to love our spouse for better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part. Some of these vows are more widely understood than others; most of us know what it means to love faithfully, for example. However, we may need to look at a few of these vows more closely to better understand them.
Loving “freely” means that we are able to truly give ourselves to our spouses because we are not slaves to materialism or sin. Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin, parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, offer a wonderful example of living simply in order to free your heart from the bonds of materialism. They lived below their means and gave everything they could to the poor.
Sts. Louis and Zélie Martin
The vow of “fruitful” love encompasses much more than just welcoming children into your family. It can also mean offering the gifts (fruits) God has given you back to Him. Sts. Elizabeth and Zechariah exemplified this vow when they offered their long-awaited son, St. John the Baptist, to God to prepare Jesus’ way.
Finally, when we promised to love our spouse “until death do us part,” we may not have considered how the Christian perspective on death played into that vow. Because we see the Church as the body of Christ, unbroken by death, we are called to pray for our spouse’s salvation while we are both alive on earth, while he or she suffers in Purgatory if we outlive them, and from heaven if we precede them into eternal life.
St. Monica, mother of St. Augustine, certainly lived out this vow. She prayed for her husband and wayward son until they both converted, then died peacefully, requesting only that she be remembered in prayer and in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. For more clarification on our specific marital vows, check out my blog at www.holiermatrimony.com!
2. Practice self-denial and mortification
Every saint I’ve ever read about — married, single or religious — practiced unique forms of self-denial and mortification. St. Thomas More, advisor to the infamous King Henry VIII, secretly wore an itchy, uncomfortable hair shirt under his clothing for most of his adult life. Bl. Barbe Acarie, mother of six and foundress of the Carmelite Order in France, often ate only one meal a day.
These mortifications made them better spouses and better followers of Christ. By saying “no” to themselves in small things, they knew that they were training themselves to say “yes” to their spouses and to God in bigger things, like Thomas More’s eventual martyrdom or the political exile of Barbe Acarie’s husband.
As Catholic Christians, we believe that our suffering is valuable and meritorious when we unite it with Christ’s suffering on the cross. Small, voluntary mortifications as well as deep, involuntary pain will all be redeemed when we lay it at Jesus’ feet.
3. Serve the “least of these” together
When Jesus called us to serve the “least of these,” He certainly meant to include the poor, but this title can refer to many other categories of people, too. The “least of these” might be the sick, the elderly, or the spiritually thirsty. Your helpless newborn baby or your ailing mother-in-law might be the “least of these” God is calling you and your spouse to serve right now. Serving together with your spouse is a beautiful way to bond, creating a family mission you can rally behind.
The Servants of God Cyprien and Daphrose Rugamba felt called to serve the material needs of the street children in Kigali, Rwanda, by starting a shelter. Meanwhile, they also ministered to the spiritual needs of their local community by founding a new chapter of the Emmanuel Community there, meeting with small groups to pray and discuss their faith.
Servants of God Cyprien and Daphrose Rugamba, photo by Karel Dekempe, license
Blessed Karl I and his wife the Servant of God Zita were the last emperor and empress of Austria-Hungary. Despite their noble status, they always looked for ways to serve the “least of these” in their empire, for example by ordering that the royal carriages be used to bring coal to those suffering in the cold instead of transporting nobles such as themselves.
These holy husbands and wives bonded through their acts of service, and they helped one another to be more like Christ in the process.
4. Pray with your spouse (and with your kids)
If marriage is your vocation, you are called to walk your path to holiness and heaven hand in hand with your spouse. This means that the two of you are encouraged to take up and live out spiritual practices like prayer together.
Blesseds Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi were a couple from Italy that chose life for their daughter when they were pressured to abort for medical reasons, and who helped protect wanted people from the Nazis during World War II. The Quattrocchis focused on developing spiritual habits for their whole family to enjoy, such as praying the Rosary together after dinner each evening.
Blesseds Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi
St. Thėrèse’s parents, the Martins, inspired devotion to the Blessed Virgin in their daughters by encouraging the girls to adorn a statue of Mary with flowers during the month of May. Which spiritual practices could you do together as a family? The possibilities are endless!
