Help us to seek the help we need
We, too, carry that courage in our DNA
Welcome to the Mothering Spirit newsletter! Each Saturday morning, you’ll receive a round-up of the week’s posts—perfect for your weekend reading.
This week on Mothering Spirit
Leticia Ochoa Adams shares her complicated relationship with her mother through trauma, grief, and healing: “All of this has given me a new look at myself and the women who made me. It has shown me what courage is and how I carry that same courage in my DNA.”
This week’s Advent Prayer for Overwhelmed Parents prays for our struggles with mental health: “Grow Your joy within us… the deep, abiding joy that comes from Your love and protection, that will carry us through harder months and darker seasons.”
On Friday we shared 3 more ways to celebrate Advent as a parent: simple, free practices for your prayer this month.
Advent Extras
Share this prayer (on Instagram or Facebook) with anyone you know who struggles with seasonal depression.
Want a One-Minute Retreat? Here’s a chance to pray for joy, even in hard times.
From our sponsors
This week's sponsor is Brazos Press, publisher of Abuelita Faith by Kat Armas. In Abuelita Faith, Kat Armas, a Cuban American writer, combines personal storytelling with biblical reflection to tell the story of unnamed and overlooked theologians—mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and daughters—whose survival, resistance, and persistence teach us the true power of faith and love. Also available in Spanish!
Readers respond
This week we asked readers: What does courage mean to you as a mother?
Want to share your story in a future Mothering Spirit newsletter? Reply with your response for possible inclusion in a future newsletter (400 words max).
A final word for reflection
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn—
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
The Risk of Birth, An Advent Poem—Madeleine L’Engle (1973)