"God," I pray again, "Are you here?"

This is exactly what we wanted, even when it’s messy

Aug 05, 2023

Welcome back! We’ve missed you during our summer sabbatical, and we can’t wait to begin our second year of Mothering Spirit with you.

An update on where we’ve been

Thanks for sticking with us through a tough summer.

After my diagnosis with breast cancer in April, we tried to keep our regular publishing schedule, but it proved too difficult between all my appointments and procedures. From the beginning of Mothering Spirit, we had planned to take July as a sabbatical each year. Rest is a sacred rhythm, central to our faith and too-often-overlooked in our society, so we wanted to honor space for Sabbath in our work. But as luck—or life—would have it, we needed more rest than we expected this summer.

Now we’re relaunching for year two (!) of our weekly essays, prayers, and resources to help you pray through parenting. We already have a full fall of beautiful work from our writers to share with you, starting this Monday. Our plan is to continue our original rhythm—essay on Monday, prayer on Wednesday, resource on Friday—but we’ve got a few new additions up our sleeve that I can’t wait to show you soon.

One invitation that we’re opening up this month is paid subscriptions on Substack. We know this has become a flourishing community for writers and artists, and we hope to connect you to more of the goodness to be found here! Our plan is to keep this weekly round-up free for everyone, since accessibility is at the core of our mission to support parents. But offering paid subscriptions also invites readers to consider supporting the time and energy it takes to produce this newsletter. To continue working toward our goal of paying our writers just wages, we rely on our readers and sponsors. Now you can partner with us through a paid subscription here (for as low as $8/month) that will go directly to our writers:

More importantly, we’ve already heard from many of you with ideas and topics you’d love to see in the coming year: the joys and challenges of raising teens and young adults, ideas for praying with children, navigating mental health conditions, resources for godparents and grandparents, and much more. Drop us a note and let us know what you’d add to the list!

Words worth savoring

Here are a few essays and prayers you might have missed on Mothering Spirit this summer:

Stephanie Duncan Smith tells a powerful story of losing a beloved backyard tree and finding resurrection in the aftermath:

“I believe in all things made new, that we are participants in this story that is ever-unfolding toward renewal. But spring—resurrection—does not come for us on cue even if the cherry blossoms and alleluias do. It does not come for us on demand or on our timeline. Sometimes it does not even come within our lifetime. For most of us, we live in the brutality of the meantime.

The meantime is a place where old trees and good dogs are put down, where women place yet another negative pregnancy test on the sink with the heavy heart of recent losses. It’s a place where parents have to face the first birthday, the first everything, after their nine-year-old didn’t come home from school, where we try yet another pain treatment after a string of tries that made no difference, where, on some surreal Saturday, we divide up the furniture with the one we thought would be our forever…

When my toddler daughter discovered the tree was gone, she cried. I cried with her, because two is so young for a heart to break. But I am teaching her—and teaching myself—that we can learn from the wisdom of the green kingdom: like the trees and their rings, we can keep time. Offer shelter where we can. Witness the world. And lament when we need to.”

Read the whole essay here: Lament for a Tree.

Erin Strybis weaves together snapshots of prayer as a mother through changing seasons of parenting:

“I stand in an open field, watching for signs of rain. An hour ago, I hollered to my family, ‘I’ll be back later!’ and strode toward the woods outside our neighborhood. I walked and walked until my legs ached and landed here—in the company of fading wildflowers…

Images clip through my mind’s eye. Another negative pregnancy test in the garbage. My son playing alone in our backyard. Another period come and gone. Why can’t I get pregnant again?

The calendar turning—my 35th birthday marching closer. When Jack asked, ‘Mom, can we get a baby?’ Another pregnancy announcement. Please help me.

A breeze rustles through my coat, and I blink my eyes open, watching it wave through straw-colored prairie grass. I splay out my legs, roll onto my back, and shift my gaze toward the hazy heavens.

God, I think, twitching at a hair that blows across my forehead, are you out there?”

Read the whole essay here: Keep Me Awake: Prayer As A Mother.

Prayers for you

Prepping kids big or small for school? Savoring the last weeks of summer? Or grieving for a season that was harder than you expected? We’ve got prayers for you.

Ashley Holston gives us wisdom with words from Scripture in The Days Ahead: A Reminder for the Changing of Seasons. Here’s a taste of her prayer:

I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.⁣⁣
So when I see a trial⁣⁣
an unexpected struggle⁣⁣
an unfamiliar season⁣⁣
a potentially hard thing⁣⁣
anything new⁣⁣
anything I’m not used to⁣⁣
headed my way⁣⁣
and uncomfortably close,⁣⁣
when I see it and become⁣⁣
tempted⁣⁣
to hoard manna⁣⁣
I remember:⁣⁣
The Bread of life has been broken for me.⁣⁣
His future grace feeds me⁣⁣
and I am ⁣⁣
Full,⁣⁣
Kept, ⁣⁣
Strengthened,⁣⁣
Sustained.⁣⁣..

Need a blessing for back-to-school? Grab this from our archives: A Prayer for A New School Year.

You are Alpha and Omega.
Bless the end of our summer and the beginning of our fall.
You are Abba Father and Rabbi Teacher.
Bless our homes and our schools, our families and our communities.
You are Wisdom of the Ages and Beauty Ever-New.
Bless our study of the past and our dreaming of the future.

Want a good read?

Several of our Mothering Spirit writers have books published this summer or on their way this fall!

Tasha Jun, whose offered this prayer for those who wrestle and wander, just published Tell Me the Dream Again: Reflections on Family, Ethnicity, and the Sacred Work of Belonging.

Amber Haines, author of this stunning essay on ferocious motherlove after a county fair shooting, co-authored a new book with her husband Seth Haines that you can pre-order now: The Deep Down Things: Practices for Growing Hope in Times of Despair.

Kayla Craig, who shared with us this blessing for new beginnings and prayer for single parenting, is about to release her second book full of prayers for parents: Every Season Sacred: Reflections, Prayers, and Invitations to Nourish Your Soul and Nurture Your Family throughout the Year.

And if you’d like a short spiritual read on parenting, check out The Extraordinary Ordinary Time—an e-book with essays, poems, and prayers from Laura Kelly Fanucci.

If you like what you read at Mothering Spirit, we’d love if you’d share this with a friend. Maybe someone who needs encouragement in her mothering journey—or a place to pray in the midst of her busy days. Thanks for supporting our writers by sharing their work, following us on Instagram or Facebook, or supporting us on Patreon.

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