5. Live a sacramental life
Beyond praying together and for one another, as Catholic married people we must commit to frequent reception of the Sacraments so that God’s grace can flow in our marriages and in our lives. We believe that the Sacraments both symbolize and convey grace, which is the power of God working in us. Each Sacrament conveys specific graces. Our Baptisms marked us as God’s children; Confirmation offered us the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. The graces conveyed in the Sacrament of Matrimony help us to live out our marital vows, giving us patience, charity and mercy for our spouse.
Sadly, we don’t always take advantage of those graces. Then they are wasted, like the valuable talent (treasure) the servant buried in the field in Matthew 25:18. Other times, we let sin build up in our lives and get in the way of sacramental grace, like the moon eclipsing the light of the sun. This is where the Sacrament of Confession comes in. We can always come clean and start over anew!
Ask God in prayer to help you avail yourself of the marital graces, and seek out the Eucharist and Confession as means to keep those graces flowing freely in your life. Marriage is hard — too hard, in fact, for us to do well by our own strength. But, armed with sacramental grace, we can approach the challenges of married life with God’s own amazing power!
All the married saints I have met have patterns of sacramentality. Most participated in the Sacrifice of the Mass many days a week, or even twice a day. Bl. Emperor Karl I even made sure to attend Mass on the battlefields where he commanded troops in World War II, and St. Thomas More rose as early as 4 a.m. so that he could have time for prayer and Mass before his long work day began. The saints also tended to go to Confession monthly or more often, though I know they had less to confess than I do!
These married saints also frequently reflected on the vows of their marital covenant. Daphrose Rugamba pushed through years of rejection from her angry, atheistic, and philandering husband, pleading with God to refresh her with the marital graces she would need to live out her vocation better than she did the day before. We can (and should) all do the same!
These are just five of the many beautiful ways my role-models in marriage worked to strengthen and sanctify their marital covenants. I encourage you to meet some married saint friends, too!
And, when in doubt, look to the Holy Family. Sts. Mary and Joseph are the ideal married couple, the couple to whom God entrusted His only Son. They offer a wonderful example for us all to follow, showing us how best to live out all our marital vows, how to suffer for Christ, how to serve, and how to pray. Ask for their intercession often as you prepare for, receive and fortify yourself with the sacramental graces that will aid you on your own path to holier matrimony!
Caitrin is a busy Coast Guard wife, mama of three under four, Catholic blogger and aspiring author. She is originally from Virginia, currently living in Florida, and preparing for a military move to North Carolina in a few months. She enjoys writing, playing the piano, long walks on the beach, and going out for tacos and margaritas with good friends! Check out her blog at Holier Matrimony.
Holy Week is the last week of Lent and the perfect time to fully prepare ourselves for the gift of Easter Sunday. It is very easy to give up on whatever sacrifices we might have already been slacking on, but we like to see Holy Week as a time to really dig in. Do more than you were already doing! And we like to do it together to hold each other accountable.
Some friends of ours have been doing this for years! They spend the entire week in candlelight in anticipation of the Easter Vigil when the Paschal candle is the only light in the church. Read this post for their experience.
2. Limit screens.
Although we haven’t done a full Holy Week of Darkness, we do limit screens in a big way. We don’t watch much TV, if any. We try not to get on our phones as much. We do our best to unplug so we can embrace the silence and listen to what God is telling us.
3. Go to Confession.
Frequent reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation has been a game changer for our marriage. It’s especially important to go to confession during Lent, to better prepare yourself for celebrating the Paschal Mystery. So if you haven’t gone already (or even if you have), make it a priority during Holy Week. (Check with your church/priest as soon as possible because hours may be limited later in the week.)
4. Fast most of the week.
Our pastor challenged us to do this last year, and it was honestly the best Holy Week ever. We fasted on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday (he told us to skip Holy Thursday). Fasting really does draw you closer to Jesus. If you can’t fast from food (i.e. due to pregnancy), fast from something else.
The Easter Triduum is the most sacred three days of the year. Take advantage of the beautiful liturgies on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday (why yes, we’ve even taken our kids to the Easter Vigil and they were surprisingly well behaved for the extra long Mass). You will appreciate even more the gift Jesus gave us through the ultimate sacrifice on the cross.
6. Wash each other’s feet on Holy Thursday.
On the day that Jesus washed the feet of His apostles, take some time to wash each other’s feet. It was one of Jesus’ last acts on Earth to remind us that we are to love and sacrifice for each other. It can also be an intimate moment between husband and wife. (See John 13:1-20 for Jesus’ words about the washing of feet.)
7. Keep the day very solemn on Good Friday.
Unfortunately, Good Friday has become a very popular day to have crawfish boils (at least down here in Louisiana) and to celebrate. Go against the tide! Don’t do anything extravagant on this day. Keep screens off, fast, and remember that this is the day Jesus suffered and died on the cross to save us from our sins. If doing a Holy Week of Darkness is a little intimidating, start with just Good Friday. Leave the lights off all day and use candles when necessary.
8. Pray the Stations of the Cross.
The Stations of the Cross is a popular devotion during Lent (but can and should totally be done outside of Lent too!). Attend the Way of the Cross at your church if it’s available, or make your own stations in your backyard or living room. Maybe even find an outdoor Stations of the Cross to walk through together.
Whatever you do during Holy Week, remember to draw close to Jesus together. Be thankful for all of the gifts God has given you, and when Easter comes, rejoice!
For a couple years now, we’ve shared our Advent Challenge for Married Couples. We’ve gotten such great feedback on it that we decided to do one for Lent this year!
Every day of Lent, we have a challenge for you to complete together. You can choose to just use the calendar, which goes from February to April. You can also use the blank calendar and fill in challenges of your own! Both have feast days listed. Then refer to the Lent marriage guide for more thoughts about each challenge and ideas on how to complete it.
Just like with the Advent challenge, we want to emphasize that stress is not the goal of this Lent challenge. Skip a day if necessary, or switch the challenges around to better suit your schedule. These challenges are to make sure you’re spending time together and praying together as we prepare for the Resurrection. It’s a great time to strive for holiness together as husband and wife.
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Every year, we like to propose a challenge for your marriage during Lent: pick one thing to do together throughout Lent. It’s easy to go overboard and pick several things to do, but just pick one or two!
We’ve really come to see the power of doing one small thing together and how that can lead us to holiness. While giving up sweets or alcohol or something like that isn’t a bad thing, just make sure you’re picking something that will have a positive impact on your marriage and spiritual life together.
And remember, it’s not supposed to be easy! When you’re deciding on what to do, it’s also good to remember the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. So while we’re encouraging you to pick only one thing to do together, you should still focus on all three pillars throughout Lent.
Ready for some ideas for what you can do during Lent with your spouse? In no particular order, here we go!
Pray together everyday, if you’re not already doing so. [It might be good to also read Praying For (and With) Your Spouse by the Popcaks.]
Read Scripture daily. Maybe a Psalm a day or a chapter from one of the Gospels.
Do the enrichment program Beloved: Mystery & Meaning of Marriage. If your church parish has a subscription to Formed.org, you could do Beloved for free! There are 6 sessions, so you can do one each week in Lent.
Sign up for the Pray More Retreat. It’s a self-paced online retreat with talks, videos, and study guides. The topics look so good and would be great conversation starters!
Wake up earlier to connect and pray together.
Go on a marriage retreat.
Take Natural Family Planning classes, if you haven’t done so yet (or have been putting it off!).
Don’t watch TV. But be sure to replace that TV time with something better!
Pray a daily Rosary.
Go to daily Mass during the week (in addition to meeting your Sunday obligation).
Donate extra money to your church or favorite charity.
Commit to not spending any money (other than necessities and usual bills) during Lent. Have a “no spend Lent”, if you will.
Pray a Divine Mercy chaplet every day.
Invite someone over for dinner each week. Maybe it’s time to work on hospitality!
Pick a day each week to do hardcore fasting, like what’s done on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Fasting together makes for some good accountability.
Go to bed earlier. Make sure to pray together first!
Commit to not having your phones by you when you’re spending time together at home. Enjoy each other’s company!
Pick a person or family each week to bless in some way. Bring them a meal, offer to babysit, whatever you think might help them. (And don’t expect anything in return!)
Pray an hour from the Liturgy of the Hours each day. This can be done with an app like iBreviary or Laudate, but I’m a big fan of the one-volume Christian Prayer. (And if you want to learn more about the Liturgy of the Hours, I recommend reading The Everyday Catholic’s Guide to the Liturgy of the Hours by Daria Sockey.)
Make a weekly visit to an Adoration chapel.
Learn a new devotion together, like the Seven Sorrows Rosary or the St. Michael chaplet.
Listen to a talk about Catholicism or marriage and family life each week. Catholic Productions has a great selection, and there are several awesome talks in their marriage and family life category. (Both CDs and MP3s are available.)
Do the Stations of the Cross together each Friday.
Do the enrichment program United in Love-United in Christ. We did this one year with a large group of couples at our church, and it was great! You could do it with a small group in your own home as well, meeting once a week for 6 weeks.
As soon as I heard Meggie’s discernment story, I knew I had to share it with all of you, and thankfully she agreed!Discerning another baby—or any other major decision, for that matter—will look differently for each couple. But one thing is the same: it takes prayer, communication, and a whole lot of trust in God’s will and plan for your marriage and family. Meggie’s story shows that discernment doesn’t always end up the way we expect, but proof that God always knows best. -Jen
Discernment is a difficult topic to cover; each person’s journey is so different and so personal. Growing your family (or choosing to not grow your family) is entirely between your husband, you, and God, yet so many people come out of the woodwork when your journey doesn’t line up with what they perceive from the outside.
I’m going to be completely upfront about this: I do not feel qualified to write about discernment. It is something I constantly wrestle with, but maybe hearing about it from more women in the trenches is what the NFP community needs. I struggle. I struggle with selfishness, and I struggle with fear. I do not particularly like being pregnant.
Our plans from the beginning
When my husband and I first got married, we had agreed we would wait two years before trying to conceive. Our time spent dating and engaged was almost entirely long distance due to our different timelines with school and work. Our reasoning was that we needed time to adjust and settle into our married life, which included my transition from college to the workforce, a new city (for me), and honestly, just being in the same room together for more than a few hours.
I don’t love the phrase “we make plans, and God laughs.” I like to think God sighs a little at our pigheadedness and slowly pokes and prods us until we’re heading in the right direction. This is what happened…
Discerning pregnancy together
After a few months of marriage, I started to feel a longing for a child. I slowly began to examine our reasons for avoiding, and I no longer felt they held up anymore. I was doing well at work and could get to most places I needed without a GPS (which was a huge success, as I am very directionally challenged). Geoff and I had transitioned very naturally and joyfully into married life.
So one evening, I gathered my courage and broached the subject with him. I was longing for a child and was not at peace with trying to avoid any longer, but would of course respect his feelings as well. Geoff was hesitant as this was much sooner than we had agreed upon, but he encouraged me to continue to pray about it and promised we could continue to discuss. I would go to Mass on my lunch hour to pray for clarity, and to pray that Geoff would be open to the idea of switching to TTC (trying to conceive). I felt that the longing God put on my heart was truly of God, and from God.
The next stage was terribly painful. I watched as three weeks in a row, three women in our couples’ group announced that they were pregnant. Geoff walked into our bedroom after one of those evenings to find me crying. We discussed further and ultimately agreed that it was time to try.
We got pregnant immediately…and immediately miscarried. I was distraught, but several months later finally got another positive test. I was overjoyed but struggled intensely with anxiety, as we had lost our first. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, but everything went smoothly. In November of 2017, we welcomed our son, Becket.
His first few months were a challenge. Becket was colicky and screamed nearly non-stop for five months. He slept only three hours at a time, and our sleep training attempts repeatedly failed to stick. On top of this, he became a very proficient climber early on and learned to walk the same week he had surgery at 11 months old. That first year was a blur, and the times for marital intimacy were few and far between as we navigated the postpartum period. At 16 months, Becket finally slept through the night, and slowly our lives regained some normalcy.
Discernment is a process
I have struggled with scrupulosity all my life, and at 18 months again felt that maybe our reasons for avoiding were not as strong as they once were. Surely we weren’t being good Catholics if we continued to avoid without a life-threatening reason? Sure, my anxiety was bad, but my head was at least above the water now. Geoff reminded me that God calls us to be responsible parents, and that I was in no state to have more children yet. God does not call us to drown ourselves, but to wait with patience for his love and his peace.
My anxiety continued to worsen around Becket’s second birthday, and Geoff and I finally decided it was time for me to seek help. That worked for some time, and in February of 2020, I mentioned to Geoff the guilt I felt for continuing to avoid. He again reminded me that just as we can’t make the decision to avoid out of fear, we can’t make the decision to conceive out of fear either. That decision must come from a place of peace.
Sure enough, COVID hit the US, and during the first lockdown, Geoff looked at me across the table and said, “Aren’t you glad you aren’t pregnant right now?” The anxiety of being pregnant with so many unknowns in the early days of the pandemic would have probably sent me over the edge mentally.
With COVID, my anxiety crept right back up and reached such a fever pitch that I ultimately ended up in the emergency room with a sudden and severe pain at the base of my skull following weeks of daily tension headaches. My head was fine, but the doctor had noticed a nodule on my thyroid. I was assured it was no big deal. Many people have them, and 98% of the time they’re benign. In fact, the doctor nearly forgot to tell us about it!
I did some minor research when we got home, but was not particularly alarmed. I was more concerned about finding a solution to the crippling anxiety, so I promptly scheduled an appointment with my primary care physician. He put me on anxiety medication after years of me trying to avoid it, and he also ordered an ultrasound of my thyroid, which wouldn’t happen for some time.
Leaving survival mode behind
The medication was a complete life-saver. Not only was my head above the water, but I was able to swim. I left survivor-mode behind me and felt myself becoming a better wife and mother almost overnight. I felt that I really wouldn’t mind starting to think about having another child again. So I began diving deeper into discernment. My prayer went from, “Please don’t ask me to get pregnant again, because I just can’t do it!” to “If it is your will, God, please place that desire for a child in both of our hearts, and let us be at peace.”
It was an incredibly freeing thing to put that in God’s hands—to ask Him to prepare my heart for another child if that was what He wanted of me. I was confident that He would do so, that I would soon feel that peace as confirmation that it was time for us to try to conceive again. I finally felt ready to put that decision in God’s hands.
Unexpected peace
The peace did come…but in an unexpected form. I suddenly found myself very at peace with avoiding a pregnancy, which was perplexing—it was the exact opposite of what I assumed would be our next step. So, we continued to avoid a pregnancy.
I had my thyroid ultrasound, and the technician was cheerful and friendly. I expected to wait for two weeks but received my results the next business day. The report recommended a biopsy, accompanied by very technical terms describing the nodule. I took to Google to learn about the classification method of thyroid nodules, and my stomach dropped. There was an 80% chance or greater that it was cancer. Two days later, I was biopsied, and a week after that, had all suspicions confirmed: papillary carcinoma with the BRAF v600e mutation (AKA cancer).
The importance of NFP during treatment
Ten days after my diagnosis, I had a total thyroidectomy. Our need to avoid a pregnancy became extremely serious, as I faced the possibility of radioactive iodine treatment. If I didn’t need the additional treatment, we would only need to avoid for a few months until my medication was properly adjusted. If I did need it, we faced a year of very strict TTA (trying to avoid) for the safety of the baby.
The surgery was a success, but my doctor ultimately decided I needed further treatment to kill any remaining thyroid cells, so I began preparing for something called radioactive iodine (RAI). As thyroid cells are essentially the only cells in your body that absorb iodine, by ingesting a radioactive iodine pill, any remaining thyroid cells absorb the radioactivity and are slowly destroyed. It is a very targeted therapy, and requires going on a low-iodine diet to starve your body of iodine so it absorbs better. It also requires total isolation for anywhere from three days to three weeks.
Knowing the seriousness of this treatment, I contacted a new NFP instructor to help guide us through the coming year of avoiding, who has helped me several times already as we navigate progesterone tests for confirming ovulation.
The gift of NFP and its fruits
I am now on the other side of my treatment, and recently received the news that there is no evidence of spread. There is always a chance of recurrence, but for now, we are doing well and looking forward to the future that will hopefully include more children somewhere along the way!
Discernment is a difficult topic. It involves taking a deep look at ourselves, our intentions, and our motivations, which can sometimes be painful. I am deeply grateful for the gift of NFP and the way it has helped me to learn to trust better and slowly taught me to pray: not my will, but Thine.
Meggie is a born-and-bred Midwesterner living in the deep south with her husband, Geoff, and their busy 3-year-old, Becket. She works part-time in residential architecture, and full time in domestic engineering. When not chasing her son or sketching floor plans, she can be found reading a good book and drinking a Moscow mule.
Advent should be a calm and peaceful time, but often it’s the busiest time of the year! In the weeks leading up to Christmas, it’s very easy to get focused on shopping, parties, and everything else holiday-related.
But let’s not forget about our marriages.
Advent and marriage have a special link—both point us toward heaven.
Use this Advent season to draw closer to each other, to foster your relationship together, and to remind each other of the end goal—eternal life in heaven. And we’ve created something to help you do exactly that!
Enter: the 2020 Advent Challenge for Catholic Marriages. It comes with both a calendar and a guide!
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You can choose to just use the calendar, which contains a challenge each day to complete together. Or you can also use the blank calendar and fill in challenges of your own! Both have feast days listed. Then refer to the Advent marriage guide for more thoughts about each challenge.
Do not let these challenges stress you out. Skip a day, if necessary, or switch the challenges around to better suit your schedule. These challenges are to make sure you’re spending time together and praying together. Peace is the goal….not stress.
The Advent challenge and guide is available in our shop! Add it to your cart by clicking the button below…
$3.99
We pray this will enrich your marriage and Advent season together!
Back in March, when the world shut down due to the pandemic, we realized that going on a date night out would not be possible. So we did date nights at home for a couple weeks, which is the next best thing.
But at some point in April, we realized we had stopped doing our dates at home…and the end of the pandemic was nowhere in sight. We knew we needed to make date nights at home a priority, so Logan thought of a way to make them extra special—pick a theme for each home date!
We asked people on Instagram for theme ideas, and then put all of those ideas in a basket. We randomly picked one and planned our date all around that theme. What we wore, what we ate, and what we did was all about that particular theme.
Our first themed date
That first theme we picked was “royal ball,” so we dressed up like we were going to a ball. We made fancy drinks and appetizers. We danced in our living room. And because we just really love movies, we watched a movie relating to the theme too.
It was so much fun that we decided to do it every week while the pandemic kept us home, and we did! We’ve always enjoyed making a night at home special, but creating a themed date just brought it to a whole new level for us. It was fun to plan the date during the previous 24 hours or so, as we brainstormed ideas and worked together to make the night special.
Sometimes we went all out, and sometimes we kept it simple. It all depended on what we were up for and what we needed on any given night.
Have your own date nights at home!
Since the pandemic doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and date nights at home come in handy during other periods of life (sickness, new baby, etc.), we decided to help you do the same. Enter: our Date Night In printable, a 20-page PDF with tips and ideas to help you make date nights happen at home.
We include 40 theme ideas on cards that you can cut out to put in a basket, as well as blank cards to think of your own theme ideas. (You can actually get this part for free here.)
In addition, we also include:
Tips for a fun date night in—how to have fun on any budget
How to plan your themed date if you have no idea where to start
Answers to the #1 question we get: “What do you do with your kids?”—with several options for you to consider
Pictures and ideas from our previous dates
Ideas for other themes we haven’t done yet
Templates to help plan your date and to remember what you did
Even though we started themed dates to make things a little more exciting (because let’s be real, 2020 has been hard!), we also still have simple dates too. Just last week, all we did for our date night at home was watch one of our favorite movies and make a special drink. That’s it! No theme. The point is to make time together at home a priority, whether it’s a themed date or not. Our Date Night In printable will help you do exactly that.
Note: This is a digital download. A physical product will not be mailed to you. After checking out, you will receive an email with a link to download the PDF. Please do not share the file with anyone. If you’d like to print multiple copies to share as gifts, please purchase multiple copies. Thank you!
Surprised By Marriage 